The six golden rules of ebay discussion area

SteveS_4

Paul_R wrote:

I've found eBay to be good fun when buying and even better fun when selling. One tip I would say is make sure you check the COMPLETED prices (advanced search) for your item before bidding. Often, the same thing has been sold before (probably a couple of days ago) so you get an idea for the price you might have to pay.

The cost of postage is always going to be contentious. You can reconfigure your ebay browser display to show the postage costs as a separate column, helping you make the choice (for it is a choice) to buy or not. Hong Kong sellers often bump up the postage to make the total cost more realistic for them, keep your eyes open. Has anyone thought that if the total price was too high these sellers would not make any money?

As for the hassle of posting, yes it's a right pain in the rear. And there is more to the postage than just the stamps on the parcel, as was said previously.

One final tip for ebay is waiting, and pouncing. If you are really after something, the last 10 or 15 seconds of bidding time are critical to winning. Often an item will remain at an unrealisticly low price for days, then in the last 30 seconds get bumped up to the 'proper' price. This is annoying or frustrating for many, but bear it in mind if you are really after something, don't just sit back and expect to win. Serious bidders will use two (or three) PC's at the same time: one to view the bids and one to enter bids, thereby saving time in refreshing their browsers, as the last few seconds are so critical to winning.

I am a regular buyer and seller on ebay. As a buyer I am always careful to put my bid in in ther last few seconds. To do this I simply open a second browser window which I set at the Bid Now confirmation screen. Then, buy constantly renewing the other window to see how many seconds are left, I can submit the bid as late as I dare. The excitement of this method is quite addictive!

smartfourtwo

I have an eBay/Paypal coupon valid until 02 Sept for £5 towards p&p if you used paypal to pay.

I bought an item and went to check-out. The item cost £0.01 and the postage is £7.65, so I expected this to be reduced to £2.65 with the
coupon. When I enter "CLAIM500" in the coupon box as instructed an error message appears: "This Redemption Code cannot be used from your PayPal
account." I would not have bid on this particular auction had I known
the coupon was not going to work. I have read all the small print and
followed the instructions to the letter. My eBay account and Paypal
account normally work together seamlessly for buying and selling. The
coupon should work. I have spoken to PayPal who told me they couldn't do anything about it and contact eBay as they issued the coupon. I have 48 hours to resolve this before I will have to pay the seller anyway!

My advice: If eBay send you a "coupon" - which came into my eBay mail box from eBay - don't count on it to work!

Geoff :eek:

Tojo_Ralph

I am going to add the following link to a link crammed full of links and if anyone wants to know ANYTHING about sniping, they'll find it here.

http://www.geocities.com/footballboyisme3/index.html

Contains_Mild_Peril

SteveS wrote:

I am a regular buyer and seller on ebay. As a buyer I am always careful to put my bid in in ther last few seconds. To do this I simply open a second browser window which I set at the Bid Now confirmation screen. Then, buy constantly renewing the other window to see how many seconds are left, I can submit the bid as late as I dare. The excitement of this method is quite addictive!

Do you do this with your maiden bid? Are you the annoying bidder who bought a camera I thought I'd get? 5 SECONDS TO GO?? If that was you, I grudgingly admire your nerves of steel!
I wouldn't dare try that. Knowing my luck, my computer would probably freeze. I often bid about 2-3 minutes before the end of the auction, as do many of my customers.

lindseyrichardson

WARNING SCAM
My daughter purchased £80 worth of book tokens using buy it now on ebay. Student in need of a bargain! Seller had 100% positive feedback. Total scam and is being repeated - I can now spot them before it happens!
1. Usually have only been registered for a very short time
2. Have 100% positive feedback but generally only from small purchases they have made. But sometimes they sell a few £10 vouchers before the big hit.
3. Suddenly offer too good to be true deals (I KNOW THAT NOW!!!!) e.g. £80 vouchers for buy it now price of £40
4. Usually offer loads at that price to make a big killing before they are spotted
5. Suddenly become no longer a registered ebay member as light begins to dawn on everyone
6. Re register and start again after a killing of about £1000

Don't fall for this. If you do - claim immediately through ebay who will refer you to paypal - claim there as well.

Hope this helps people avoid this scam.

unsure

E-bay ratings and feedback can be misleading and e-bay goes out of its way to make the sellers look good, or at least to discourage negative comment. My daughter wanted a drum machine for her birthday. I found the right model on e-bay quoting a rrp of £119 and a "Buy it Now" price of £89. I bought it and paid an additional £7 for P&P.

A week later (before machine had arrived) I was passing a music shop and checked the price. They showed me the same machine in the maker's catalogue with an rrp of£99 ( so my actual saving using e-bay was £3. At that level I'd rather buy from a physical shop where I could easily take it back if there was a problem) .

I postedf feedback pointing out that the seller had inflated the rrp. The feedback did not go on the board, instead I got a message from e-bay saying such adverse comments could damage trader's business, did I really want to do that etc. I toned it down and said "item found cheaper locally than seller's rrp" and got the same message again. E-bay didn't seem remotley concerned about a trader lying to potential customers only about discouraging adverse comments. Eventually, to my shame, I just gave up and the seller maintained his 97% satisfaction rating. It left me wondering how many others have been coerced or discouraged from making fair but negative comments about traders/sellers. I have not used e-bay since.

Of course, if I had the benefit of Martin's advice back then I'd have done a price comparison at the start and realised the trader was not being entirley straight and bought from the local shop.

masonic

unsure wrote:

I postedf feedback pointing out that the seller had inflated the rrp. The feedback did not go on the board, instead I got a message from e-bay saying such adverse comments could damage trader's business, did I really want to do that etc. I toned it down and said "item found cheaper locally than seller's rrp" and got the same message again.

All new users get that now for any neg feedback they try to leave. You can still leave neg feedback if you are sure it's fair. IMHO, the system worked perfectly in this instance - why should a seller get neg feedback when you still got it cheaper than you could elsewhere?

Edit: Also, RRPs are subject to change. They do tend to decrease over time, especially with electronics. The RRP was probably quoted in good faith, but was just not up to date.

dleffel

I've found that it is quite cumbersome to go to ebay daily to look for deals, although unless you do, you are not likely to run across the best deals. I discovered Saved Search Pro. Although it doesn't have all the functionality I would like, it does a great job of delivering to me in my email listings from eBay that match the exact critera I'm looking for. I've found a lot of deals that way. The only downside is that you do actually have to register. www.savedsearchpro.com

superscotsman

I am sorry but I cannot see how people are complaining about items being overpriced on ebay. I don't know if you have noticed, but it is an auction: if you think you have paid too high a price for something you have nobody to blame but yourself.

I have found the opposite to be the case - that you can get things at a cheaper price than you would elsewhere - and often you can get things that you can't get in the shops and can't get in the UK.

I have been on ebay for more than 18 months, both as buyer and as seller, and I have found that in all but a very few cases, people trade honestly.

If you sell stuff that is worth more than about £100 a unit, you will be more vulnerable to assault by the dishonest, hoax bidders, etc. If you are just selling units at a few quid a time, they tend to leave you alone.

Ebay has been a great success, and like so many other great successes, there are always sour detractors who are more than willing to take a pop at it.

bbruce

I too have had nothing but good experiences on eBay but I know people who haven't so I'm cautious.
I've had good bargains from sellers who inflate the p&p because it puts many people off bidding. I do as recommended and adjust my bid to take into account p&p and often get the item for less than my proxy.