Kevin's Buying Tips & Strategies

How You Can Become a Power Buyer!

Tip 1)  Make Sure Your Seller is Reputable Before You Bid.

First and foremost before you place that bid, did you scrutinize the seller to ensure they were reputable? No? Then may I ask, what are you doing bidding on their item? This is one of the biggest mistakes new eBay buyers make.

It is true there are good sellers and a few bad sellers on eBay. Many buyers new to eBay may not know how to tell if a seller is reputable. While there are no guarantees, with my system, I have a quick checklist that you can use to weed out “most” of the bad sellers and give added confidence that the seller is indeed reputable.

Click here to check out Kevin’s Seller Evaluation Checklist.

Tip 2)  New to eBay? Start Slow.

I am always surprised when people tell me their first purchase on eBay was a car, motorcycle or some other expensive item. Most of the time, it was a good transaction for them. However, they have a lot more nerve, trust and good luck than I do.

If you are new to eBay, there is a very good chance that you will make a few mistakes your first few purchases. I suggest that you learn the eBay buying “ropes” with inexpensive items. Search for a few inexpensive items that interest you and are from a reputable seller (see tip #1), then practice the tips and strategies I have provided on this page. Once you have mastered these Power Buyer Strategies, then move on to more expensive items.

Tip 3)  Know the “True eBay Value” of the Item Before You Bid.

Is the item you want to bid on a good deal or not? Maybe it is less than retail, but eBay prices are not always relevant to retail. Before you bid on any item, you need to determine its “True eBay Value.”

Researching eBay using keywords for the item and comparing prices is one step. But all that reveals is the current price. A better approach is to look at all the “completed” listings of items with the same keywords. This way, you know what the final selling price was for all items with those keywords that completed on eBay within the last two weeks.

Click here to learn How to Conduct Research on eBay.

Power Buyer Tip: Would you like a tool that can conduct eBay research for you in about 10 seconds? All you have to do is type the keywords of the item and you can see what they have been selling for on eBay. The tool provides statistical information in an easy to understand presentation. I also use the same tool to determine how to sell items on eBay and determine if a product I am thinking of selling will be profitable. Click this link www.hammertap.com/studentrate to learn more and receive a free trial.

 Tip 4)  Understand that eBay’s “Proxy Bidding” Favors the Buyer. Use it to Your Advantage.

Did you know that when you place any bid on eBay you are using eBay’s proxy bidding service? There is no option to this. All bids placed on eBay are by proxy. More importantly, eBay’s proxy bidding favors you the buyer, not the seller.

eBay will place the bid on your behalf; yet will only enter the minimum amount required for you to be the high bidder - up to the maximum amount you bid. Reread that last sentence.

For example, if an item has no bids and the starting bid is $1.00 you can place the highest bid you are willing to pay (say $20) and eBay will place your bid for only $1.00. The reason is that $1.00 is the starting bid and therefore, the minimum amount required at this time for you to be the high bidder. If no one else bids on the item you will win it for $1.00 even though you entered $20. If someone else bids later, eBay will place another bid for you which will be the minimum amount required for you to remain the high bidder – up to your highest bid. You may never even come close the $20 you were willing to pay as long as no one else bids you up.

Many times I have placed bids on items where the maximum bid I placed was over $100 and yet, I won the item for only $50-75. Yes! Do you see now that eBay’s proxy bidding favors you, the buyer, and not the seller?

Have you ever placed a bid on an item and immediately eBay informed you, “You have been outbid?” So you placed another bid a bit higher and eBay informs you again immediately “You have been outbid?” Maybe you thought, “What is going on here? No one can place a bid that fast!” You are right, they can’t. What is happening is that the high bidder placed their maximum bid higher than the amounts you are bidding. So every time you place a bid, eBay bumps up the price to the next increment over your last bid, but the other bidder remains the high bidder. This process will continue until you place a bid over the high bidder’s maximum bid.

How do you know what their maximum bid is? You don’t and you can’t find out what it is either. That is the both the fun and frustration of eBay auctions. The maximum proxy bid that you place is 100% confidential between you and eBay. The seller and other bidders do not know, and cannot discover how high you have placed your maximum bid.

So how do you use eBay’s proxy bidding to your advantage?

