Being a Careful Shopper on Ebay

Maybe I do qualify as a seasoned Ebay shopper by now being that my feedback score reflects that I have purchased goods from over 200 odd separate sellers and have been there since 2002.
Yes; I have heard it said that you can buy anything on Ebay and I recently found out that you can even buy a Death Penalty (right click here).
Allow me to provide here the benefit of some of the wisdom I have gained about being an Ebay shopper.
There are certain goods I would never purchase on Ebay, particularly electronic or white-goods and large items on which I like an easily accessible warranty and as a rule I avoid purchasing large items. Though that having been said I did recently purchase a whole lot of my recently deceased father's furniture but this is entirely another story which one of my sisters even made a youtube movie about.

When I first joined Ebay I did get into the 'thrill if the chase' and ended up paying more than perhaps I should have done for more than a few articles.
To avoid doing this you need to evaluate the true value of the item you are fancying.

Things I have bought over the years include clothes, books, DVD's, compost toilets, plastic foldable radioactive keyboards, children's toys, books and clothing, jewelry, pottery, kitchen goods, an h20 mop, a garden shower, garden accessories, original artwork, posters, clocks, perfumes and toiletries, essential oils, manchester goods, my recently deceased father's furniture, lamps, shoelaces and a tarot reading. I'm sure there are others that I cannot recall right at this moment.
Moderately varied I'd say.
In fact Ebay is often my first stop shopping research experience as I actually hate, loathe and detest the whole shopping experience out in the 'real' world and have little tolerance for browsing endlessly around shops. I'd much rather research to decide what and where I want to buy anything from the relative safety and ease of my own computer; excepting food items.
There have been few items I have been unhappy with despite buying many clothes and even original artwork.
Ebay has been good for me as many, many things are far more expensive in Australia than in the USA or UK and I buy a lot of clothing from the USA as it is so very much cheaper than here in Aus and there is much, much more choice. In fact people often stop me on the streets to ask me where I get my clothes from. And clothing in Australia doesn't cater for real cold so I have bought much cold weather clothing from Canadian Ebay shops.

Now I figure that Ebay sellers do not have the expenses of running a shop; paying rent, paying employees, having a business phone and the many more expenses of keeping a 'real' shop open and that as such they should be prepared to sell items for not very much above a wholesale price.
And another important factor to consider and add into the cost of an item is, of course the shipping, handling and postage charges. I also figure that the postal services are the biggest real winners in this Internet shopping equation and that the postal and handling charges should be taken into consideration when deciding the overall cost of an item and deciding on your maximum bid.
The postal services have become the de-facto landlords when it comes to Internet shopping; they have won business that once belonged to the landlords who rented retailers shop space and who have now so often been kicked out of the shopping equation.
I have also reported a few sellers for outrageous and exploitative postal charging.

I researched and looked into 'real' postal charges and now, instead of asking a seller how much they might ship an item to me for I will instead ask them if they would mind putting the item/s into such and such a package for which I also quote the price. I do this even when they have advertised a much higher charge.
Many sellers try to rip off buyers or provide themselves with an illegitimate edge with their high and unjustifiable postal charges.
And I suspect that buyers may often ignore these charges instead focusing only on the item cost. Do this at your peril is my advice.
So before buying something on Ebay I also suggest that you do your research and find out what the RRP (recommended retail price) for the item is, then subtract from that the postal and handling charges before deciding on your maximum bid. And, like I mentioned earlier I believe that most Ebay sellers should be charging not much above wholesale price as they do not have the costs associated with keeping a shop open and, as long as you stick to your guns you should be ensured of either actually getting a bargain or at least purchasing something at a reasonable price.

Ebay is an interesting place. And I think it is a bit of a myth that you're guaranteed to find a bargain. In fact I find that the opposite very often occurs. Which is why I believe it is so important to know your price and stick to it by setting a maximum bid and not being upset if you don't win this time around.
In fact these days I am often inclined to find a good 'buy it now' price as this way you don't have to hang around and become entangled into the bidding system.

In my time on Ebay I haven't scored many items I would call a real bargain. Many, many used items sell for almost as much, or even more as the new item price.
This brings me round to another of my Ebay rules; I never wish to pay more than 50% of new item cost on a secondhand item. DVD's are something I happen to buy a lot of being that they are way, way cheaper in the USA and UK than in Australia and I have noticed that people will often spend the same price on used items (or even more would you believe) than for the brand new item.
The same happens with books also.
Sellers of DVD's are particularly prone to postal charge scamming so watch out for this very carefully and it is with these sellers that I often use the benefit of my postal research and ask them direct if they will ship for a cost that more accurately reflects true postal charges. If they won't I look elsewhere.
Such sellers make their items appear to be a bargain by displaying a low, list price 'buy it now' price as they are relying on making moderate profits from postal charges and I do my best to counter their practices. I now never do business most of them unless they are prepared to charge something very close to the actual postage and shipping cost.

There are however 2 strategies that I know of that can yield you a bargain.
The first involves misspelling what you are looking for. Try a few spelling variations.
The second involves buying from sellers in China, or other obscure places that charge completely over the top postal charges and start their bids at one cent. Such a strategy does bring them up in first place if your menu is set to see the cheapest price first but I've found that recently Ebay buyers are becoming more postal aware and savvy and that, as such this strategy might not be paying off for these sellers. You can often buy something for one cent so if you consider the item plus the postal charge to be a great price then you might well find a bargain and I have bought a number of items this way for very good prices. Ebay Buyers tend now not to bid very often on these sellers items so if you visit a couple of hours before the end time to can often find a bargain.

There are also certain items that I have noticed fetch extremely good prices and perhaps for a very good price I will sell you my secrets. These items regularly fetch prices up to quadruple retail prices but nonetheless such sellers dispensing them are kept very busy.
So, contrary to belief I do not think or find Ebay to be a particularly good place to find bargains. In fact I am somewhat Ebay jaded these days and find now that often there are other sites where you can get much better prices.
And perhaps Ebay management has realized this too as I read somewhere recently when I was surfing around that Ebay Management are now intending to concentrate more on the dispensing of advertising links.

PS - the radioactive foldable keyboard was not advertised as being radioactive. It is luminous and came from Hong Kong (for a great price) and the compost toilet from Canada was still a bargain even after the moderately high postal charges due to its size.

Keep posted.