1) First time on iBID

Prior to all of the registration steps, please take a look around and use all the search engines available to you.

a) Registration is free and fast :

Click on:

Fill out the form, choose a user name and a password. In order to validate your registration, go to your inbox and click on the confirmation link and voila, your account has been created.

From now one, when you return to iBID, click on My Account, a window will open and you will be requested to enter your user name and password.

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2) How do I buy

a) Search engines

You have access to a search engine with multiple criteria in order to refine your searches. These are done by key words, family, species, sellers and by date placed on line.

During the search the result obtained will be presented below in the form of a list which will include a contractual photo of the seashell, the locality and size, the seller's user name, the number of bids, the price in € and $ and the remaining time. This list may then be sorted using other engines.

b) Families group

For an easy shell monitoring, 4 groups of 10 families have been created with for each one a dedicated color. Each group will finish at 4 different times (Paris reference time) separated by 20mn ENDING TIMES :

• 1° Group 20h00 PM
• 2° Group 20h20 PM
• 3° Group 20h40 PM
• 4° Group 21h00 PM

c) Your bid

There are 2 types of sales:

• The auction sale: the object is put up for sale with an asking price. You will bid and the other buyers will do the same. When the sale ends, the highest bid wins the object.
• Selling at a BUY NOW price: the price which is demanded by the seller is the price that the first buyer will have to pay when he/she makes an offer for the object. The sale ends immediately after an offer has been placed for the seashell.

Before the bidding, verify all the information which has been provided by the seller so that the transaction can take place as smoothly as possible:

• Verify the complete description of the object (photos, origin, validity of the species, price)
  
• Verify the seller's history or more precisely his feedback, here you will find all the evaluations he has received from previous transactions. Equally, please read the comments, they will allow you to gain a better understanding of the seller's reliability.
• Verify the terms and conditions of sale (type of payment accepted, delivery charges)

When you have decided to place a bid, click on BID NOW and enter the desired amount. You can either enter the exact price of the seashell or make an automatic bid which will increase automatically until it has reached the limit  which you have set, this bid will then be listed in the section My Account and it can be modified at any time. If you are outbid, you will receive an e-mail warning you that you are no longer the highest bidder.

d) Finalisation of the transaction

When the sale has ended, an e-mail containing all the necessary information concerning the finalisation will be sent to you by the seller. You will also have the opportunity to ask your seller for the total by clicking on ASK TOTAL in your summary of bids.

You also have the possibility to print the data about your seashell by clicking on PRINT DATA LABEL.

Check your inbox regularly to reply to your seller as quickly as possible and thus finalise the salee.

Good communication between buyers and sellers is a proof of guarantee and quality in the finalisation process of a sale.

iBid only plays an intermediary role between the buyers and seller, your payment will be carried out at short notice and according to the conditions stipulated in the advertisement.

e) Feedback / Evaluating your seller

The evaluation allows you to leave a comment and a vote relating to your purchase. The evaluation system creates a feeling of trust between the buyers and seller and thus allows them to obtain perfect transparency in transactions.

Both sellers and buyers are able to reply following a negative vote concerning both parties and a sufficient amount of characters will be made available to express oneself.

• The comments must always be respectful and never be insulting.
• 4 negative votes will result in the blocking of an account.

f) Time frame

The terms of payments and the delivery times must be as short as possible, both in the interest of the buyer and the seller. Quick replies are a proof of seriousness and good will. Disregarding this point could be picked up on during an evaluation and thus become detrimental to your reputation

Nevertheless, we recommend that our buyers give their sellers a week before receiving a response. If this term has passed, contact us via e-mail at contact@ibid-shells.com and we will assist you in completing the transaction..

The same applies to the buyers, do not forget to tell your sellers if you are going to be absent, they will always be grateful for the information.

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3) MY ACCOUNT an interface to manage your bids

MY ACCOUNT is an interface in which you will find everything that is related to your personal information and your activities.
The 3 sections are comprised of::

a) Control Panel

This section allows you to manage your bids in the best possible way:

• All your watched shells : allows you to watch your items bidded and watched. As in the other sections, you have access to a selection system according to family, seller and date. You can place a bid at any time by clicking on BID NOW. Thus optimising the ergonomics and the follow up, a colour code in either green or red will show which bids you have won and which you have lost. Moreover, you will have the option to set up an e-mail alert to inform you of auctions ending soon.