Don’t get caught up in bidding wars. When you place your bid, you enter the highest amount you are willing to pay and then forget about it. You know that eBay will place the lowest price required for you to be the highest bidder so you may be pleasantly surprised that you end up winning the auction at a much lower price than you actually bid. If the auction is popular and the price goes over your bid, forget about that auction and go on to the next one (see Tip #9).

Now don’t get carried away with this and think, “Well the item is worth $100 and it is currently at $50. So if I bid $500 I am guaranteed to win it!” Maybe you are, but what if someone else has the same idea and bids $400? You are the high bidder, but you will now have to pay $405 for an item worth $100! This is not a good strategy.

The best strategy using eBay’s proxy bidding is to place, just once, the highest bid you are willing to pay and then forget about it. You win it or you lose it.

However, before you run out and start placing your highest bids on items, you need to understand What, How and most importantly When experienced buyers place their bids. Read on…

Tip 5)  Bid in “Odd” Dollar Amounts and Just Over the Next Increment.

New eBay buyers tend to bid in “even” dollar amounts. More experienced buyers bid “odd” amounts. The most experienced buyers will bid “odd” amounts and make sure they are above the next increment of the price range they are in.

For example, if a buyer is willing to bid $20 for a particular item, many new eBayers will bid $20 not realizing that a more experienced buyer will bid $20.01, $20.50 or $20.51.

However, many of these experienced buyers don’t even realize that you still have to bid higher than the next minimum increment or the first person to place the $20 wins. Stay with me here, this is important.

A bidder who places $20.01 later than the bidder who placed the $20 bid will not be the winner because it was not higher than the minimum increment required. At the $20 level, increments are 50 cents. So the late bidder needs to place a bid of at least $20.50 to win. This is very important to understand because most experienced eBay buyers place their bids late in the auction (explained in Tip 7).

The eBay buying pros will determine what they think the other buyers will bid, add the increment and then add just a bit more. First, take a look at the bid increments below.

The bid increments on eBay are as follows:

Current Price         Bid Increment
$ 0.01 - $ 0.99                 $ 0.05
$ 1.00 - $ 4.99                 $ 0.25
$ 5.00 - $ 24.99               $ 0.50
$ 25.00 - $ 99.99             $ 1.00
$ 100.00 - $ 249.99          $ 2.50
$ 250.00 - $ 499.99          $ 5.00
$ 500.00 - $ 999.99          $ 10.00
$ 1000.00 - $ 2499.99      $ 25.00
$ 2500.00 - $ 4999.99      $ 50.00
$ 5000.00 and up             $ 100.00

So again, the professionals determine the maximum they want to bid, add the increment to the price they expect their less experienced competition will bid and then add a few cents more.

For example, if I am willing to bid $20 for a certain item, I know that many inexperienced bidders (my competition) will be bidding $20, $20.01, $20.51, or maybe $21.01. I would add the increment of 50 cents to the $21.01 and then just a bit more. The bid I place would be $21.59.

You would not believe how many items I have won by a few cents! Now you know how to do it as well.

Tip 6)  Also Bid in Odd Dollar Amounts so You Don’t “Tie.”

What if you bid $20 for an item and someone else also bids $20. Who wins? The one who placed their bid first.

Since I “Snipe” (explained in Tip 8), I am almost guaranteed that my bid was not the one placed first. That is another reason why I bid in “odd” amounts. Two bidders may bid $20, or even $21.50, but it would be rare that the two high bidders would both bid $21.59.

Tip 7)  Place Your Bid at the Last Possible Moment of the Auction.

If you have been buying on eBay for some time, you know that most of the bids will be placed the last day, hour, minutes or even seconds of the auction. This is a smart move for buyers. Placing your bids early in the auction runs up the price of the item. So in effect, you are running up the price on yourself.

The more experienced buyers know this and will wait to place their bids at the last possible moment, many times taking a sure win away from the current high bidder. Most of the time, these buyers never show their intent until that final bid. No one even knew they were out there until the last few seconds. Maybe this has happened to you. Bummer eh? Does this seem unfair?

Well, if you were at a live auction, when would be the best time to place your bid? It is when the auctioneer says, “Going twice” and is just about to drop the gavel. Otherwise, your early bids raise the price of the item and in a sense you are competing with yourself. It is the same for eBay auctions.

