eBay.co.uk - Crap new search :mad:

unreggd

Anyone else use eBay UK and find the new search system absolute sh!te?

Its supposed to be easier, but its crap!

and they got rid of loads of things, and all the setting open up in their own popup


aggghhhhh, so annoyin!!

Passenger

Why are you using ebay.co.uk and not ebay.ie??

Bondvillain

Passenger wrote: »

Why are you using ebay.co.uk and not ebay.ie??

Because ebay.ie is parochial and substandard, and not sufficiently maintained by it's staff, & many international items which are in fact available to Irish buyers do not show up on ebay.ie, but are present on the UK site.

Add to that the fact that Many sellers based in the UK who sell items of interest to irish buyers are in fact willing to mail to here and say so in their listing text, but since they do not specify in their postage preferences that they ship to Ireland, their listings do not show up by default on ebay.ie, (do a search for "Blade runner dvd" on both .ie and co.uk - .ie returns about 80 results, co.uk returns almost 200, the vast majority in both cases are almost exclusively from UK based sellers, and the vast majority of the latter case are from UK based sellers who state they will ship internationally.) and it's clear that those in search of value and choice would be better served bypassing ebay.ie

I use .ie in the rare circumstance that I know exactly what Im looking for & who sells it, & I use .co.uk for general browsing.

rubadub

Go to the .ie site, go to advanced search and pick "item located in any region". AFAIK this lists ALL auctions no matter what country, i.e. stuff on ebay.de, ebay.fr etc. Now go back and sort how you like, I prefer only paypal, sort by lowest, and buy it now for instant prices. Like this
you can uncheck the buyitnow box and get about 2 to 3 times the hits.
Now the shipping will ONLY show if shown in the auction stating postage to Ireland (while the UK site would show UK postage). If you see one very cheap click to see the sellers postage price, if reasonable then email them and ask what it is to Ireland.

Most people do not know how to use ebay properly, I can usually get things 5-40% cheaper than people I know who told me they got something, just by searching properly, and/or sniping. Ebay really are idiots, they are losing out on many potential customers, people will go elsewhere to get stuff since feck all people know about advanced searching.

Most people also treat ebay like a normal auction, IT IS NOT, a standard bid is bidding by PROXY, once you realise this you can save a fortune.

spectre

rubadub wrote: »

people also treat ebay like a normal auction, IT IS NOT, a standard bid is bidding by PROXY, once you realise this you can save a fortune.

Interesting, but I don't understand how you could save a fortune just because you bid by proxy. Is it because, whenever you win, it will always be by the smallest possible margin?

Also, how does realising this fact give you an edge over others? what do you do different?

rubadub

spectre wrote: »

Is it because, whenever you win, it will always be by the smallest possible margin?

Sort of.

spectre wrote: »

Also, how does realising this fact give you an edge over others? what do you do different?

I simply avoid bidding wars, I bid in the closing moments so nobody has time to enter a counter bid when they are outbid. There is no real way to know how much I have truely saved on an individual auction, but if you know how to read auction histories you can see what typically happens. People get caught up in bidding wars.

How I figure I have saved is by checking out completed listings- another little known ebay tool.

If you do a search you can go to advanced and select "completed listings" this shows all the auctions for the item you want that were sold in the last month. Now you can see "the going rate", especially for high volume items, such as memory cards. You might see that the going average is €50, while many may go for €40, some €60. So if you win your auction for €40 you know you got a better than average deal.

Many people will not use ebay properly at all, they do not realise it is proxy bidding, they think the bid they put in will appear right away and must pay it. Some do realise it is proxy but STILL do not use it right, they do not put in their TRUE maximum.

Say you start a auction for a new bike, starting bid must be €50, the bikes shop value is €500. The ONLY reason I would bid at this stage is to stop you cancelling the auction. If there are no bids you can cancel at any time.

So I do not bid my max, but I do it with good reason. I bid €100 and you now cannot (easily) cancel the auction. My true max is say approx €400. Instead of bidding €50 I might go €100, for a good reason too.

I bid €100, but the current price is €50. Now another bidder comes along and typically will bid €55, not his true max, you can see this in many histories, though harder these days. Now he is instantly outbid as I am €100. He goes up in increments, loves the buzz of not knowing. Then he hits €100, I still outbid him. Now he might go €105 and be the highest bidder, and is delighted.

If I left it at an opening bid of €50, and he scored at €55, I figure he is now more likely to put his TRUE max in, as the bid is very low and he has not gotten any fun out of the auction, and sees he is likely to be outbid. But going to €105 he thinks he is really in a good bidding war, and is winning.

If I go €110, he will likely go €115, or higher. So I leave it. Most will go check on the auction to see what is happening. It may be days from finishing.

Now I go in and bid in the last few seconds, I bid €405 (not €400) in the last few seconds. Now he has NO TIME to react with a counter bid.

Many people put round figures in too, that is why I would pick €405, not €400. It is more likely somebodys max is €400, and if they had time they would say, "ah, 400 was my max, but I will go the extra tenner", but they have no time.

This bidding is called sniping, and ebay are against it since they lose out on profits, because the buyer ends up getting it cheaper.

Some do not think it is fair, but only those people who have used ebay incorrectly! it is stated in ebays rules/guidelines, enter your max, YOUR TRUE MAX.

If you get pissed off because you got sniped on an item at 405, when your bid was 400, then you cannot complain about anything, if you really were willing to "go the extra tenner", then why not do it from the start.

I have seen powersellers selling 10 identical items, most starting at €40, they also had 5 of the exact same items as buyitnow for €50. Yet I have seen people get caught up in bidding wars and ended up paying €60!

I get sniped all the time myself too, you will be outbid by a small increment, say €5, but that does not mean if you went €10 more that you would have got it for that, you do not know the other guys true maximum, it could be €100 more. If I did have time I might throw the extra tenner on and lose, this forces the other sniper to pay more. Ebay & the seller win, the bidder loses out.

Vikings

Great post rubadub!

dropes

Passenger wrote: »

Why are you using ebay.co.uk and not ebay.ie??

ebay.co.uk has the option for selecting 'free postage' in the advanced search, sometimes you can get bargains on that. I havent been able to do that search on ebay.ie.

I recently bought a 2GB thumb drive for 6pence with free p&p, it was delivered from hongkong, I wouldnt have found it if using ebay.ie