Who knows of a greater e-commerce site than eBay? The site has over 147 million registered users from all over the world. Whether you are just starting out on eBay or have been using it for years, you should find the following tips for buying on eBay useful.

1 – Know what you are looking for.
You can waste a lot of time on eBay just browsing, especially if you don’t know what you are looking for. If you are not looking for a specific item, then is may be helpful to make a list of “searchable” items instead.

2 – Browse like a pro.
On the eBay site, items are sorted into thousands of categories and sub-categories. If you want to speed up you search, you can narrow your search results by selecting the categories on the left-hand side of the search results page.

3 – Make use of your options.
To further focus your search results you can select how the search results are listed. To decide which option you would prefer, ‘lowest price’, ‘highest price’, ‘newly listed’, or ‘ending first’, look for the drop down menu to the upper right of the search results list.

4 – Educate yourself.
Be sure to do your research on the items you are searching for, especially if the item is an antique or memorabilia. Educate yourself on the item, confirm the condition of the of the item, don’t just rely on the listing photograph. You can also compare the item to similar items, this may improve your chances of purchasing an item that’s worth your money.

5 – Know the seller.
The seller could be continents away from you. It is a good idea to check the seller’s credibility. Looking at his/her feedback is a great first step. The feedback rating is on the auction listing page, it’s the number followed by a star that is next to the sellers name. You can read more about feedback ratings in another of my postings.
Also be sure to carefully read the item’s description. Many listings have a return policy, preferred payments, and the cost of postage. There is an ‘ask the seller a question’ option, don’t be afraid to make use of it.

6 – Be the best bidder.
If you find an item that you desire greatly and choose to bid on it, remember to stick to your maximum bid. I caution against bidding higher without really knowing the item’s worth. This is a common mistake. You are best served to consider that as a buyer you are still the one calling the shots on how you spend your money. You can check into sniping services to help you get the best value or bid on an item.

If you have been on eBay and bid on a few auctions, chances are that you have been beaten in the last few seconds by a “sniper”. This experience can be very frustrating, and while this is against eBay rules, in theory, and you can go ahead and report it. In practice eBay never does anything about this common occurrence.

The bad news is that the only way to beat a “sniper” is to become one yourself. The up side is that once you figure out sniping you can use it to your advantage, and win auctions at a much lower price than you would otherwise.

Sniping Manually

Sniping manually is pretty simple if you have lots of spare time and a reasonably fast internet connection. First write down the ending time for each item that you bid on, and then be sure to be sitting at your computer with the page up for the last vital minute of the auction. This will allow you to defend your winning bid, or even outbid the current winning bid.

The best tip I can give for sniping manually is to make sure that you set your max bid as high as possible – otherwise you could still be automatically outbid, and the auction will be over before you can even bid again.

An important note – it is not worth even trying to compete against someone who has decided to use an auto sniping service. If their service is any good, then they will always manage to outbid you. If you really want to be a sniper, you will need to find one of your own.

Using an Auto Sniper

Just type “eBay sniping” into your preferred search engine (I like Google), and it’ll bring back several online services that will be more than happy to snipe on your behalf for a small fee. Most will give you a free trial, so feel free to try it out.

If you don’t want to pay each time for use of the online service, then their are some types of software that you can use. Two that I know of are iSnipeIt (http://www.isnipeit.com) and SnipeRight (http://sniperight.com). These you pay for once and then you can use for free for as long as you want. Once the software is installed on your computer, you just tell it what auctions you want sniped and the max amount you are willing to bid. The software then places the bid within the last few seconds of the auction. The disadvantage to using this software is that you will need to leave your computer on just about all the time, or risk missing the end time for your auctions.

An Alternative to Sniping

If sniping just sounds a bit too much like playing dirty, then here is another low-tech way to get around it. Just send an email to the seller of an item that you were sniped on. Let them know that you were sniped at the last minute but would really like the item. Chances are that if they have another one to sell, they will agree to sell it to you for the ending bid price.

Whether you choose to become a sniper or not, I wish you best of luck in your eBay pursuits.