Ebay Buying Tip #1
Posted by Jeremy on December 11, 2008 under Online Buying and Selling | 
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Shipping and Handling
Those three words are the bane of just about any eBay buyer, and the agrediously gratuitous over-levying of this charge by sellers has given cause for eBay to devote a section of their feedback system to evaluating the “fairness” of a particular seller’s charges. Alas, anyone who has sold something on eBay knows that shipping charges are a necessary evil in offsetting the pervasive assault that the likes of USPS, eBay, and Paypal levy on their profit margins.
Regardless of this necessity, it is still important to get the most value for our collective prospecting buck. With that in mind, here are a cost cutting tips that I have found to be somewhat effective in my eBay ventures
1.) Streamline your buying habits
- When purchasing prospects on eBay, I try to do so in bulk. Often when a prospect-filled product comes out, several of eBay’s power sellers will bust cases and sell off the individual cards in simultanous auctions. Select 5-10 guys from that set that you think are the best speculative investments for that set, and bid at or just above what other recent final card values (minus shipping) of similar cards have gone for. One of the best tools for doing this is Auction Sniper, a bidding resource that reserves your bid until a moment that you specify (as low as 1 second prior to auction end) that you want your bid to be placed. Auction Sniper is an effective tool to battle against the few unscrupulous sellers who employ shill bidding techniques and also reduces the risk of entering into an unnecessary bidding war against other buyers. Everyone who signs up for an account receives 3 free snipes with each additional successful snipe costing just 25 cents. I have found that using Auction Sniper has typically cut my final costs by about 10-15%.
#2.) Give your best offer to a Buy it Now auction
- I know, I know, “Buy it Now” auctions often trend toward the absolutely ridiculous when it comes to finding decent values. However, it never hurts to contact a seller and pitch a price that you are willing to pay. Some sellers may place their cards on auction hoping for action from an overzealous buyer. Since Beckett’s marketplace affiliated itself with eBay this has been increasingly true. Never underestimate a vendor’s willingness to sell, especially given these economic times, you just may be surprised at how much they are willing to come down from their posted price.
#3.) Now you don’t see it, Now you do
- Sometimes a seller will have more cards that you are interested in that they haven’t listed. For example, last year I was selling a 2005 Bowman Chrome Draft Chase Headley Gold Refractor and the collector also was interested in any other Headley cards I had. I happened to have about 40 of his regular chromes and we were able to orchestrate a deal for the lot of them. I sold the cards at a bit below market value which pleased the customer and afforded me the luxury of not having to scan and list the cards on eBay in a separate auction.
4.) Diamonds in the Rough
- In addition to several singular card auctions, there are always an abundance of rookie lots. Often people are merely trying to sell off the chaff from their box busts for nickels on the dollar. Sometimes in the “chaff” there are bonafide prospects to be found in the bunch. Usually when I purchase one of these lots, I will separate out the projectible prospects and either bunch up and sell or inventory the rest of the batch for a later date…my wife just loves the latter.
There are a few of my tips gleaned from a few years of personal experience. I am quite sure that there are more and, for those of you willing to share, please feel free to do so in the comments section!
