I am doomed. Utterly doomed.

[gerisullivan]

I just became a registered eBay user. It's my first time. Yes, of course I did so to bid on something. It's a very low-cost item. Yeah, right.

I am doomed.

I am not, however, going to increase my bid. Either I'll get it or I won't.

It's not even what I went looking for.

Of course it isn't.

Doomed. Doomed. Doomed.

I am suspiciously cheerful and confident for someone who has successfully avoided this fate for the last decade and more.

Film at 11. In the meantime, advice for an eBay neo would be very welcome. What mistakes should I endeavor to avoid? Well, beside the mistake of registering in the first place?

Comments

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I am amazed that you've never previously been on eBay, given eBay's origins as a PEZ trading network.

Mistakes to avoid:

Paying more for something than it's worth to you.

Failing to spot excessive postage or mandatory insurance charges, so you end up paying more than the thing is worth to you.

Not reading descriptions carefully so the thing you buy isn't what you thought you were getting (I'm not talking about scams here, just about things that turn out to be less cool than they looked in the auction).

Buying from scammers, especially if you're buying high-end electronics or computers (though I should say I have bought two Mac laptops and a Nintendo DS on eBay without trouble).

And if you're selling:

Failing to pay attention to the cost of postage so you don't charge as much as it costs you to pack and post.

Selling something for 99p that takes you half an hour to pack up!

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

For years (and years), I've been saying that not having an eBay account has saved me thousands of dollars. Tens of thousands by this point, most likely. I've watched auctions now and again, and searched for desired items. I was bummed when eBay changed things around so only registered users could search completed auctions -- I find that information to be very useful!

Yes, I've of course followed eBay prices on PEZ dispensers. I even have the special eBay dispensers PEZ made a few years back, though not the glow-in-the-dark version that were only given to eBay employees. It was an exceptionally clever employee premium -- it not only commemorated eBay's history, it gave employees something they could easily auction off on eBay -- then or later -- most recently, one sold for $41.

Thanks for all of the tips! Very useful.

[drplokta]

Always bid the most you're prepared to pay. That way, you don't need to worry about being outbid at the last minute and not having time to make a counterbid. Of course, it can be hard to work out what is the most you're prepared to pay.

Be sure to check the accepted payment methods, just in case the vendor will only accept drafts on the Bank of Caracas or something.

Remember to account for delivery costs, which can be much higher than the actual cost of shipping.

[madfilkentist]

There was a short period when I was out of work and selling some stuff on eBay to have at least a little income.

On the whole it went well, but I learned that eBay doesn't give much protection against buyers who ignore the rules. There was an item I was selling, a set of stamps worth just a dollar or two. I offered it postpaid, restricted to the US since any significant amount of postage would eat up the income from the sale. Someone from Korea bid on it anyway, and won the auction. An envelope arrived with a couple of US bills. I sent the whole thing back. The bidder acknowledged having received the return, but put a negative feedback point on my account anyway just to spite me.

A bidder like this can wreck the auction of your item and hurt your standing. As far as I can tell, there's no protection against this. My experience is a few years old, so this may have changed.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

You can comment on their feedback.

[jolest.livejournal.com]

I haven't sold anything on eBay (yet), but I was under the impression that a seller can refuse to accept bids for various reasons as long as they clearly note their reasons in advance in their ad.

Assuming this is correct, you could have included a note "Non-US bids will be rejected." in your auction and then rejected the bid from the person in Korea. That way, they couldn't have given you a negative feedback...

Avoid

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Buying software like the plague.

Check the ratings, and don't believe all you read.

Re: Avoid

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Good reminder on the software front. I've never been the sort to believe any of the incredible software deals (i.e., spam) that keep showing up in my inbox and various places across the web.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I think they've just about covered it--and I too am amazed that you hadn't used eBay before!

The shipping is a huge issue. Never bid on something that doesn't tell how much the shipping is. And check the shipping--always, always, always--before you bid. Some sellers start their auction very low but have grossly inflated shipping charges, because they don't have to pay eBay fees on the shipping charges!

And I'm with drplotka on "bid your max and walk away."

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

I understand that eBay has actually started cracking down on the inflated-shipping-cost people -- I know somebody who vends who was requested by eBay to prove the weight of the item she was selling!

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I passed on a second auction for the item I wanted because the shipping was $10 rather than $3.99. Surprisingly enough, the rocket bottle opener I bid on ended up going for $29.01 when 5 or 6 other auctions in the previous week had topped out at something like $12.50 with most being in the $11-12 range and one being down around $6.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

What mistakes should I endeavor to avoid?

Even if something looks like a really, really good deal, double-check it both on eBay and via Google to make sure that others aren't offering the really good deal for the same money.

Oh, and always avoid thinking, "Well, I could maybe use that some time down the road." That's how I ended up with 500 miniature sewing kits...

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

500 miniature sewing kits...now there's an interesting convention registration packet giveaway! Perhaps at CostumeCon....

