eBay Buying Tricks discussion 16 March 2012 at 2:39PM in Ebay, auctions, car boot sales, post & parcels 37 replies 25.2K views

MSE_Jenny

Hi all, we've written a new eBay Buying Tricks guide to help you track down uber-bargains and stay safe.

Do you have any other tricks you'd add? Do you know of any other nifty eBay tools?

Thanks for your help!

MSE Jenny

scrumper

Point 16 in eBay Buying Secrets suggests using other sites to find negative feedback. I've not used them so don't know if they do the same thing but when using eBay I click on the sellers name, then on their profile page click on 'see all' at the top right of the scrolling latest feedback box. This brings up a table showing the number of +ve neutral -ve feedback for the last 1, 6 and 12 months. You can then click on the numbers in the table and only these will be listed underneath. ie. click on the number of -ve feedback in the lat 12 months and you don't have to scroll through pages of +ve to find them. I've made it sound very long-winded sorry.

Obviously_the_best

Just want to point out here that it is only purchases costing over £15 get duty charged on them when entering the UK, click here for very useful import duty + tax calculator

RFW

Obviously_the_best wrote: »

Just want to point out here that it is only purchases costing over £15 get duty charged on them when entering the UK, click here for very useful import duty + tax calculator

It is all a little over simplified anyway, certain items don't carry VAT, so wouldn't be charged. Where duty and VAT are charged the handling courier will generally charge a handling fee.

For number 9, it may also be an idea to ask the seller what they would accept, or if they would accept £x, before making an offer.

StaffsSW

MSE_Jenny wrote: »

Do you have any other tricks you'd add? Do you know of any other nifty eBay tools?

Thanks for your help!

MSE Jenny

Is this so that MSE can copy them for themselves as well...?!

priceinjector

Hi, I have created a website geo-ship.com that simplifies the work with different ebay sites.
Some of the features:
- Multiple ebay sites search at once
- Filter by seller feedback (useful for trick number 15)
- Display of total price in local currency

Maybe it will be helpful for you

George68

For #2, typojoe.com is another good eBay misspelling search tool you can try.

For #4, try ebuyersedge.com to set up saved eBay searches. EBay will only send out at most one e-mail per day. The deals could be long gone by the time you get the e-mail. Ebuyersedge will check eBay as often as every 5 min. for a saved search, immediately e-mailing you when a new match is found.

For #8, hidbid.com is a good sniper to use. You get 10 free Snipes per week.

A couple more ideas:

Related to #9, if you see an item that you want listed in either auction or "Buy It Now" format, send the seller a message asking if they will accept $x to and the listing and sell to you now. some sellers are impatient so telling them that they'd not have to wait for the listing to end, you'd send the money right away as soon as they accepted. All they can do is say no, and then you can just bid or "Buy It Now" still.

If you have a question about an item, go to another of the seller's listings and ask the question from there. This will add a bit of work for the seller, if they want to add your question and their answer to the item description page. Maybe other interested buyers will not bother to ask a question, instead just continuing to look for a similar item that already has the question answered in the item description.

sarahemmm

I have been a happy user of www.gixen.com for about three years now. Free, or $6 if you want to use the mirror option. I'm happy to pay to support it, as the developer seems very good and responsive :T

Sarah

claresm

if you go to the necter web site and then go to the link for ebay you can collect points too

Stavros_one

Hi,
Beware of buying Gillette Mach 3 and Mach 3 Turbo and Fusion blades. Even though I am an experienced seller and buyer (6,300+ feedback) I got caught with fake goods. There are websites available which describe the differences. Try googling "fakeblades".
The recent guide to ebay was very good for buyers. If you are mainly thinking of selling it can be a minefield.
If you are just starting stick to selling to the country you are living in for a few months. Then ease into Europe, then USA and Canada,Australia and New Zealand. Do not send to Italy except by a "signed for" delivery service. I found out the hard way when I lost 50% of my parcels going to this country. Brazil can also be bad. Check,check and check again that the address is correct and spelled correctly. Google can be helpful here. Inform your buyer that their purchase is coming from another country, they often don't realise, especially Americans for some reason.....
If you need to send a message to another country in another language keep it simple and grammatically correct. Then use a translation site to translate to the local language. Send both the original and the translation.
Check with PayPal that the payment has cleared before sending goods to the PayPal registered address only.
Postal charges have been changed recently. Check the dimensions and weight before quoting shipping charges. Thickness can be an issue on domestic UK post!!
Many of the items I sell are relatively inexpensive and I have found out the hard way by "losing " them in the post that not all people are honest. I send expensive items by Recorded Delivery or another "signed for" service. I send random cheaper items by Recorded Delivery without telling the buyer. This has saved me from being possibly defrauded once. It has also made me realise that the Postie does not always leave a red card when you're not there to sign for it.
When buying from overseas you don't always get caught for the VAT or Customs charges. I receive many items without having to pay.

Talent

I'm really annoyed that you have published some of these 'tricks' that I worked out and used for some time.... shame on you. It's like some holiday expert blurting out the location of some unspoilt gem.... ggrrrr