Understanding common eBay terms, words and abbreviations…

In one of my previous posts I have talked about eBay and how it can be used to effectively perform marketing research for your business or website.  Today I plan on taking you through some common terms that you may run into while at eBay.

When you decide to take a stroll over to eBay and search for (or sell) some product, you will most likely run into some term, words or abbreviation somewhere that you may not understand.  Such terms are commonly used and as such I feel it would be beneficial to make sure all my readers have a clear understanding of terms you may run into at eBay.  Some of the words can be confusing and hard to understand but hopefully after you have read this page, you will be good to go eBaying!

General Terms

Auction:  Auction formatted Ad

Auction Sniping: Bidding on an item during the last second of an auction in order to win the item. Other people don’t have the opportunity to outbid you in this case.

Best Offer: The seller will “consider” any offers that you are willing to give for the product.  Ex. Get a product listed at $100 for only $90.

Bid: The maximum price you are willing to pay for the item

Bid Increment: This outlines how much a bid will be raised every time the current bid is outbid.

Classified Ads: Now popular for digital items as eBay now requires all ebooks and such that are strictly digital in nature to be sold using this format. 

Dutch Auctions: Auctions that have more than one item available for sale.

Feedback (FB): customer “testimonials” as to how their previous transaction went over with the seller.

Non-paying bidder: self-explanatory but describes a bidder who won an auction but do not follow through and actually pay for the item.

Rare:  Hard to find.  I do not recommend believing every rare comment you see on Ebay.  This is a common and overused term.

Reserve Price: the minimum price that you (or the seller) are willing to accept for the item.

Shill bidding: bidding that artificially increases the price of a product being sold.  They are essentially fake bids made by a seller attempting to drive up their item’s price.

Store Inventory: Store inventory items appear exclusively in eBay Stores and are sold at a fixed (Buy It Now) price.

Abbreviations

AUD: Australian Dollar. Currency.

BIN: Buy it Now.

BNWT: (Brand New With Tags) An item that has never been used and still has its original tags.

BW: (Black and White) Used for selling films, photos, clothes etc.

EUC: (Excellent Used Condition) Used, but still in good condition

EUR: (Euro) European Currency.

FC: First Class. Postage type for mailing.

GU: Gently Used. Item shows a little bit of usage (usually explained)

FVF: (Final Value Fee) A fee that eBay charges to a seller at the completion of a listing.

GBP: Great British Pounds. Currency.

HTF: Hard To Find. Another way to get across the “rareness” of a product.

NIB: New in Box. Never opened and still in the original box.

NBW: Never Been Worn.  The item may not be brand new but has never been worn.

NR: No Reserve. No reserve price has been set for the item being sold. (Find great deals sometimes!)

OB: Original Box. An item that is in its original box (or comes with it) but may have been opened.

PM: Priority Mail.

PP: Parcel Post.

SH: Shipping and Handling. The fees the buyer will pay you for postage.

USD: United States Dollars. Currency.

VGC: Very Good Condition. Not mint, but still in great condition.

Now obviously I cannot list all the possibly words and abbreviations here, but the ones I have listed are each good to know.  If you know of others, feel free to leave a comment letting everyone know.

It is good to use abbreviations in some instances while selling items on eBay and other online auction websites but not in all situations.  A large proportion of eBayers are “inexperienced” when it comes to technical stuff so they may not know what you mean with such abbreviations.  But if you are targeting a specific crowd that will know such language, then all the power to you! 

I hope you have enjoyed this post and that it will help your online auction experiences better!

To Your Success,
Mark Garland

Rate this:

3.2