Savings?

While some items can be purchased cheaper in the stores, you will find it’s pretty rare. Many products can be bought and shipped to your door for cheaper than you can buy them wholesale in large quantities! And with the heavy competition between eBay sellers you can often have the item in your home within a few days of the purchase. And then there are the items exclusive to eBay that can't be purchased anywhere else.

As a eBay seller-turned-buyer, I probably save more just from shopping on eBay than my internet conection costs me per month.

So, where do the sellers get the items? It’s one of the great mysteries of the universe. If you can find the answer to that, you can make a living sitting on your computer at home. Or send me your items and I’ll sell them for a commission and make a living from my home. I’ve heard people say they steel the stuff, but I know that’s not true unless they tuck a container van full of one item into their over coat and sneak out the store doors because you will see the same seller sell the same item hundreds of times in a row.

The eBay search engine works a bit different than the internet search engines. Your search will only return results from the words included in the sellers heading and it has to be an exact match although the order of the words dosen't matter and it's not case sensitive. There is an option you can click (search titles and descriptions) but I find this usually returns to many irrelevant listings. So you may have to type in a couple searches to see all the results for a particular item. For example if you type (B52 airplane) or (B 52 airplane) you will get different results. A mis-spelled search (b52 airplain) will often get you 0 results however if the seller listed it mis-spelled it will show up and you might get an incredible deal on it because you may be the only one who finds the auction and therefore will have no competition with other sellers.

To know if something’s a good deal or not, a few minutes of simple research will let you know positively.

Proper research requires an eBay account which is a simple process and it’s free. The process is laid out in the next section: (Sign Me Up!)

I often shop in “brick and mortar” stores and malls but instead of buying something I like when I find it, I go home and do a quick internet search with the knowledge of what the item costs in stores. Type the item into your favorite search engine, ( by adding the “$” symbol to your search you can often see what the item costs in the site descriptions without entering the actual websites. Also there are some sites where you can type your wanted product into their site and they will list all the stores selling the item in numerical order, just make sure you add the shipping cost to the total item cost.

Here are some:

Also if you are in a hurry check the stores shipping method. Many eBay sellers ship USPS Priority which take three days from coast to coast while most internet stores ship Fed-Ex or UPS ground which can take up to 10 days. Also if you don’t like junk mail it’s worth checking an internet stores “privacy statement” to make sure they aren’t selling your email address and physical address to junk mail companies!

Now that your well educated on the product and what it sells for, head over to eBay! Type your search and then click on “COMPLETED LISTINGS” Accessed through the advanced search button next to the search bar. Here you will see shown in “green color” the actual price the items sold for.

It may sound like a long process but after you’ve done it a few times you will find it only takes a few minutes and you savings will add up to a huge hourly wage in time spent.

Click the “VIEW ACTIVE ITEMS for sale” button on the right near the top and find yourself an excellent deal. Remember to try a few different variations of your key words even mis-spelled. When you’ve found a deal click on the auction and check it out. A few things you’ll want to pay close attention to are:

FEEDBACK~ at the end of every sellers name there will be a number, this is how many people left that seller a feedback you can click on the number and view the comments buyers have left and the percentage % of positive comments. The percentage is also available on the main auction screen if you don’t want to view the actual comments left. Keep in mind when viewing feedback scores less than 100% how many items the eBayer has sold. If they sold thousands of items and have a 99.8% feedback it’s probably pretty safe. You can please some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time!

DESCRIPTION~ Read the description fully and carefully. A lot of sellers do their best to properly represent the actual item you are bidding on and end up with unjustified negative feedback from sellers who didn’t read their description. And a few sellers may try to mislead you with the bold letters and pictures while the fine print says what your actually going to get however this action usually reflects in their feedback score.

Also you will see the condition of the item at the beginning of the description, New, Used, Etc.

If you want only new adding the word “new” to your search is useful although if the seller did not use the word “NEW” in the description, their listing will not show even though their item is new and you may miss out on the best deal on eBay.

