1. Chapter 1 Diplomacy and Feedback

   1. Hacks 1–9

   2. Appraise an eBayer's Reputation

   3. Use Prefabricated Feedback

   4. Avoid Negative Feedback

   5. Receive Feedback Notifications

   6. Reply and Follow Up to Feedback

   7. Withhold Feedback

   8. Remove Unwanted Feedback

   9. Improve Your Trustworthiness Quickly

   10. What to Do When Your Email Doesn't Get Through

2. Chapter 2 Searching

   1. Hacks 10–24

   2. Focus Your Searches with eBay's Advanced Search Syntax

   3. Control Fuzzy Searches

   4. Jump In and Out of Categories While Searching

   5. Tweak Search URLs

   6. Find Similar Items

   7. Search for Selected Text

   8. Open Search Results in a New Window

   9. Decipher Title Acronyms

   10. Search by Seller

   11. Search Internationally

   12. Save Your Searches

   13. Create a Search Robot

   14. Find Items by Shadowing

   15. Keep Tabs on eBay with the eBay Toolbar

   16. Post a Want Ad

3. Chapter 3 Bidding

   1. Hacks 25–41

   2. Sniff Out Dishonest Sellers

   3. Snipe It Manually

   4. Snipe It Automatically

   5. Snipe It Conditionally

   6. Keep Track of Auctions Outside of eBay

   7. Take Advantage of Bid Increments

   8. Manipulate Buy It Now Auctions

   9. Retract Your Bid Without Retracting Your Bid

   10. Send Payment Quickly and Safely

   11. Pay PayPal's Seller Fees

   12. Use PayPal Without Depleting Your PayPal Balance

   13. Access eBay from a Cell Phone or PDA

   14. Smooth Out International Transactions

   15. Save Money on Shipping

   16. Estimate Transit Times

   17. Deal with Disappointment: Getting Refunds

   18. File a Dispute

4. Chapter 4 Selling

   1. Hacks 42–69

   2. What's It Worth?

   3. Create a Listing

   4. To Bundle or Not to Bundle

   5. Reserve Judgment

   6. The Strategy of Listing Upgrades

   7. Use Keywords Effectively

   8. Schedule Your Listing for Optimal Exposure

   9. Track Your Exposure

   10. Master Expectation Management

   11. Sell a Broken VCR on eBay

   12. Format the Description with HTML

   13. Prepare Your Listings with a Web Page Editor

   14. Clarify Your Payment and Shipping Terms

   15. Customize Auction Page Backgrounds

   16. Frame Your Listings

   17. Override eBay's Fonts and Styles

   18. Use Media in Your Listings

   19. Put a Shipping Cost Calculator in Your Listing

   20. Advertise Your Other Listings in Your Description

   21. Allow Visitors to Search Through Your Listings

   22. Put a Floating Contact Link in Your Listings

   23. Make Good Use of the About Me Page

   24. Customize the Checkout Process

   25. Make Changes to Running Auctions

   26. Let's Make a Deal

   27. Diplomacy 101: Answer Dumb Questions

   28. Keep Out Deadbeat Bidders

   29. Avoid Buyer Scams

5. Chapter 5 Working with Photos

   1. Hacks 70–82

   2. Keep Your Item from Looking Pathetic

   3. Master Close-up Photography

   4. Construct an Auction Photo Studio

   5. Get Photos into Your Computer

   6. Doctor Your Photos

   7. Protect Your Copyright

   8. Host Your Own Photos

   9. Make Clickable Thumbnails

   10. Customize Pop-up Image Windows

   11. Construct an Interactive Photo Album

   12. Show a 360-Degree View of Your Item

   13. Create a Photo Collage

   14. Create a Good Gallery Photo

6. Chapter 6 Completing Transactions

   1. Hacks 83–90

   2. Keep Track of Items You've Sold

   3. Send Payment Instructions

   4. Protect Yourself While Accepting Payments

   5. Personal and Business Checks

   6. Ship Cheaply Without Waiting in Line

   7. Sell and Ship Internationally

   8. Damage Control Before and After You Ship

   9. Deal with Stragglers, Deadbeats, and Returns

   10. Issue a Refund

7. Chapter 7 Running a Business on eBay

   1. Hacks 91–101

   2. Open an eBay Store

   3. Find a Market

   4. Streamline Listings with Turbo Lister

   5. Boost Sales with Rebates, Incentives, and Discounts

   6. Streamline Payment Instructions

   7. Use an Off-eBay Checkout System

   8. Obtain Sales Records

   9. Make Money by Linking to eBay

   10. Advertise Your eBay Listings

   11. Accept PayPal Payments from Your Own Site

   12. Process PayPal Payments Automatically

8. Chapter 8 The eBay API

   1. Hacks 102–125

   2. Climb Out of the Sandbox

   3. Authenticate Users

   4. Search eBay Listings

   5. Create a Split-Pane Search Tool

   6. Receive Search Results via RSS

   7. Create Custom-Formatted eBay Search Results with the REST API

   8. Search with PHP 5 and a Web Services Interface to the XML API

   9. Retrieve Details About a Listing

   10. Automatically Keep Track of Auctions You've Won

   11. Track Items in Your Watching List

   12. Automatically Keep Track of Items You've Sold

   13. Submit an Auction Listing

   14. List Your Entire Inventory on eBay

   15. Automate Auction Revisions

   16. Spellcheck All Your Listings

   17. Automatically Relist Unsuccessful Listings

   18. Send Automatic Emails to High Bidders

   19. Leave Feedback with the API

   20. Negative Feedback Bidder Alert

   21. Negative Feedback Notification

   22. Automatic Reciprocal Feedback

   23. Make a Feedback Search Tool

   24. Queue API Calls

   25. Cache Listing Data to Improve API Efficiency

1. Colophon

The tool on the cover of eBay Hacks, Second Edition is a corkscrew. The exact time origin of the corkscrew is not really known, but corkscrews descended from bulletscrews (also called gun worms)-a tool used for cleaning jammed bullets or unspent powder out of musket barrels, which shared a similar spiral tip. By the 17th century, the corkscrew was fairly common, as cork stoppers were now well-established throughout Europe, not only for wine, but for beer, medicine, and cosmetics.

Corkscrews come in a variety of styles, including direct-pull (the simplest), assisted-pull, single-lever, double- (or wing-) lever, and torsional. The corkscrew pictured on the cover is a concertina corkscrew, sometimes called a compound-lever corkscrew. Concertina corkscrews date back to the late 1800s, and many fine examples can be found on eBay.

Jamie Peppard was the production editor and copyeditor for eBay Hacks, Second Edition . Matt Hutchinson, Lydia Onofrei, Claire Cloutier, and Darren Kelly provided quality control. John Bickelhaupt wrote the index. Emma Colby designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is a photograph taken from the Stockbyte Work Tools CD. Karen Montgomery produced the cover layout with QuarkXPress 4.1 using Adobe's Helvetica Neue and ITC Garamond fonts.

David Futato designed the interior layout. This book was converted by Keith Fahlgren to FrameMaker 5.5.6 with a format conversion tool created by Erik Ray, Jason McIntosh, Neil Walls, and Mike Sierra that uses Perl and XML technologies. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Helvetica Neue Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read using Macromedia FreeHand MX and Adobe Photoshop CS. This colophon was written by David Futato.