• Your color groups : Each time you bid or you put a shell in watch list, this one is dispatched in one of the four color groups. Buyers will follow easily the end of the auction for each shell of each group.

• Won Shells report : is a summary of all of the bids which you won. You will be able to organise the results of your purchases by separating them according to date, seller or even family. On this interface you will also be able to print the data about your seashell. Click on ASK TOTAL to receive the total which needs to be paid. .

• Favourite Dealers: allows you to list your favourite sellers and thus consult their lists of seashells on sale.
  
• Favourite Families: allows you to list your favourite families of seashells and thus you can return to it directly.

b) Mail Box

The Mail Box allows you to exchange messages with the seller and the administrator of the website.

The messages will be shown in the following way: user name of your interlocutor, the date, the subject of the message and the details of the item being purchased.

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Any incentive, by means of the message, to carry out a transaction outside of iBID will be punished by immediate deletion of the account.

c) Personal Data

This section is made up of 3 parts:

• Your personal details: resumes all the informations during your registration. You can modify your informations at any time.
• Selling summary: this section concerns the sellers. This table sums up the number of items on sale, the total amount of sales, the total amount of commission on the sales to be paid via PayPal to iBID SHELLS. The calculation of commissions to be paid to iBID can be verified at any time using the summary table of fees..
• Feedback: concerns your scores obtained as the buyer or as the seller.
• Disputes: concerns any disputes incurred as the buyer or as the seller. If you incure 4 litigations (both as the buyer and seller) your account will be closed.

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4) How to sell:

You will only be able to put seashells up for sale after completing the registration form, shared by both the buyers and sellers.

a) Selling form

Click on the SELL tab on the home page and the selling page will appear:

Please fill out all the sections of the selling form without forgetting to add a contractual photo of the seashell. The description should be as accurate and as complete as possible.

Inform your buyers of your preferred methods of payment as well as the different shipment options that you offer.

By clicking on ADD TO MY SHELLS you will finalise your offer and then it will be placed online immediately and the introduction fees will be credited to your account.

To sell your shells , you have two possibilities the current auction and the Buy it Now price.In the second case, just enter a price at which you want to sell directly your shells.

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5) MY ACCOUNT an interface to manage your sales

The same applies to the buyers, this interface will allow the sellers to follow-up in the sales with the help of several tools.

a) Listed Shells

This section will call up all the shells put up for sale. The seller can make modifications to his advertisement at any time provided that no bids have  yet been placed on the seashell. The price on the other hand will not be alterable.

b) Sold Shells Report

This section posts all the successful sales. The seller can carry out a classification according to the end date of the sale.
When the seller has sold a seashell, he will send the total to be paid to his buyer directly by clicking on SEND TOTAL. Once the payment has been received, the seller can then leave an evaluation by clicking on POST FEEDBACK.

c) Black List

If a seller has experienced numerous justified difficult returns with a buyer, he will then have the possibility to block these buyers and to prevent them from placing bids on his seashells, he will also be able to remove them from this list.

d) Unsold shells

This section allows the sellers to manage their unsold shells. Between two sales, the shells are consultable on line for everybody. If the seller wants to make modifications or to delete some shells, he can does it during this period.

e) Shells to publish

When you download your shells those ones are directly listed in this part until the auction starting time.

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6) THE SALES FEES

a) INSERTION FEES ARE FREE

b) Sales fees

At the end of the sale, the fees will be applied as indicated below in percentages and according to the different price ranges :

The total payment of the fees ( insertion and sales) will be claimed on the 2nd  of every month and must be paid via PayPal, adding 4% for the fees, The non-payment of these fees will result in the seller's account being blocked or even the deletion of the account

The seller can follow-up any outstanding sales fees in the section MY ACCOUNT/PERSONAL DATA and can pay them directly via the PayPal link.

HAPPY BIDDING AND SELLING TO YOU ALL!

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