Purchasing Foo On Ebay - Some Tips

[FooZealand]

Ive seen couple of posts from people about having lost items or still waiting on items to arrive etc, and naturally people can be concerned if they are starting out to try and make sure they dont get ripped off.

I have an Ebay feedback rating of over 2000, and have been using the site for over ten years. So I thought I would put together a few brief pointers for you all.

1) Even if you normally shop on the EBay site for your area (say .com.au for Australia, or .co.uk for the UK) you can still log in and make purchases on Ebay.com. And you should. Ebay changes there first, and on other sites later. The biggest bonus about Ebay.com is that as a buyer ALL your purchases are now 100% guaranteed by Ebay. You CANT get ripped off.

They cover the purchase price plus your postage. When you have paid by Paypal you have 45 days to make a claim against a seller. Claims can be for item not being as described, or just simply not arriving. It doesnt matterm Ebay is 100% on the buyers side. As a seller you would think this totally sucks, but in fact since 99% of Ebayers are honest, it only sucks if you are a seller trying to scam people, because it no longer works - you get closed down super quick now.

Within 45 days you need to go to the EBay Dispute Resolution center and lodge a dispute. The fastest way to do this is from your "My Ebay" page under your "Won items list". In fact now if you havent posted feedback on an item yet, and it is getting close to the 45 day limit, EBay themselves put a reminder under the item listing in your won items and ask you if there is any problem and remind you to do something about it if there is.

2) Always check a sellers feedback. It isnt as important as it used to be - but its still amazing how many people will chase a bargain even if its from someone others often clearly werent happy with.

3) NEVER ever under any circumstances pay with anything but Paypal. The Ebay Buyer protection cover disappears instantly.

4) Shop around and SEARCH. Even if you want that item NOW. Search for it first and see whats available, there might be a better one or a cheaper one. And dont JUST search on Ebay.com Search on Ebay.com.au and Ebay.co.uk as well. Often you will find items you never saw on the other site, because the seller has listed them locally only.

5) Which leads to the next tip - HAGGLE. Send a friendly message to the seller that hasnt indicated postage, or hasnt said they will ship internationally, or hasnt sold that cool item for 5 weeks. ASK them if they sill ship, will combine shipping, or will take $XYZ as a purchase price. Its surprising how often a seller will say "Yes ok".

6) Set up searches for the items you most want - get Ebay to send you emails on those items - no manual searching required, they arrive every day in your inbox.

[Felipe.]

wow, thank you SO MUCH for that!
as a newly started collector and eBayer, I'm always looking for help topics and checking stuff I'm not familiar with, so it is incredibly useful to have tips from a veteran eBayer and foo collector.

since eBay is the channel of choice of most foo collectors around here, maybe this thread deserves a sitcky, right? here's an open request to Jill then, hope she finds it just.

[Dr Nick Riviera]

Step No.5 is very useful and yes the seller will often take your offer!

[fighterboy]

thanks for tip 6 I didn't you were able to do that, I have never had any issue when buying from ebay

[longever]

It's allready said but NEVER BUY from someone with 0% feedback.
I thought to get a good deal but it was to good to be true.
It was a timewaster and a storyteller. Getting my money back through paypal but still it's not worth all the hassle.

[Felipe.]

did anyone on the board bid on a recent auction for the 2-part everlong UK single?

I just lost that one even though I was the highest bidder 8 seconds from getting closed, which leads me to the question I looked this thread for: did I do something wrong? I was actually outbid at 8s from closing and placed a higher one and got the "you're the highest bidder" but then it ended and I got the "you just lost the auction".

it was frustrating because it went out for a very good price...

[cjlocke]

Originally Posted by MADNESS

did anyone on the board bid on a recent auction for the 2-part everlong UK single?

I just lost that one even though I was the highest bidder 8 seconds from getting closed, which leads me to the question I looked this thread for: did I do something wrong? I was actually outbid at 8s from closing and placed a higher one and got the "you're the highest bidder" but then it ended and I got the "you just lost the auction".

it was frustrating because it went out for a very good price...