When I am teaching my eBay courses, I get this question many times:

“I thought I was going to win an auction. I was watching it right down to the last minute and I was the high bidder. However, at the very last moment, someone came out of nowhere and stole the auction away from me. I am upset about it. What happened?”

You were a victim of a “snipe” by an experienced buyer. Is it legal, is it right, is it allowed? You bet it is. Sniping is not only allowed on eBay, it is what all smart and experienced eBay buyers do. I encourage you to do it as well.

Are you guaranteed to win the auction using this method? No. Someone may still have bid higher using eBay’s proxy bidding method described in Tip 4. However, you have tremendously increased your chances of winning. Think about it for a minute. If you place your bid at the last moment, and your bid is the highest, you don’t give any other bidder enough time to manually place another bid and beat you. That means, as long as you had the highest bid, you win!

So when should you place your bid? It depends on the type of Internet connection you have (dial-up or high-speed) and whether you have the time and want to do it manually or decide to have a sniping service place the bid for you.

If you want to do it yourself and have a dial-up, I suggest placing the bid with no less than 30 seconds to go in the auction. Just know that someone on a high-speed connection can still react to your bid.

If you want to do it yourself and have a high-speed Internet connection, I suggest you place your bid with 10 seconds to go in the auction. Most people cannot manually react to a bid placed with only 10 seconds to go, but they still may be able to pull it off. How do you beat them? See the next tip on how to become a professional sniper.

Tip 8)  Become a Professional Sniper.

When do I place my bids? With two seconds remaining in the auction. No one can manually react to my bid. Again, by only placing my bid with two seconds to go:

1) I have not raised the price of the item throughout the duration of the auction.
2) My competition doesn’t know I was even there (I’m the tiger hiding in the grass that leaps on its prey at the last moment).
3) No one who is trying to manually place a bid can counter my bid within two seconds.

How do I place a bid in the last two seconds? With “Sniping” service providers.

For the poor buyer sitting at her computer trying to place a manual bid at the end of the auction, two seconds is impossible to respond to. However, using sniper services, your bid is sent from the sniping server to eBay’s server over extremely high speed Internet lines. In the technical world of high-speed server-to-server networks, your bid can travel around the world 15 times it two seconds. So two seconds is plenty of time to be sent from your sniping service’s server to the eBay server.

Again, you can still lose to a bidder who places a higher priced bid, but you can be guaranteed that no one can manually respond to your bid in the last two seconds. This greatly increases your chance of beating the amateurs and winning the item.

The most popular sniping providers are:

www.auctionstealer.com
www.esnipe.com
www.auctionsnipe.com
www.powersnipe.com
www.bidslammer.com

Most offer a few free snipes a month and then a small monthly fee if you want them to place more snipes for you. I don’t necessarily recommend one over the other. Check them all out and see which one meets your requirements. You may want to do what I do. Open an account with several of them so you increase the number of free monthly snipes.

Tip 9)  Don’t Get Carried Away with a Certain Auction. There is Always Another One With Your Item Listed or One is Coming Soon.

I lived in Chicago for 18 years and for five of those years I worked downtown in the Chicago “Loop.” Many times, especially in the winter, I took a bus from the train station to my office. I learned a valuable lesson in waiting for the bus. If you miss one don’t run after it.  There is always another bus coming, and usually, it is just around the corner.

The same can be said about eBay buying. Unless it is some very rare item that you have been waiting to appear on eBay for a long time, don’t get so caught up in an auction that you lose your sense of value for the item and place bids much higher than you should. Another listing for the same item is already on eBay or it will be posted soon.

So again, place your maximum bid, place it once at the last possible moment and forget about it. You win it or you lose it and wait for the next auction.

Tip 10)  Bidding on Reserve auctions.

Does the item you are bidding on have a reserve price? Many times sellers use reserves in order to protect their investments. Think of a reserve as the minimum price for which they are willing to let the item go.

It can be frustrating in bidding on reserves because you keep placing a bid higher and higher but eBay keeps informing you that the reserve was not met.

Some sellers mention the reserve price in the auction or will give a hint such as “The reserve price is about ½ of retail.” However, they are under no obligation to reveal their reserve and most of them do not.