SHIPPING~ Make sure they ship to your location under “Ships to”.

There may be an additional charges for shipping insurance and taxes.

Shipping Cost, some sellers ridiculously jack the shipping cost to astronomical levels to make the item appear cheaper than it is in the auction price. Some sellers add on a bit for Foam Peanuts, Boxes, Labels, Tape, Fuel and Time to the post office which is understandable, however all these fees need to be added to the auction price as the actual cost of the item.

You may also want to notice the shipping method they use if your in a hurry to get the item. If your in Seattle and the seller is in New York and they ship UPS or Fed Ex ground, you better try a different seller!

SELLERS PAYMENT INSTRUCTIONS~ Many sellers with heavier items will choose not to ship to Alaska & Hawaii while some will for an additional fee. Read the sellers instructions carefully to avoid getting negative feedback on your account.

How long can you wait, If a seller accepts checks or money orders only, you will have to go to the store, stand in line, and pay an additional cost for a money order or send a check which the seller may hold for ten days until it clears the bank before shipping your item. Whew!

The best and safest way is to purchase online is to get yourself a PayPall account which is FREE to the buyer not to mention Safe, Fast and simple. Then just buy from sellers who accept PayPal (which most do). All you need for a PayPal account is a bank account and then theirs the added benefit if you find something is a better deal elsewhere on the internet, more and more online stores are accepting PayPal.

You can usually find something you want on eBay and purchase it with a bit of savings, but if you want to really get the deals try this:

Find the item you want to buy with the above steps then go to the auction and click on “WATCH THIS ITEM in my eBay”. Now decide the very most you are willing to pay for the item and write it down. To get a good deal in an auction it has to be an unemotional purchase and keep in mind tons of buyers are willing to pay mere pennies less than you can buy it in a “brick & mortar store” (Another mystery of the universe) If you place a bid five days before the auction end, unless you’re the only one interested in the item, somebody else will think and fret and stew over the thought of not winning the auction and outbid you. This is the beginning of a BID WAR! And the reason items sometimes go far above retail prices on eBay. Not to mention your bid adds a little number to the listing and attracts even more buyers to the auction. It is a good idea to place 1 low bid on a low priced auction so the seller won't end the auction early for a lack of interest. After you've placed a bid, wait until the last few minutes of the auction and then go there. Now hit the refresh button and simultaneously start a timer such as the chronograph on you wrist watch. The exact time the auction has left after the screen refreshes can now be watched on your timer. Write it down so you don’t forget it while you are placing your “sniper bid”. Type in your maximum price you are willing to pay that you decided on long before the auction started jumping up wildly in price. This is where eBay is set up to the advantage of the “Sniper”;

You may end up paying far less than your top price. If you bid $150.00 for an item currently listed at $50.00, eBay automatically bids for you just above the highest bid price. So your bid will raise the price to $53.00, The higher the auction the more dollars the increments used. For example a 1.00 item will go up pennies at a time while a thousand dollar auction will go up tens of dollars at a time etc. Now that you have your top dollar typed in click on the “PLACE BID” button. Now sign in if you weren’t already and put your mouse over the “CONFIRM BID” button, and watch your timer counting down to the last few seconds of the auction (depending on your internet connection speed) I bid with three or four seconds left. While it may sound extreme, I used to bid with 9 or 10 seconds left and often lost the auction to somebody who has been bidding for the last three days and is willing to pay any price and just managed to re-bid before time ran out on the auction.

Bidding this way will not always win the auction but you will be guaranteed to never pay a penny more than your unemotional logical mind is willing to pay and you will sometimes pay far less than you expected! Also you will find you get the same intense adrenaline rush bidding this way only you wont feel like an idiot for paying $16.00 for a .60 pair of socks when it‘s all over.

You will find answers, helps, forums, classes and everything else you could possibly need plus more at eBay’s own website. An eBay account is easy to get and FREE so what are you waiting for? Click button, Register and let the savings begin!