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Our advice about buying or bidding on ebay

Tips on winning on ebay

• Ask the seller questions if anything is unclear, or you have concerns. Most sellers are only too pleased to answer you.
• Check the sellers feedback, and the feedback they have left for others (see below), to see they have a proven history of friendly honorable trading. If you have any doubts ask if you win if you can pay when you collect, dodgy characters want money sent somewhere, and wont meet you. Still concerned ask for a phone number and speak to them. Still not happy then choose another sale to bid on.
• Decide the absolute maximum you are prepared to pay, taking into account the item, quality, and possibly earning potential (and postage if applicable).
• Stop and think. If you win its a legal auction and you have to pay. If you don't and its an expensive item the seller could take an action through the county court, not only costing you far more but damaging your credit rating. Even on cheaper items it is likely they would put a negative feedback on ebay, perhaps making others less likely to deal with you, or bid on items you want to sell.
• Enter the absolute maximum (see next note below) in to the ebay bidding system, this is called proxy bidding. Ebay will only put your actual bid now to one step above the current winner, but will keep bidding automatically for you up to your maximum. You will not pay any more than if you sat at your computer, constantly bidding yourself for days.
• Many bidders who use the proxy system, end their bids in an uneven amount ie bidding 6001.36 or something so that they are ahead of any bid at 6,000. If another bidder bids the same as you exactly, then your bid being in first still takes precedence, and the auction jumps to that value. The only other time the price jumps up rapidly is if there is a reserve, when as soon as a bid is put in above the reserve, the price jumps to match the reserve.
• If there are no bids on an item don't be put off, some people don't want to be the first one for some reason, its your opinion that counts, likewise if others go bidding mad, don't allow it to change your opinion of the item. Sometimes the first bid in ends up being the bargain buy when others leave it too late. Remember first bid has precedence whenever two bids are equal.
• If you are outbid, having been the winning bidder, ebay will send you an email to tell you, but near the end of the sale, this may arrive too late. Email is nothing like as speedy as many people think.
• Some bidders use snipes to put in a bid at only a few seconds to go to the end of the sale, not giving you enough time to respond. This is allowed. People using snipes can only outbid you if you are bidding up each step yourself, and unless they have set their snipe above a proxy bid, the proxy bid either higher or equal will win. Information on sniping is below.

Don't

• Don't bid on items you don't want assuming someone else will bid more - its not a game
• Don't get caught up in the drama, and keep bidding to win and then regret it after, decide on your maximum price
• Don't bid more than you can raise, or use cash that you need for living on (or students your essential beer money)
• Don't ask us to do deals outside of ebay, cutting out ebay. (I will never do this, so don't ask me). Remember many sellers will think that if you would cheat ebay you would cheat them as well, and this all works with trust that has to be earned. 

After the auction

• Contact the seller and pay fast, this will get you a good rating on ebay, from feedback. if paying by paypall or some other on line means or by cheque,  don't forget the post and packing.
• Arrange to collect it if you choose this option, however sellers are not so concerned about you taking time to collect as they are taking time to pay. If you want to pay on collection and there is a delay look at paying a  deposit now, and the balance on collection, that way the seller knows he definitely has a sale, and not a silly person.
• Remember to leave a feedback on ebay, so others know the deal went through smoothly. Remember others can see your feedback about others as well as feedback on you (click in the number after a name and look at the items in small type under the stats box). Experienced users also know how to get at past bids, items sold and bought etc, so confidence in you is dependant on your own actions.
• Remember that anything you buy you can also sell, possibly for even more, and as you are only one step above the next bid below you others value it today nearly as much as you do.
• Having had a good experience go on to many more but make the maximum use of feedback and other information available.
• Ebay is a fantastic service, allowing you to buy and sell items smoothly and profitably. Discovering how to use it to your advantage is as good as a huge salary rise.

If you are not happy about something

• I have never had any problems with a buyer or seller, but if someone was not happy I would rather they told me and we could sort it out. 
• A few items I have bought were not quite as I had expected, but on reading the details again, they were explained correctly, it was just my vision of them that was wrong.
• Contact the buyer or seller and try to sort it out.
• If you cant agree suggest you undo the transaction seller loses ebay fees and buyer loses postage.
• Everyone wants a happy deal so start as positive as you can be
• Don't get into leaving negative feedbacks if at all you can help, the other person will do the same to you and may mess up other transactions for you. You don't have to leave any feedback at all if you are not happy with the transaction, otherwise you might respond saying it arrived fast but not mention the quality.

If you get suspended without explanation by ebay.

• Seems to happen to some people happened to use once so far. Read the explanation this if it effects you. 
• Don't take it personally
• Don't become dependent on ebay, if you get let down it won't then be so important to you.

If selling

• Look at what others are selling, prices raised and why some items sell for more
• Include photographs and a description, you know what it is others may not.
• Make sure you give all the information, ie how old, what is included, model etc
• Be aware that there are scams aimed at sellers as well as buyers.
• If you are going to close the auction early if you get a high offer say so, otherwise don't take out of auction offers.
• Allow several methods for buyers to pay
• Answer all enquiries promptly
• Once payments is received make sure you pack it well and get it posted promptly, ask buyers to complete a feedback when received so you know it arrived safely.
• Remember to complete a feedback on buyers, once they are happy with their purchase.

   

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Post and packing charges

When I first starting buying art, computer games and other smaller items on ebay, I could not see how the postage could ever be as much as I was being charged, for example £6 or £10.50 for a painting in a tube or £3.50, £5.50 or more for a small computer game. I like some others tended to try to cost the actual postage and packing material. What I came to realize having spoken to some about this and read the material on ebay on the subject is that the figure given for P&P also includes all other charges that the seller has encountered or is likely to, so Paypal and other similar fees and often ebay costs as well. The seller is therefore looking to get the amount bid at the end of the auction and for the buyer to cover all costs.