If I am interested in a reserve auction I sometimes ask the seller what it is by using the “ask the seller a question” link. Sometimes they will reveal it to me and sometimes they won’t. When they won’t, I do a bit of spy work on them. Here is how I try to determine their reserve:

1. I open the listing by clicking on the title (keywords).
2. I select “list view” near the upper right hand corner of the page.
3. I scroll down the left hand column and select “completed listings.”
4. Now I am looking at all the items the seller has sold in the last two weeks.
5. I look to see if they have sold the same item. Many times they have sold several of them.
6. While examining the completed listings will not reveal the reserve, it will give me a good idea what the final price will most likely be.
7. Additionally, I may find where they listed same item but the reserve was not met. I look at the final bid and compare it to the ones where the reserve was met. At this point I have a good idea about where the reserve was set.
8. I can then determine whether I want to bid that high or move on to another seller’s listing.

Tip 11)  Always Pay for Your Items with PayPal.

If you pay for your eBay items with a check or money order you have no recourse to fall back on if something goes wrong with the transaction.

PayPal offers Buyer Protection from all sellers that display the Buyer Protection logo or it is stated in the “Buy Safely” box in the upper right hand side of their listings (beneath “Meet the Seller”).

If all else is equal (price, shipping etc.) between two auctions and one seller offers buyer protection and the other does not, purchase from the one with buyer protection. If something indeed does go wrong, you are protected up to $1000 (up to two transactions and $1000) per year by PayPal.

Tip 12)  Maximize the Use of Your “My eBay” Page.

Many buyers are not taking full advantage of their “My eBay” page. Be sure to save your most popular searches so you can easily conduct the eBay searches over and over again. This is especially important if you are using “words not to include” to narrow your advanced searches. Having to type the words not to include each time is very time consuming. Type it once and then save it so you can use it anytime with one click of the mouse.

If it is a rare item on eBay set up your Advanced Search to not only save the search for you, but to email you when an item with those keywords appears on eBay. This will save you a lot of time always searching eBay for the item. Now you just wait for the email from eBay!

Did you find a listing that is of special interest to you? Save it to your watch list. With so many listings on eBay, if you try to find it again later, you can sometimes get confused which auction was the one you were interested in. If you simply save it to your watch list, you can always find it again with a click of the mouse. Plus, if you decide to pass on the item, you can always check back later after it closed to see the ending price.

My eBay is very powerful and can perform many functions for you automatically to remove your manual effort. To learn more about My eBay go to eBay, click the Site Map, then Click My eBay. 

Tip 13)  Be Cautious with International Sellers.

There are a lot of great International sellers and then there are a lot of bad ones and some are outright crooks. Most of the buyer aggravation and seller fraud I have heard about has come from International sellers.

While I encourage people to sell Internationally, I would ask you to be exceptionally cautious when bidding on items from International sellers. Always double check where the location of the item is and use Kevin’s Seller Evaluation Checklist to help ensure that they are reputable.

Tip 14)  Leave Feedback.

Be sure to be a good member of the eBay community and leave Feedback for your seller. While it is debatable who goes first, my rule is this. As a Seller, once a buyer has paid me, I should leave positive feedback immediately. As a Buyer, I would wait until I have received the package, ensured that the item was as described, was packaged properly and shipped promptly. If that is the case, the seller deserves positive feedback and great comments from me.

Buyers new to eBay may not realize how important feedback is and that negative feedback is devastating to eBay sellers. Be very careful not to leave negative feedback unless the seller truly deserves it by refusing to fix whatever problem has happened.

If things were not quite as expected, but still a decent transaction, I would still leave positive feedback but make a statement about my disappointment in the comments section.

If you need to work out a serious problem, contact the seller. If they don’t respond by email call them (eBay’s “live help” link will give you their phone number). In most cases, you can work out the problem.

Only rarely and under the worst circumstances would I ever consider leaving negative feedback.

Master just these 14 tips and you will become a Power Buyer!  Is there more to know? There certainly is.  This is only a portion of the information you need to guide you safely through and avoid the pitfalls on your road to eBay Success.

Ready to learn more? Click here to see Kevin’s Gold Star Recommended eBay Books.