I did, but I was outbid just like you were(((

[FooZealand]

Originally Posted by MADNESS

did anyone on the board bid on a recent auction for the 2-part everlong UK single?

I just lost that one even though I was the highest bidder 8 seconds from getting closed, which leads me to the question I looked this thread for: did I do something wrong? I was actually outbid at 8s from closing and placed a higher one and got the "you're the highest bidder" but then it ended and I got the "you just lost the auction".

it was frustrating because it went out for a very good price...

Don't ever consider an Ebay auction to be a real auction. A real auctioneer will let the bids roll on until nobody is prepared to pay any more. Our auction site here in NZ does the same thing, but Ebay doesn't.

An Ebay auction has an end time - the one that bids the highest MAXIMUM bid at that end time wins.

You want X and it has a start price of $1.00. Someone bids that and you bid $10 say. You lead the auction now at probably $1.25.

3 seconds from the end I bid $10.01.

I win - i bid more than your maximum.

If it was already $10, I'd have to bid the minimum increment which would probably be 50 cents at that point - ie $10.50 minimum. (and that increment increases as the value goes up).

So in your auction while you were adding higher bids so were one or two other people.

Ebay told you yes at one point you were leading, but it can be for only a fraction of a second. Nothings certain until it's all over.

So what should you do? I'll dig out a real super tip here... don't share this shit anywhere else lol

You really want an item? DON'T bid on it.

Save it to your watch list. Note the time it finishes. MAKE yourself get up at 3am in the morning if that's what it takes to be online when the auction closes. (Yeah like in NZ its ever NOT at 3am ha). Open a browser, log in to Ebay, open the item up within one hour from the closing time. The Ebay countdown timer starts in red. Leave that window running. Open another window for the same item. Enter your REAL maximum bid - what you are prepared to pay if you had to. Dont fuck about on this, you're only going to get one shot. Confirm the first part of the bidding process so it's sitting awaiting a final confirmation. Move that window (if you want to) so the confirmation button is exactly where you know it will be. Swap back to the first browser window. Watch and wait as the clock ticks down, Ebay now refreshes that window if the bids change- you don't have to (like you used to). If the bid goes over your maximum you can just bail out and not bid. Or you can go to the 2nd window and reset your maximum bid. Sensible people will let th other bidder have it, but we all get stupid sometimes lol. When you get to 10 seconds, if you have a fast connection wait 1 or 2 seconds more, change windows and click the confirm button. Sit back and see what happens

In your example it went for a good price, You didn't bid high enough and someone set a maximum that was LOWER than what you were really prepared to pay. This was your mistake. Ebay does NOT automatically bid at your whole maximum, only at the next increment higher than the current MAXIMUM bid of someone else.

But even with that said, you don't want to boldly bid high up front, you give another bugger the chance to see what your max is earlier and say yeah OK I will bid higher than that. A bid with 6 seconds to go gives them no time to decide that - you win, done deal.

[longever]

Thats the way i do it also hahaha nice thread Foozealand.

Sometimes i bid just to see how much the other bidders has.But never go crazy on bidding. Make your max price and stay at it, if its a commen item.
If it's something really rare, do what ever you want

[FooZealand]

Originally Posted by longever

Thats the way i do it also hahaha nice thread Foozealand.

Sometimes i bid just to see how much the other bidders has.But never go crazy on bidding. Make your max price and stay at it, if its a commen item.
If it's something really rare, do what ever you want

Yeah - if you see two bids but the bid hasn't changed or is still at the lowest it can be, open the bidder window. You'll see it is the same bidder bidding a second (or more) higher bid. Sometimes its good to have a bit of a push on those to see what they might have bid; If you go over their bid but you are still well under what your max is then its cool, but otherwise you're just basically being a bastard! But I've don't it once or twice I have to admit

[Richy]

Thanks for this, I'm thinking of starting my own collection and this will help me alot when I come to start

[Captain Beyond]

Originally Posted by Richy

Thanks for this, I'm thinking of starting my own collection and this will help me alot when I come to start

If you do start one, welcome to the family