Save Money When You Use eBay
eBay is a great place to save money on stuff you buy. Many items are priced far below your local prices, but that doesn’t mean you can’t overpay.
The range of goods is beyond understanding. Anything from razor blades to trucks. For cellphone accessories, a $30 item in the stores may cost you $3 on eBay. There are a few things they won’t accept like firearms, porn, counterfeits, etc. You don’t need anything to search and check it out.
Most important, it’s easy to learn what everybody else ends up paying for an item.
Next to eBay’s “Search” button is a link named “Advanced Search” — click it.
Type in the name of the item you’re looking for, then check the box just below it marked Completed listings only and press the Search button.
You’ll see completed auctions and the price they finally sold at. Sort them from low to high price and you’ll see the lowest price anyone has paid recently. Sort high to low and you’ll get an idea of the range people are willing to spend. There’s not much sense in paying more unless it’s a rare item.
Also note the time of day these auctions ended. They’re in Pacific Time, so you’ll have to adjust for your time zone.
You may find that the highest prices were around 5 PM Eastern Time as folks want to do whatever it takes to win before they leave work, or around 1:30 PM as they check out auctions after lunch. Auctions ending at 3 AM can end up pretty cheap.
But you probably don’t want to wait up until 3 AM to outbid other people. If you’re feeling ambitious, depending on the item, you might want to use an Auction Sniper tool. This is a website that automatically places your highest bid for you just seconds before the auction ends.
If someone bids more, you’re not tempted to go over your budget, because it’s over. If the price is lower, your competitors won’t have time to get into a bidding war with you, because it’s over. Some Sniper tools will give you a few free snipes to tempt you to buy more. Just Google auction sniper to find them. They’ll need your eBay ID and password, since they’ll be placing bids on your behalf.
You should never tell anyone your PayPal password. Period. You don’t need to worry about someone placing eBay bids for you, but PayPal is for money.
Be sure and read all the details in an auction before you bid. The Advanced Search tool will also let you limit the open auctions you see. Check out all the filters and try them out.
