Okay, you’ve found an item that you want, analyzed the listing, asked and received a response to any question(s) that you have, and everything looks good.
Let me sort of step back for a minute and add a couple things that I skipped over in previous articles.
First, when searching for an item, the more general the keyword(s) that you search for, the more results that will be returned. So, if you are getting too many resulting listings, narrow down your search. Add a brand-name, model number, size, etc. to your search keywords. Conversely, if the results shown are too few for a search that you do, you may have to get more general in the keywords that you use. Some sellers might not include the keywords in the auction title that best describe the item that they are selling. Again, by putting in a little extra effort you may find the items with poor titles other potential buyers may miss, meaning better deals for you.
Also, when you conduct a search, you’ll see the words “Sort by:” next to a drop-down menu, shown at the top of the results listings, just below the “search” button.
If you choose “Time: newly listed” from the drop down menu, you can get a jump on most other potential buyers for an item. This works really well for “Buy it Now” listings.
Now, about evaluating an auction listing.
The availability of the item that you want will be a major determining factor in whether you should jump on the first item that you see or wait a bit and look for a better deal. Obviously, if the item is more rare and you “must” have it, you’ll have to be prepared to”Buy it Now” or bid on an item when you find one and pay fair market value, and very likely more.
If the item has a “Buy it Now” price that you feel would be a good deal, jump on it before someone else does.
If there are many of the same item from the same or other sellers and you don’t need your item right way, you can be more choosy, sifting through the similar items to find the best deal. It’s up to you to decide whether the amount that you can possibly save is worth the extra time you put into searching for and evaluating items.
Now back to the “everything looks good” part.
You can send the seller a message (using the roundabout method mentioned in an earlier article) offering to buy their item immediately. You could mention that they will get their money sooner if they accept your offer and not have to wait for the auction to end. The worst that can happen is that they reply with a “no thanks”. They may reply back with a counteroffer, or they may not reply back at all. In any case, you’ll be no worse off than you were before sending the message.
If you have something of value, you can also offer them a partial trade. If your partial trade offer is accepted, working out the details may take some time to be a bit tricky. A seller will rarely accept such an arrangement as most want or need money. Again, it doesn’t hurt to ask.
If the seller does accept an offer, I advise that you not complete the transaction outside of eBay, bypassing the fees. That can get you kicked off of eBay, and you also have no sort of protection for your purchase. eBay will not protect you on the trade portion of the deal however.
If no deal can be made, and the item that you are interested in is an auction listing, and not any “Buy it Now” offering, then it is time to be conventional and place a bid.
To do so, I strongly recommend that you use a sniping service, such as Hidbid.com, to place your bid for you.
We’ll cover eBay sniping in the next article in this series, watch for it.
Tags: buying on eBay, Contacting eBay sellers, eBay Deal Making, eBay tips, sending messages on eBay