Which brings me to the next important point: Price isn’t the only thing to consider when buying on eBay.
Know the seller
We don’t just want the lowest prices; we want Best quality item at the lowest price. Sorry, I realize that photos are not a good indicator of product quality. I’ve bought many items with terrible pictures that turned out to be in great condition, and I’ve bought things with great pictures that turned out to be junk. (I returned them.)
A much better metric for assessing the quality of an item is the seller’s feedback rating. A good salesperson—who is more likely to sell a high-quality item in good condition—will have a response rate of 99.8% or higher. I very rarely buy from a seller with a response rate of 99.6% or less.
That leaves a gray area—solders at 99.7 percent. In those cases, click the “detailed feedback” link and read through the recent feedback. There can only be one negative review and that was a few months ago. Everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes low ratings come from things that aren’t really the seller’s fault, such as a lost package in the mail, so it’s a good idea to read through actual reviews and see what happens. what is happening. If the seller has a rating of 99.6 or less, I personally don’t care what the price is. I don’t pay the price.
I bought dozens of laptops, phones, cameras, camera lenses, cast iron cookware, music equipment, and even prepaid cell phone packages from auction sites. During that time, I only got scammed once, but then I still got my money back. I didn’t get the item I was after, but I didn’t lose anything either.
That said, it probably needs repetition: If a deal sounds too good to be true, it’s true.
How to bid
Once you’ve found the item you want and you know how much you want to pay, it’s time… to wait. I strongly recommend only bidding at the last second. And I mean almost literally. I only bid when there are about 5 to 10 seconds left. I wait until the auction is over, then I look it up on my phone, because I think eBay’s app has a better interface for placing actual bids (it sucks to browse) and in Those last few seconds, I enter the maximum amount I might be willing to pay.
You don’t bid earlier because you don’t want to give your competitors a chance to react. If you outbid someone days or even hours before the auction ends, they will try to outbid you. My guess is that they will come back and outbid you even if you push them beyond their original maximum bid. You don’t want to give others time to have an emotional experience when bidding on eBay. Only auctioneers want to entice bidders into auction fever. We wish they never saw us coming.
Once you’re down to the last 20 seconds or so, enter your maximum bid. At that point, a sort of automatic bidding war begins. This isn’t emotional, though. It’s rigid, machine-based logic.