The practice tends to shift with larger items and some sellers use the same model while others expect to cover postage and packing, plus possibly a contribution towards other costs, but in wanting to get as much as possible for the item being sold are often willing or feel that they have to part subsidize these costs. 

It is in practice very difficult to guess what the postage will be for many items, without actually packing it up and taking it to a post office to weigh. So many times the postage cost advertised for  larger item although looking expensive will not actually cover the cost of the dispatch. With larger items although sometimes people have questioned the postage figure I have quoted,  I  find a third at least I have undercharged to the extent that I end up subsidizing the postage and getting no contribution towards packaging or any other costs.

In practice charging a sensible amount for package is not possible, for example it may take two people half and hour to package up a complex item and there is no way that you can charge out two professionals time at their normal billing rate to this task, or even an hour at say a  bus drivers hourly pay rate of £7.50 an hour. So in practice package is not not being rely charged for except where there is standard padded enveloped, postal tubes etc being used. 

So with larger items, where you take payment through Paypal have paid the ebay listing and final value fees, and spent time and thought as well as packaging materials, you will frequently find you barely cover the postage and maybe subsidizing the sale to the sum of hundreds of pounds. Therefore you need to be aware of all these cost, when considering the price you will accept, setting start or reserve prices and setting the P&P charge.

With smaller items where people are putting up  large number of items, not wanting to subsidize items and especially where they have started the bidding at a very low figure, calculating the individual figure for each item is difficult so the practice I have followed is the one others have used and explained to me, of setting an average figure, that over a larger number of items will average out. For most small items I have set this at £3.50 being the most common charge I have paid for small items and about the average cost. With some items for example thick books this does not cover the cost, but for smaller items like computer games, it does and over all, I think its currently just about the average actual cost. In practice if you can save and reuse some padded envelopes and other packaging this will also help you to stay within the amount you receive. 

When advertising anything for sale on ebay its a better practice to include a P&P figure whatever you consider it to be, than the policy some follow of saying they will tell people after the close of the auction, which could give grounds for disputes to arise. Similarly its a better practice to factor in Paypal and other charges than put it within the text and try to collect it after, as most people will pay the amount shown on ebay which is the bid price plus P&P and not remember to go and look at small print again.

When buying you always should look at the combination of your bid and the P&P (and other charges if specified), particularly when sniping in groups you will find that you have snipes set at range of different figures, to take into account the P&P set. You should always look at the P&P before you bid, you have no grounds to complain later if you bid and did not take this into account. People who complain about P&P charges where they are shown tend to get poor feedbacks and on ebay getting a constantly good feedback has to be your aim. 

Sniping

Sniping is allowed on ebay and other bidding systems. it involves putting in a bid just before the end of the auction and so close that others cannot get another bid in. However people using snipes can only outbid you if you are bidding up each step yourself, and unless they have set their snipe above a proxy bid, the proxy bid either higher or equal will win.

Unless you have a lot of experience, don't try to do this yourself as many times your bid will not arrive in time before the end of the sale. Instead subscribe to a sniping service, this charges you a small amount on wins and nothing for attempts and reports what has happened. You may get a number of free wins to allow you to get used to the service.

Sniping programs also allow you to set up snipes in advance and modify them up to a few seconds or minutes before they are placed. You can therefore change your mind and change the amount you want to bid or cancel it.

Snipping programs also may have bid groups, with this you say how many items you want to purchase and keep adding more snipe entries to the group, each bid is then placed until you have the number of items you specified. Useful if you want to search for bargain where a number of them are being sold in that you can set it up to snipe each of them until one wins. Some programs may also have other facilities to log purchases and sales, pulling formation from ebay. When using groups remember to look at the P&P charges on each item before placing your bid, rather than just entering a blanket price for all items, its the total cost that is of interest and sometimes the post and packing charges can vary considerably for the same items.

A small number of sellers don't like snipes, but most will realize that it also increase the number of bids, as a person may intend to come back and bid later but not get around to it, so automating their bid allows them to not forget to bid. If you are selling a number of identical or similar items its a good idea not to finish them all at the same time, as people using bid groups will only be able to enter one of them, so one item may then go far lower where the snipe may have first caused the price to rise on a proxy bid, although not winning but increase and win the second item.  As a seller you will get to spot that snipes often do not win, where people have researched the market and have set it the low side of a bargain, but cause the other proxy bids to go up so increase the sale value to you. As a seller I am delighted people do use snipes.

Code for your entry see below

I make a lot of use of a sniping service called Auction Sniper and suggest if sniping interests you, you may like to take a look, if you click on the logo to the left of this paragraph you can register and get a number of free snipe wins to get you going. but if you have been looking at something on my site to bid on please don't forget to come back and try out your snipes on these.  A Tip: Copy the ebay item number by selecting and right mouse button,  copy and paste in the number to the auction sniper box to make sure you don't make a mistake in typing the number, although it shows you the item selected so its easy to spot if you make a mistake.

Finally don't forget to put in your bid - this is the sure way not to win.

If you want to include an auction sniper button as above on your site, ebay page etc here is is the html code to do it.

<a href='http://www.auctionsniper.com/?how=videoarchitect' target='_blank'><img src='http://www.auctionsniper.com/images/button3.gif' border='0' alt='AuctionSniper.com - Bid at the last second, automatically'></a>