How to Buy for Cheap on eBay
Buying and selling on e-bay can save you money but also can cost you more money. It can make you money if you learn to understand the concept and bid with care. This article will give you some brief ideas on how to buy stuff for cheap on eBay.
Steps
- Learn to do productive searches for items of interest, with the right keyword terms.
- Search for whatever item you want to bid on
- Sort the items based on your preference (suggested by Price: Lowest First).
- Mark those items of interest to your watch list on your "My eBay" page.
- Actively watch the items of interest until the last 5-10 minutes of auction.
- Go to auction page and prepare proxy bid. Be cheap. Don't set proxy higher than you are willing to go. REMEMBER you will also pay shipping when you win the auction. Consider this as part of your total investment.
- As late as you dare, click bid.
- If you lose, try again on the next watched auction from the list.
- If you win, pay promptly to make the seller happy.
- Make sure you don't enter the wrong amount.
Tips
- Never overbid on an item there are a lot of same items listed. If there's another item identically priced, bid only a little on the first, and push them both up at the same rate, until you are the winning bidder.
- If you aren't available during the end of the auction, consider using a third-party bidder, such as eSnipe or PhantomBidder. These tools allow you to bid at the last minute so you can avoid getting into bidding wars. You will save a lot of time and effort when using those tools.
- Many auctions finish without any bids because the seller has made spelling mistakes in their auction eg Britanny Spears. These are potential bargains. Tools like Invisible-Auctions.com, Missing-Auctions.com or Typozay can help you find these auctions and save money.
- A great time to bid is during the summer or other holiday periods as many bidders are not in front of their computer so less competition. Make sure you are in front of the computer when the auction ends.
- Another good time is to look for auctions that are finishing early in morning or late at night.
- Bid odd values - eg $20.09 rather $20 - as most people bid in round numbers. You have a chance to win them with very little additional amount.
- If you are paying by PayPal - do a quick search in Google for Paypal codes. Often you can get sizable discounts on your final purchase cost or free postage.
- Watch out for postage. Many sellers compensate for low prices (and avoid fees!) by charging high postage. Look at the total amount instead (price + shipping).
- Look out for free or cheap listing days. There are usually a lot more auctions chasing the same amount of bidders in the week after these so great potential for bargains.
- REMEMBER: people will buy anything and every thing so if you think that something is outrageous chances are that people will want it somewhere.
- Check your account before you bid. Don't spend more than you've got.
Warnings
- Check your account before you bid. Don't spend more than you've got.
- Try to avoid using eSnipe because you could get banned by eBay if caught.
Related articles
- How to Buy Stuff for Cheap on eBay - wikiHow - wikiHow article about How to Buy Stuff for Cheap on eBay.
- How to Buy Cheap on eBay - How To Buy Cheap on eBay. eBay has been used to sell everything from a grain of breakfast cereal to a private executive jet.
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Wow, I didn't knew this, cheers.