You can find almost any tangible thing you want at the mammoth online auction venue known as eBay. If you have been curious but hesitant, hesitate no more - a few simple precautions will make your shopping experience successful and fun.
FINDING WHAT YOU WANT: BROWSING and SEARCHING
There are two ways to locate what you're interested in on eBay; browsing a specific category, and searching for particular items. Browsing is called for if you don't know what you want but just want to see what's out there. If you're curious to see what clothing is available in your size, you would go to the main 'buy' page (click the 'buy' button on the top of any eBay page), and select 'clothing, shoes & accessories', then drill down the category hierarchy to your interests, say 'women's clothing - plus sizes'. You can go further into specific item-level categories, such as 'pants', 'skirts', and so on, or stay at a higher level and then look at items sorted by 'ending soonest', 'newly listed', 'lowest cost; and so on.
If you have a specific item in mind, you would search rather than browse. Do this buy typing search terms in the 'search' box at the top of each eBay page. If you want to replace your medium Weekenders burgundy swing coat, type 'Weekenders swing coat' into the search box and it will return all items with those terms in the title. I leave off 'medium' because sellers might abbreviate to 'M' or 'med' and you don't want to miss those; I also leave off 'burgundy' because different designers use different names for colors; last year's 'burgundy' may be this year's 'claret' or 'merlot'.
If you're looking for a hard-to-find collectible, you can enter a search and then save it. Say you need a pair of Town and Country salt and peppers from Redwing Pottery to complete your collection. (Warning - these will cost you!) First search for 'town country redwing' to find out what is out there; you'll discover that the sellers usually list the shakers using the term 'schmoo' (they look like the schmoos from the Li'l Abner comic strip). So you might search on 'redwing town country schmoo shaker', then save the search. Then whenever a seller lists an item that matches your search terms, you'll receive an email with a link to the item.
COMPARISON SHOPPING
Perhaps you find several sellers offering the same item. How do you pick the one you want to buy? It's not enough to just bid on the one with the lowest price - you have to look at several factors.
First look at the shipping costs; these can vary widely from seller to seller. Since eBay is a world-spanning enterprise, you may find the item with the cheapest price is coming from China, with a $45.00 shipping cost! Even within the US, prices on the same item can vary as much as 100% from lowest to highest. (This doesn't even include those shipping costs that are clear 'fee avoidance' ploys - the DVD player that lists for $1.00 with a $50.00 shipping cost. These listings are an attempt to avoid eBay fees which are charged to the seller based on the final auction price, and are against eBay's terms of service. Do not bid on these; when brought to eBay's attention, these auctions suddenly vanish.) Sellers are, within reason, allowed to set their own shipping/handling charges; if you see one is charging more than another, don't bother emailing them to tell them so. People don't appreciate being told how to run their business, and you can't know what goes into their calculations of shipping costs. They may be a rural seller who has to pay extra for postal pickup, or the seller charging less may be underestimating what it is really going to cost them to send the item.
Read the item description carefully. If it's new, the seller will say so. If they don't say so, it's probably 'gently used'. Terms to look for: NIB - New In-Box. MIB - Mint In Box (for older items like collectible toys that are still in their original packaging). NWT - New With Tags (for new clothing). Ethical sellers will list all visible flaws in the items they sell; chips in glass and pottery items, snags or 'pills' on clothing, and so on.
CHECKING OUT THE SELLER
Once you've located an item you would like to buy, check out the seller by looking at their feedback. The number in parenthesis by their eBay ID is their combined score; this is all unique positive feedback minus all negative feedback. This doesn't tell you the whole picture, however; clicking on the number will send you to their feedback page, where you can see what other buyers have said about them.
If you're looking into a more expensive purchase such as high-end electronics, make sure your seller has recent positive feedback selling the same type of item. If all their feedback is as a buyer, or as a seller of lower-cost items, be wary. Some scammers set up eBay accounts and buy a lot of low cost items to get a good feedback score prior to listing a lot of expensive items they don't actually have. You can protect yourself here by paying with PayPal, eBay's online payment service, which will allow you to get a charge-back if a paid-for item doesn't arrive within a set period.
Does recent negative feedback mean not to trust the seller? Not at all - very few sellers have a 100% positive feedback rating. It's virtually impossible to make hundreds of flawless transactions a year, and there are buyers out there who are either mischief-prone or impossible to please. If a buyer with a feedback score in the double-digits leaves a negative for a seller with a feedback in the thousands, this is usually a case of a new eBayer who either didn't read the description and wants a refund, or didn't understand what they were bidding on in the first place. Some buyers will claim an item arrived broken; most sellers will only refund if the buyer ships the broken item back to them. A buyer who wants their money back without sending back the supposedly damaged item is someone who is trying to scam the seller; these buyers will usually leave a negative feedback when refused. Check the buyer's feedback page and click on 'feedback left for others' and you may find they have a pattern of leaving negatives; distrust the feedback they left for this seller.