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

What everybody else said, but I will add:

-- Be sure the vendor takes your preferred method of payment before you bid.

-- If it's something you wouldn't normally buy without trying it on or touching it in some way, eBay is probably not the right venue to buy it in.

-- Don't FORGET what you've been bidding on. Make a note on the calendar about an auction being done on that day. And don't forget to leave feedback.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

I was very surprised when Jack WINOLJ started buying carnival glass on eBay exactly because that's the sort of thing I would want to see for myself, touch, and hold. He made a few newbie mistakes along the way, but most of those were as a new collector rather than as a new eBay user. During the years since -- over a decade now -- he's had hundreds of good experiences and only a few bad ones.

Fingers crossed that I'm as fortunate...and that I don't get so far into it that I have hundreds of auctions under my belt by the time another decade rolls by!

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I've completed nearly 2,000 eBay auctions, and I have to say the best thing I ever did is use a sniping service. This let's me bid my max and walk away, but never get into a bidding war with someone who wants something as much as I do and has days and days to bid to price up.

No doubt there will be follow-on comments from people who say that sniping isn't fair. They are wrong.

K.

[casacorona.livejournal.com]

I don't like snipers, but I don't think it's unfair. My style is to be the first bidder, and put in my max bid. That gives me a good position to win the item, against the slow bidder, and against the snipers.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I think sniping is fair, and since I bid my max to start with, sniping means someone else thinks it's worth more than I do, and they can have it.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

I think sniping is perfectly fair, but doesn't get you anything.

If I'm willing to pay $100 and bid $100 early, and you snipe with a $125 limit, you'll get it for $101 (or $102.50, whatever the increment is) just as if you'd bid $125 early. If you snipe with a $99 limit, you won't get it, just as if you'd bid $99 early.

The only time sniping can help you is if you bid $125 early and I didn't bid my honest maximum, so I go up to $130, which I wouldn't have had time to do if you'd sniped.

What other benefit do you see from sniping?

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Sniping's part of the game, but I wish eBay had a feature that automatically extended auctions for a minute after the last bid. That would kill sniping stone dead, and improve outcomes for sellers -- of course, at the expense of knowing exactly when your auction would end.

[casacorona.livejournal.com]

That's nearly all of it. Always check the seller's feedback before bidding. Always leave accurate feedback of your own.

Bid what you're prepared to pay, and walk away. Never just bid on something because it looks interesting: you might just win it, and there you are. Don't be afraid to buy from someone who has very little seller feedback, if they've been buying for a long time and have great feedback for that.

There are great sellers, and there are scam artists. I've been burned once, and had many very good experiences. I use Ebay when I find myself saying "gee, I wish I could get XX, but I don't know where to find it."

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

I ended up with an eBay account because I suddenly realized that the mechanical bank I want was quite likely on eBay. While I was searching for it, I stumbled across an auction ending in 9 hours for a really cool rocket-shaped bottle opener. There wasn't enough time to ask experienced-eBay-user Jack to bid for me. Besides, he'd successfully done so just last week -- asking again so soon was more of an imposition than I was inclined to pursue.

The bottle opener ended up going for 2.5 times more than the most expensive of the other 6 of the same thing that have sold in the last week or two. A couple of people wanted that thing a lot more than I did!

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Everybody's offering good advice. I'll just say, "Never want any one thing too much." Don't pay more than what would be a nice deal, and otherwise be prepared to do without the item. Another one might come along at any time, or be offered already at a 'buy it now' price. (Yeah, for this I had my picture in Newsweek...)

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

That's excellent advice, Kip. Thank you!

[sraun]

Always check what the item is going for! The number of times I've seen used currently available items going for more than it would cost to buy the same item new from a web vendor is astonishing!

Auction Theory

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

You can demonsrate that, if the market is sufficiently fluid, auctions will never be won by people who know the items' true values.

B

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

The first time I bid on something on Ebay, I naively bid the max I wanted to pay, and figured I'd get it or I wouldn't (and I naively bet an even dollar amount, too). Then, I discovered that the standard way things are sold on Ebay is as follows: naive people bid the max they want to pay. Between 3 - 5 minutes before the auction is about to end, experienced Ebay buyers start sitting on the item and take it away from the naive bidders by figuring out how much the max is and adding $1 or something similar.

I railed against this practice but it's so common that I've given up complaining about it. I now wait until near the end of an auction, put in my price, and keep updating to see whether the price is increasing. If so, I might go an extra few dollars if I love it but as everyone else said, be careful of being caught up. However, I also hate to see people lose an item when a tiny bit more at the last minute might secure it because unfortunately that's how the game is played.

I echo other caveats about shipping charges, checking the going price for items elsewhere, and reviewing feedback. I've only been burned once on Ebay and have bought many, many nifty things -- and sold some excess stuff for bucks -- have fun!

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

But that means you didn't bid your max to start with.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I bought some books from ebay back in about 1999. I was disappointed and I've never been back.