Rating: 
Summary: Not if you're serious about starting a business...
Review: I ordered this book and 'Starting an eBay Business for Dummies' by Marsha Collier at the same time. I've already had some success with eBay auctions, and am seriously looking for some ideas to get an eBay business off the ground. While I found Marsha Collier's book to have a great deal of useful information, this book is more or less 550 pages of pretty useless information to someone already mildly savvy with the eBay process.If you are new or just beginning with eBay, you might find this book useful, if you want to sit down and read about eBay at length. But the best way a new person will learn about eBay is to get out on the site and play around. Once you have bid and/or sold, I think you'll find that this book doesn't have a lot to offer you. The only useful section of this book was the area that addressed buying/selling strategies. Not enough info for me to keep the book - it's currently on half.com... :)
Rating: 
Summary: Not So Smart
Review: I was quite disappointed in this book. I've been using eBay for a couple of years as a buyer, and hoped to start selling, and was looking for books to help me out with the finer points on details and procedures of selling on eBay. This is not the book for that. When tackling important topics, the author chooses to discuss just one way of handling an issue, and ignores the others. For example, instead of reviewing various ways of constructing a listing page, he chooses the simplest way, and only discusses 2 kinds of software, out of the many that are available. I would have preferred a comparison of what's out there. Also, in many places, the author goes into way too much detail about the most basic issues (such as how to choose a color for your listing page background), and then skimps in others which I believe are more important (he gives no real advice on how to figure out how to post a listing!). Also, he almost totally neglects to discuss selling or buying antiques & collectibles items, in favor of new items and electronics. This seems ridiculous to me, as most of the action on ebay is in the used sections. The reason he gives for this is that he's more intersted in new items & electronics; as a reader, I'm not interested in his personal interests, I want a fuller picture of the whole of eBay, and I would hope that he'd do more research. So, I'm sorry that I bought this book, it's pretty much useless to me. It may be informative to someone who's never seen eBay before in their life, but I'm sure that there are many more books that would be more worthwhile.
Rating:
Summary: Wishy-washy at best
Review: I was very disappointed in this book. I am trying to do serious research on how to set up a full-time eBay business, so I expected advice on the finer points of setting up, marketing and managing my auctions. The author is wishy-washy at best, and offers little advice beyond repeating things like "customer service is important," "respond to buyers promptly," etc.--over and over again. DUH.
For topics such as "when to list/close your auction," the book tells you to target your closings for when your audience will be watching. DUH. Where are the statistics on when different users are on eBay? Where are the links to sites that can tell you about eBay statistics? Please, tell me something...anything...
One of the main reasons I bought the book was for a list of wholesalers where I could obtain Closeout merchandise. The list was limited to about 17 entries in the Closeout section. Most of these were not closeout dealers. In the list, about half the entries were invalid URLS. About half of the remaining entries looked like scams. The rest were auction sites, etc. that have fairly low prices, but not low enough to be "wholesale;" you may get a good deal as a buyer but don't use these sites to fill your inventory!
If you are an eBay novice this book gives you general info about eBay (though some of this information is wrong and violates eBay policy...the author suggests you can email losing buyers from another seller's auction to advertise your own auction). However, you can find this info out yourself if you read the eBay Help pages and tutorial.
In summary, I found this book to be a whole lot of....nothing.
Rating:
Summary: neither thorough nor current
Review: I work for a firm that is expanding its existing eBay presence. The boss bought this book and thought it was wonderful, but I'm the person who runs the day-to-day eBay sales. After reading it I had to send him an immediate e-mail warning. He had underlined advice that would have harmed our business. We subscribe to a leading eBay sales assistance service that author Joseph Sinclair doesn't mention anywhere in the book. The chapter devoted to the subject ignores it and several other packages that are popular with successful eBay merchants. Sinclair overlooks the database management, e-mail correspondence, and marketing report features of these eBay software packages. Instead he prefers inferior tools. Sinclair's methods should function well for people who like to work long hours constructing spreadsheets and databases from scratch. His review is comprehensive if you never want to weigh the relative merits of PayPal and Billpoint, don't care what percentage of real world customers leave feedback, and won't ask whether eBay's premium listing options are worth the investment. Go ahead and follow his advice about linking to outside sites from auction listings and backing out of deals with valid auction winners if you aren't fazed by the prospect of disciplinary action for violation of the eBay user agreement. ...
Rating:
Summary: Close, but no cigar....
Review: I'm fairly experienced with eBay, but even so, I know I have a few tips and tricks to pick up. That said, I bought this book and another one, "Starting an eBay Business for Dummies". I found the Dummies book to be a much more well organized and thought provoking book. "eBay the Smart Way" was much more like, duh, I know that already, tell me something I don't know so I can profit from your knowledge or experience. Nope, nada, nothing. Check out the Dummies books on eBay for a much more rewarding read.
Rating:
Summary: Not for the eBay buyer or casual seller
Review: If you are an eBay buyer or casual seller, this book isn't for you. This book is more appropriate for someone whose goal is to setup an entire business around eBay rather than those of us who use eBay casually. I was hoping to learn expert bidding and selling tips and tactics. Instead, the book focused more on tools and how to improve sales processes. I was also amazed that in the section about credit card payments, services like Paypal were not even mentioned. I could over look this if it weren't for the fact that the book was published in December of 1999. If you are primarily an eBay buyer or only sell a handful of items a month or year, I'd look elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: eBay May Be More Than You Think
Review: If you take the idea of a silent auction (well used at charitable events to raise money) and the idea of being online and combine them, what you get is something new, something the world has never seen before. Indeed, eBay is a dynamic new 7 x 24 marketplace involving millions of products and millions of people. It creates new opportunities not only for buyers and sellers but also for those who want to start a business on eBay. My book covers all the basics for buyers and sellers. But the 418 pages of this long book do more. There is extra information that shows you how to get set up do operate a retail business on eBay. Whether you're a bricks and mortar business looking to supplement your sales, an e-commerce business looking for other places online to sell, or someone who wants to start a business that sells solely on eBay, this book provides valuable information that will help you toward your goal. Is this a "get rich quick" book? No. We all know better than that. But this book puts you on the right track to building your business on eBay, and many people have already been successful in doing so. And, if you don't want to start a business on eBay, I think my book covers the basics very well too.
Rating:
Summary: Not worth the time reading or money!
Review: If you want a general book about ebay and easy reading with not much meat, this is the book for you. If you already sell on ebay, you won't learn anything from this book at all. I rated this book a 2 only because someone who never sold on ebay would get a little information from this book. How can anybody rate this book a 5. Ebay for Dummies is a little better. A lot less reading to gain better insight.
Rating:
Summary: Spend any time on Ebay and you don't need this book
Review: If your new to ebay, this book is probably everything you need, but if you understand how it works, save your money for something else.
Rating: 
Summary: Another one of internet auctions...
Review: It is another one of the internet auctions book. While the info is very, very good about buying and selling, there is no information about starting your own internet site.
| 