BIDDING VERSUS BUYING:
Some sellers list items with a 'buy-it-now' (BIN) price either in addition to a bidding price or in place of it. This means that if you place the BIN price, the auction immediately ends and you have won the item. If there are two amounts, a BIN and an opening bid price, the opening bid is less than the BIN price, usually by a few dollars, sometimes as much as half the BIN price.
So why would you pay more than opening bid? Several reasons: if the auction still has days to go and you're in a hurry, BIN ends the auction at once and gets the item on its way to you sooner. And often, if you place an opening bid, other buyers will out-bid you - the final auction value may wind up being higher than the BIN price.
If you find the item you want at auction and there is no BIN price listed, place a bid for it equal to the maximum you would be willing to pay for the item. This is a 'proxy bid'; your bid will be recorded as either the opening bid if you're the first bidder, or as one bid-increment over the current highest bid. If you are bid against later, the system will bid for you up to your maximum listed. The smart way to bid on eBay is to set a maximum proxy and then don't look at the auction again until after it closes. Few people have the willpower to do this. It's too tempting to watch the auction in progress and if your proxy is overbid, raise your maximum again. This is a very good way to pay too much for something. Keep in mind that once you've bid on something, if you win the auction you are obligated to buy it. Don't get carried away with bidding on that particular item if someone else wants it as well - if you lose this one, chances are another one is already listed or will be listed that you can get for less.
COMPLETING THE SALE
So you bid or BIN an item and now you've won. The seller will send you an invoice that includes your total cost, including shipping and handling, and information on how to pay them. Some sellers won't accept personal checks, for instance, only money orders. This information should have been in the auction write-up, so you shouldn't be surprised. (If the payment information isn't in the auction description, email the seller before bidding; it's annoying to find out after you've won something that you have to make a special trip to purchase a money order to pay for it.)
Most sellers now accept PayPal. This online-payment plan is free to the buyer (the seller pays a small fee to accept funds this way) and secure. When you send a PayPal payment, PayPal charges your credit card (or debits your account), and then credits the amount into the seller's account. This keeps your credit information secure - you don't have to broadcast your account information to multiple sellers, just PayPal. It's also instantaneous, which is great for expediting your transaction. Mailing payments adds a week or more to the process of getting your purchase.
Once you've paid, you just wait until your purchase shows up at your door. Delivery times can vary from seller to seller; some ship daily, some can only ship once or twice a week. So exercise some patience; it's annoying to the seller to get 'where is it?' emails two days after the auction closed. If your item hasn't arrived in a week or ten days after your payment was received, email the seller (not eBay) asking them when they shipped it, and if there is a delivery confirmation number. Some sellers use the Post Office online click'n'ship system which emails you when your item is shipped with a confirmation number, but not all do.
When you receive your purchase, make sure it's what you bid on (mix-ups can occur in the most organized office) and that it is as described in the auction write-up. If it is, give your seller positive feedback. Most sellers wait to receive your feedback to leave feedback for you - many auction-manager programs automate this. So don't send email asking for positive feedback immediately after paying; the transaction isn't complete until you've received your purchase.
If the item has a glaring flaw that wasn't mentioned in the write-up (a visible stain on clothing, for instance), contact the seller. Work with the seller first to resolve any issues you have with your purchase. They may offer you a partial discount, a full refund, or nothing at all. Only when your seller shows that they're unwilling to resolve your complaint should you leave negative feedback.
THINGS TO BEWARE OF
There are some dangers to shopping on eBay; the most notorious are the scamming sellers. These sellers set up accounts for the purpose of 'selling' phantom merchandise. Once they have fleeced enough buyers that the negative feedback is ruining their account, they move on to a new one. These sellers can also hijack quiescent accounts; if you look at a seller's feedback and there is positive feedback in the past, a lengthy gap and then mixed or mostly negative feedback, it's possible that the person registered to that account is not the person listing the auctions, and is unaware that their account is being used. Report accounts like this to eBay for investigation.
Another danger is reproductions being sold as authentic; this is a danger specifically in collectibles, such as pottery and glass. Many old Depression glass patterns, for example, now have modern reproductions being made in China. Some 'modern reproductions' can date from the seventies or earlier, so just because something belonged to the seller's mother-in-law is no guarantee that it is not reproduction. In most cases, the seller is unaware that they are offering reproductions; they may have found it in an estate auction and simply assumed it was genuine, or actually purchased it from another dealer who swore to its authenticity. Unless you are a collector yourself, and knowledgeable on authenticating items in your specialty, it's wisest to take all claims of authenticity with a grain of salt.
HAPPY TRADING
Buying on eBay can be fun, but be warned. It can also be highly addictive. Find what you're looking for, but check out the sellers, and don't bid more than you can afford and you'll be safe. Of course, if you blow the household budget on eBay purchases, you can always register as a seller and make some money to cover the deficits.
