Guide to Ebay Buying, Part I (researching the purchase)
Whenever I want to buy something, I first check Ebay.
Purchasing items on Ebay can be great or it can be a very, very bad experience. Understanding Ebay’s unique role in the marketplace can help you decide whether to use it. You can often find nice deals, but you need to know when it’s good to use and when it’s not.
Ebay needs no introduction. You know a company is big when its name becomes an English verb. I ebayed it. I googled it. For those not familiar, Ebay is an online auction site/marketplace. You can either purchase through an auction process or you can buy at a fixed price.
Old-fashioned retail stores buy bulk items and resell for a set profit. There is a MSRP and thus prices are generally very uniform. Unlike retail stores, Ebay is not so constrained. Supply & Demand rule. Therefore it’s great for unique hard to find items that only you want (I got a great deal on some 1990 CTS Thunderstick tennis racquets), but horrible for high demand hot items (look at the ridiculous prices for the iPhone and Wii).
Random tip: Don’t buy items that are easily forged. For example, brand-name clothes (Diesel & Abercrombie clothes are notorious), and jewelry. Buying these items on Ebay is akin to buying that Rolex on the NYC street.
Researching the Ebay purchase
- Search ‘completed auctions’ for what prices that item has sold at. This will indicate the price range you can expect to pay. You do this by searching for the item, clicking on the checkbox for ‘completed auctions’ (you need to sign up for ebay to do this).
- Take into account seller’s feedback rating when looking at prices. Seller reputation is key. Higher feedback ratings = less risk but higher price.
- Based on completed auction prices, decide on what is an attainable price
- Compare the price to lowest online price (maybe check Amazon)
- You have to then decide whether the price savings is worth the added hassle of poor return policies and risk of fraud (generally low). In my experience, it is very low risk if you use common sense.
Once you decide that Ebay offers a good deal, then you need to actually make the purchase. Stay tuned for my next installment where I will talk about “ebay sniping” and cashback options; ways to make your Ebay purchase an even better deal.
Well eBay is the world biggest car boot sale where the undesirables come out in force to make a quick buck. I always say to exercise caution, even feedback can be manipulated.
Please do check out my health blog, its pretty slick, though to understand it you’ve gotta read it back to front i.e. from the earlier posts to the latter.
Thanks