How to get the bargains from ebay

Jonny7

Lads, its a slow day in work, so I thought I'd share a bit of what I've learnt from Ebay over the past few years. This is mainly just for the people who don't have much of a clue about ebay..

1. There isn't just one ebay, there are several, with different markets on each. Each market has its own 'personality' so to speak. I'll just list some of them for now.
Ebay.de
Ebay.co.uk
Ebay.ie

2. "Completed listings" - the most important link on ebay. Tells you how much things have gone for in the past. Heres an example, wanna buy a starcraft beta key? go to ebay.de, sign in (or signup if you dont have) and search starcraft beta (not the word 'key' obviously).. then you will see the results, now click on "beendate angebote", and bingo, there you go, all the prices paid (in green) for the last few days or weeks. All the market data you need to do the bidding..

3. Bidding - watch a few items and based on the data you know from completed listings pick the highest price you will pay for the item.
Lets say its one of those beta keys or a graphics card; if you saw one go for 48 euros, then put on your highest price (50 euros) plus 1.99 euro extra always (to beat all the people who slap down round figures)

You then get a timer or have a clock somewhere and do not bid until 30 seconds are left, then you place your bid but do not confirm. With 5 seconds left you confirm your maximum bid.

If the bidding is extremely bad, even if you put a bid down for 51.99, then you'll only pay 22 euros or whatever the next highest bid was, surprisingly a lot of people do not know this.

4. Trust - Look at the feedback of the seller, should generally be at 100% for smaller sellers and around 98+% for the large sellers.
Some scammers get 10 or 15 positive feedback because they buy 10 or 15 keychains. I check this too.

5. Shipping - never buy from the States, fullstop. Personally I never buy from the Far east, shipping takes a decade and there will be no returns.

All else is fair game. Ebay.ie would appear to be the best, but I've found that shipping a full PC from ebay.co.uk can be even cheaper at times. Every user can be mailed and you can haggle about shipping (even when they mention its not possible) Don't limit yourself to just ebay.ie

6. Quick stereotype of some markets -

Ebay.ie - self explanatory
Ebay.co.uk - huge market, great prices when pound is low, shipping good price but average delivery speed.
Ebay.de - another huge market, certain things are cheaper here than UK, e.g. AMD, sellers are A LOT more trustworthy and efficient, can take bigger risks because of that
Ebay.fr - slow delivery, high-ish prices



Now, how to find those bargains..

When does the bidding end? 2am in the morning? 6pm on a saturday? This can affect the price you pay a lot. For me the best bargains obvious go at the above times for example. One exemption might be - A Quadcore PC bidding ended at 6am in the morning but it went for very high, why? because it was such an exception that there were too many bargain hawks watching it.

Whats the ad like? bad picture? no picture? scanty details? spelt wrong? I have picked up many a graphics card because the guy selling described it as ATI graphics and nothing else, less people found it. Its something you'll get a feel for and sellers can always be emailed to find out more.

Typing in 'refurbished pc' but not finding any ultra bargains? well thats because everyone else is. The bargains are to be had are the refurbished pcs (or similar) that are not named as such. Logically something like refurbished pcs would be sold by a large seller moving lots of stock for an office or hp or whoever. If you can find these sellers (they often have generic ads for all products) they add them straight away and check with them often. Before it shut down Auctioning4u supplied me and my family and my friends with bloody everything at ridiculous prices; pcs, tvs, cameras, etc, all perfect with a slight nick on the box or something.

I often search with buyitnow turned off but sometimes if you are searching for something very particular (like a graphics card) you can find some individual (not company) who is just trying to dump his card quickly.. rare but lovely when you find it.. always double double check the ad though.

I think I could just keep writing and writing but I actually have some so called 'work' to do

Solitaire

FAQ'd For Truth

Johnny Storm

I'd add that you can use various free programs to put in your bid a certain number of seconds before bidding ends. Saves you doing it at 6am or whatever. Google "ebay sniper".
Personally I like to ask the seller a few questions if I'm seriously interested in buying. IMHO You can really get a feel for the honesty or otherwise of the seller based on their answers. If you are not 100% happy with the answers do not buy.

L31mr0d

I haven't used ebay in quite a while (I prefer to buy from adverts.ie or get the item new if I need to ship it) but have they shut down auction sniping yet?

It was a real pain a few years back and I ended up resolving that if I couldn't beat them, I'd join them.

Also, I was put off after a trusted seller decided to just take my, and a load of other sellers, money and run. Tried tracking him down and he was a trusted seller on a load of other sites with the same user name, but then all these posts started popping up with him asking for donations because he'd contracted lyme disease and didn't have any health insurance (he was in the US). Shortly after that he ran scams on all the sites he was registered to get money.