In: Root » Internet and online » Auctions » Get the Computer Equipment You Need for eBay
Making the move from only buying on eBay to selling on a regular basis is like moving from being a backup player on a sports team to a starting player. You become a full participant. Accordingly, you need to make sure your Internet connection and your computer equipment are up to snuff. This section provides some tips on what you need to put your sales listings together. Remember, when you shop for memory or other computer hardware, save your receipts. You may be able to record and deduct all these purchases as business expenses on your tax return if you make money selling through auctions (and you will!). If you’re satisfied with your Internet connection and equipment or if you sell on consignment, you can skip this section. This section is for those of you who are eager to start wheeling and dealing but aren’t sure what equipment you need. Keep in mind that I’m examining the ins and outs of running an eBay business. I’m not talking about selling something once a month or a few times a year. For occasional selling, you can use any computer equipment that gets you on the Internet. For regular sales that generate part or all of your income, though, it pays to get the best equipment and Internet connection you can afford. Internet Connection In theory, you can create and upload auction listings from a computer at your public library or at a relative’s house, but when you start selling, you’re going to need to check your e-mail regularly for inquiries from prospective bidders. You’ll also want to experience the end-of-auction excitement as bids go up on your items. You really need your own Internet connection so you can get on eBay any time of the day or night. Chances are your computer has a modem built into it that you can use to connect to the Internet. A modem is a hardware device that translates your computer’s digital data to signals carried over other types of electronic cables. A conventional analog modem translates the digital computer information into analog data that can be sent over ordinary phone lines. People who make a phone call to their Internet Service Provider (ISP) to connect to the Internet are said to have a dial-up modem connection. These days, most analog modems operate at a speed of 56 kilobits per second (Kbps), which is a minimal speed for using the Internet. You can do better than a conventional modem these days. I highly recommend that you look into a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) or cable modem connection, if one is available in your area. These are direct lines, which keep you connected at all times, rather than just for the length of your modem’s phone call. Besides freeing up a phone line, a direct connection is typically light years faster than a dial-up modem connection. Cable modems receive data from the Internet through a cable TV company’s existing underground fiber optic cable and may be available from one of your local cable providers. DSL is a cost-effective “starter” type of direct connection to the Net that uses conventional telephone lines to transfer data at very high speeds. You may be able to get a DSL connection from your local phone provider or an ISP such as Earthlink (http://www.earthlink.com ). If you do use a phone line to get online, probably the most important telephoneor connection-related decision you can make is to install a second phone line for your online buying and selling. Having a second line is pretty much a necessity if you plan to do business online regularly - or if your children or significant other uses your existing phone line even on a semi-regular basis. If you have a “day job” in addition to your eBay sales, don’t get in the habit of putting merchandise up for sale or checking your auction listings from your office computer. You can easily get in trouble for misusing company resources. To stay out of the doghouse, set up your own system at home. Computer Buying and selling on eBay, like other types of electronic commerce, doesn’t require a machine with the latest super-fast processor and multimedia bells and whistles. Nevertheless, the speed and quality of your computer, monitor, and other hardware can affect your auction experience. If your machine is slow and your modem a crawler, it could take an inordinate amount of time to get multiple sales items online. If you can’t inspect a detailed screen image of your image as it appears on eBay, you might not be able to correct or retake it if you need to.Make sure you have, at the very least: - A reasonably fast computer - in other words, one with at least a 300 or 400 MHz processor. The speed at which a processor operates is measured in megahertz (MHz). - Lots of Random Access Memory (RAM). Along with browsing the Web and checking e-mail, you’re likely to be operating scanning and image editing software, which can be memory-intensive. Get a minimum of 128MB of RAM, and more if you can afford it. |
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