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 Warning: This will get you hooked for Life

Ebay is my new favorite thing.  I cannot explain how good this is.  The world is at you fingertips.  On this page I will give you tips on what you can do when you want to buy or sell something.


  
Intro  Buyers  Sellers

First of all for all those sheltered people that don't know what ebay is I will give you a short summary.  Ebay is an auction house for individuals to buy and sell their products.  Buyers can get almost anything and sellers can sell almost everything (Ebay rules).  To show you the magnitude of people on Ebay, there are currently almost 4.5 million items for sale.  If you are knowledgeable on the "game" you can get very good deals or get very good profits.

  
Intro  Buyers  Sellers

Buyers

    For all those cheapskates looking for a good deal (including me)you have come to the right place.  Here I will show how to easily find the deal of your dreams and still have change to spare. I will warn you now this does take time and a little bit of luck but I guarantee that following these rules will greatly increase your chance at the deals.

General

1.  First of all, the number one rule in ebaying is be patient.  This is a must.  Sometimes you just have to wait it out. This leads me to my next rule.

2.  Don't bid early!!!  This just drives up the price and 99 out of 100 times you will be outbid.  If you really want the item, and you bid early you are just bidding against yourself.  I know someone out there is saying if they were going to bid over you what's the difference if it is now or later.  Yeah but hypothetically, if you let them bid early then you could just bid over them in the last second.  This is how you win.

3.  Always bookmark potential auctions and then put them in order by date.  This helps you keep track of what is ending and when.  Every day just check what auctions are ending and at what time.  If any of the Items are not too high by then, remember the times they end and schedule to be on the internet.  Also, just because you bookmark something doesn''t mean that you are going to buy it.  You never know what's going to be cheap.

What to look For

1.  Short descriptions.  An auction with a short description or a bad description will most always be cheaper than ones with good well thought out descriptions.  If the seller skimps on information, E-MAIL THEM!!  I have never had anyone not return my emails(not that this doesn't happen).  Ask every question you can think of. Some good general questions would be:

Are you the original owner?
how much has it been used?
How old is it?
Has it been in storage?
If yes what were the conditions of the storage?
is everything in working condition?
do any parts need to be replaced?
How are you qualified to answering these questions?
Is there any rust?
Is there any cosmetic damage?
Rate the cosmetics on a 1-10 scale 1 being the worst and 10 being the     best?
How much is shipping?
You get the picture.

2.  Another very good sign that something is going to be cheap is miscategorized auctions.  For instance someone putting a car in the Ham radio category.  These can be hard to find but they do happen, you just got to look for them.

3.  No picture.  What are they crazy?  Items without a picture are most always priced substantially lower than the same with a pic.  If they don't have a picture or there pictures don't work, email them.  Sometimes things got a little messed up with Ebay but they still have the pictures.

4.  Mispellings.  There are a lot of common mispellings to look for that allow for lower prices.  A pretty common one is lazer instead of laser.  When searching look for mispellings and also other ways to right things for example: Pentium 3, p3, PIII, Pentium III, p 3, PentiumIII, pent 3....



  
Intro  Buyers  Sellers

Sellers

Going once..... Going twice...... Three times....... Sold...... for 50 cents.  If you don't want this to happen I suggest you read this.  Before I sound like I know what I'm talking about, I want to tell you that I am not really an avid seller but merely a knowledgable buyer that figured it out.  I know plenty to tell you but remember that there are no guarentees.  On to the good stuff.

    Lets first start out by telling a few well known facts:
 Special items sell better than non special items
 People want good prices
 No one likes a Bad seller (misdescribes product or doesn't even send it)
 Once you start bidding its hard to stop
 Even though they might say otherwise, people like having there mind played with

These few facts will tell you most everything about selling.

1.  My first rule comes from fact number 1.  Make your item sound like it is ten time better than all the rest.  Give the most detailed description you can with plenty of good pictures.  Don't make the description in one long paragraph, use lists, bullets, graphics, and whatever else you can think of to make it visually appealing.  Keep in mind that not everybody has a T1 line so make everything compact.

2.  Always put your item in the correct category.  This is very important.  If you mess up than stop the auction and put it up again

3.  Make sure your pictures work and they are good.  Don't shoot a black item on a black background.  Use lots of light.  Make your pictures the clearest possible but not huge.  Take pictures of each feature.

4.  Put lots of keywords in your title and description.  Make the title very clear and if possible use alternate spellings.  In the description put lots of keywords.

5.  Please preserve Ebays rep.  Do not misuse it or deceive your bidders.  this reall really gets on my nerves and everybody elses.

5.  Personally I think the gallery is stupid.  There is such a small amount of items and I have never used it. I don't know maybe other people use it but it always seems like a ripoff.  But hey its only a quarter so its up to you.

Pay For Options

Ebay offers some great services that you can pay for to promote your item.  Some of these work and some don't.  Most of these are up to you but if you want my suggestions here they are.

Gallery - .25 - Mixed feelings but its only .25

Featured gallery - 19.95 - Don't know I never look at the gallery  good for higher priced items

Bold face -  2.00 - not a bad idea, I think it catches my attention, did it catch yours?

Category feature - 14.95 - might be worth it, another good one for medium priced items.

Home Feature - 99.95 - thats a lot of money so you better have a very good item or a large dutch auction.  For sure it gets more bids.

Great gift Icon - 1.00 - I think it is pretty annoying and dumb.

Some Other Tips

Some people think that saying something dumb in the title will get peoples attention.  One classic one is that this one seller says "My Wife Fainted When she saw this!!"  Personally I think its a little stupid but it does get to your curiosity.  Let me mention that if you were selling just one item it would be stupid because it would hardly ever come up on searches and no one would know what your talking about.  In this guys case, anybody thats on ebay a bit sees him and know what hes selling.


Good luck and may your ebay adventure be as fun as mine has.