My Top Five eBay Tips!
I'm not going to say I'm an eBay expert. Yes, I have lost auctions before. But every time I lost, I learned something new, and now I always watch for bargains, and await the best time to bid.
But I am going to say that this is not an introduction or tutorial on how to use eBay. eBay is pretty straight-forward, and very easy to use. You do not need some book to teach you how to use eBay, and you definitely don't need to pay someone to list something on eBay for you (unless you have no time at all to do it yourself, or don't have a camera or scanner).
So, with that being said, I'm going to tell you a few tips and tricks that I've discovered in my experience of using eBay, which has been for eight or nine years. Let's begin.
#1. Do not bid as soon as you find an item on eBay. This just jacks up the price! If the price of an item is $3.00 with one bid, and you bid $4.00 as soon as you find it, that person who bid before might come along and bid $5.00. Now, you have to bid $6.00, and you might have been able to win the item for only $4 if you waited to bid.
#2. Try waiting till the last few seconds/minutes of an auction to bid. This is perhaps the best strategy I've discovered. This is also commonly known as “sniping.” How does it work? Well, let's say that Joe in Montana (the current high bidder) is watching an auction that he has already bid on. He is very nervous that someone will outbid him, but as the last few seconds/minutes arrive, he is sure that he has won, and he thinks no one else is even looking at the auction. Now his guard is down. You quickly bid in the last 30 seconds, and win the item for fifty cents more than the price that Joe had bid. Personally, I like to wait until the last four minutes, bid a bit lower than what would be the highest price I'd pay for the item, and then in the last twenty seconds, I bid my highest bid. This allows me to see if I have a chance of beating another bidder, because:
#3. Many people bid at very low prices. Why do they do this? I dunno, but I find this is common among people who do not use eBay very often, and have very few transactions on their account. For example, disc jockeys might not be experts at eBay. I've found this to be true when buying records and DJ equipment. Let's imagine that DJ Fred has his eye on a record with a starting price of $5. He is willing to go up to $10 on this particular item, but he only bid $5.50. Why? I dunno, but this gives you a better chance of winning your item. To find out if a bidder might bid at low prices, always:
#4. Check their feedback, along with ended auctions that a particular member has bid on to see exactly how much they might bid. Also, if the person has a relatively low feedback, like 21, they are probably relatively new to eBay. If the person has a relatively high feedback, like nine gazillion, then they are probably an eBay master, and you must watch out. Checking the feedback of a seller also helps to determine if an auctioneer is legit or not. If the person has all positive feedback, then you are good, but if the person has a lot of neutral or negative feedback, bid wisely, as the auctioneer might try to rip you off.
#5. Read the description of the item carefully! It amazes me how many people just skim through the description of an auction, and when the item comes half broken, the blame the seller for not saying that it was broken in the auction title. Well, they probably said it in the description. Read carefully and slowly!
So there you go. Those are my top five tips on using eBay. Bid wisely!
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I like your waiting and sniping suggestions.
Good tips. I'd add a sixth. If a seller is lowballing the selling price or beginning bid price and trying to make up the difference by jacking up the shipping and handling charges, use caution. Sellers who list on Ebay agree not to do this, because it artificially lowers Ebay's commission. If the seller doesn't care about breaking an agreement with Ebay and cheating them, chances are the seller won't care about doing the same to a bidder or buyer (found this out the hard way).
A good strategy - and a way to keep from paying too much for an item - is to use the automatic bidding feature. I always set that to bid up to the maximum amount I'm willing to pay for an item.
I don't win every item I want, but I have never paid more for an item than I desired. It's too easy to get caught up in bidding fever and pay too much.
Enough! with! the! exclamation! points! already!
How about for your next article you post something that may have some alternatives to eBay? I have found that eBay isn't what it used to be. There have taken away the protections for seller and opened the door for more scam buyers. We don't sell as a business and used to enjoy watching the auctions. Now we have to worry too much about getting ripped off to make it worthwhile. They seem to look like it as if shoplifting isn't stealing.