What a great question! I have actually been a fan of eBay for years. In fact, when I check my account profile, I joined eBay back in August 27, 1998, over ten years ago.
Holy cow!
In that time, I’ve bought more than I’ve sold (which is true for most users) but I have sold many dozens of items, ranging from cheap used software to expensive computer hardware and telephony gizmos.
Based on my experiences both buying and selling, I’ll share some of my favorite tips for finding a bargain, with a little help from my friends on Twitter…
First idea is to search for misspellings, especially if you’re in the market for something with an awkward spelling. An example of this is if you wanted to buy the Blu-Ray version of Pirates of the Caribbean. How many people know how to spell “Caribbean” correctly?
Let’s find out! A search for “caribbean” results in 12,031 matches, while a search for “carribean” results in 804 matches, and “carribbean” produces 102 matches.
Why would misspellings be good auctions to find? Because most people don’t think about alternative spellings and will be completely ignorant of the auction, removing almost all of your competition!
Another tip is to pay close attention to shipping costs before you decide whether to bid. Many eBay sellers have figured out that if they want to make, say, $20 on a DVD, they can offer it for $4.99 and tack on a crazy expensive shipping fee of $14.99 or more. Once you’ve won, you’re obligated to pay, so if they charge $14.99 for an envelope and $0.75 stamp, it’s your tough luck.
Many savvy buyers also do research to figure out the going rate for a product, then use what’s called a bid sniper or auction sniper program to place a last-minute bid for the individual item. The benefit of sniping should be obvious: if you don’t bid on an auction until the last 60 seconds, there’s no chance for anyone else to counter your bid and beat you. Net result is that you can win a lot of auctions with these tools.
Having said that, I will also say that many auction buyers feel that sniping tools are cheating, and eBay’s tolerance for these tools ebbs and flows based on complaints and how overtly the tools scrape the site or hit the programmatic (“API”) interface. If you want to learn more about sniping programs, check out Bidrobot.com (which is, coincidentally, run by a good friend of mine).
I earlier suggested doing research to figure out historical sales data. This is a critical step and is done by searching *completed auctions* to see which completed with a sale (more than zero bids) and then averaging the final auction costs.
For example, that Blu-Ray “Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl”? A search where I check “Show completed listings only” (click on “Advanced Search” right next to the “search” button on any page: see illustration immediately below) reveals that the winning auctions range from $7.51+$3.00 shipping at the low end to $18.50+$3.00 on the high end. The person who bought the movie for $10.51 got a good deal, and the person who bought it for $21.50 got a mediocre deal.
Knowing that, you could decide that you won’t pay more than $13.00 for this disc, including shipping, and bid accordingly, ensuring you only win when it’s a good deal.
There are plenty of other tips, but I think these will get you going in the right direction. Good luck to you!
My thanks to Eric Berto (@geekgiant) for the tip on misspellings, and Kelly Johns (
@kellyjohns) for the auction sniper suggestion. Want to find me on Twitter? I’m @DaveTaylor and, btw, I have lots of twitter help here too.
4 thoughts on “How do I get the best deals on eBay auctions?”
You can beat that bid placed at one minute with two browser windows open. I have done this several times. Just keep one page on the last bid page with a higher bid entered. Keep refreshing the auction page so any new bids will come up ASAP. Then if you get a last minute bid you can place another bid before time expires. It works and only takes a little practice to get it right. Only problem is you have to do it yourself. If someones last bid is too high then you can just let them have it. But the last second bid is the best way to get deals.
Well you can find some real good bargains from ebay by doing some manual research but hey wouldnty it be easier to find everything in one place and get the best bargains , Vendio.com offers another free service call Honesty.com which will help you find the best bargains .
If you want to know what is hot on eBay and would also like to know prices they are selling at , there is also a tool which they offer which is called Research look up on vendio for more info .
I also have a write up on my blog which you an take a look at ,i have articles about snipping,eBay’s best deals,auctions etc .Check out http://www.Searchedterms.com and look up for my older posts on ebay.
ANSWER PART 2 – Better Yet
Here is how all the big online marketers do it, as the saying goes it is simple but not easy. Its not really that hard either…lol
Step One: Pick a niche that interests you and you think has potential. Google the key words in your niche and if there are a lot of PPC sellers (adds on the right hand side of the google search results) then you know you have a hot topic. Pick 3 related niches and follow these next steps with the goal of one of your niches being a winner.
Step Two: Build a big friend list in your niche through social networking. The fastest way to do this with LinkedIn or Facebook is to start a “group”, then search for people with pertinent key words, and invite them to join the group. A great secret to getting lots of followers on Twitter is to go out and follow a lot of people in your niche, 50% will in turn follow you. Wa la you’ve got a targeted audience of several hundred people in a week.
Step Three -Ask lots of thoughtful questions with your niche subscribers like “what are the biggest challenges you are facing?” and “What are the topics you would most like to have more information about?” etc. A great tip is to contact people individually in your niche and flatter them by saying “I’d really like to get your opinion on the discussion topics…” (that you’ve launched). Spend a few weeks building lots of interaction and determine the most pressing issues to your niche. Aggragate all of the results and share them and then Add your own opinions as to why these are the trends. Filtering information and reporting on trends is a very valuable service and will begin to establish our credible reputation in the industry. Before long your niche network will be thanking you for the insights and asking you where can I get (buy) more info on these solutions?
Step Four – Now that you have your list of the most pressing issues in your chosen niche you will make a product to solve these issues. You will have tremendous sales success because you will have a pre-built audience to buy your product. Having done this market research upfront You will do much better selling your product on eBay and through other channels like Clickbank.
With Any other approach such as listing eBay auctions blindly you are just hope-ing that someone will buy your product. The big players find the buyers first and then make the product to meet their needs.
But how do I make product?
Secret Step #5 Identify 3 authors or experts in your niche and interview them asking them the about the key challenges and topics you identified in your niche. Record the interviews and you now have an audio product. Most authors and experts are always looking for a way to get more exposure for their books or products so just allow them to plug their book and web site at the end of the interview and they will gladly do the interviews with you for free.
Final Step = Success
Once you have customers that have bought your initial product, you sell to those same customers over and over again. This is the famous “Longtail” strategy, go ahead google or wiki this for more info. In this final and most lucrative phase you build on your initial product success and offer back end products, membership sites, coaching, etc.
Following this strategy you can easily build a six figure work from home income.
I am in the midst of doing all of this myself and I would love to form a group to share ideas with so if you are interested in learning more and brainstorming together I encourage you to contact me through LinkedIn.
Your contributor,
Greig Wells
Tampa, FL
ANSWER PART 1
In my experience the best strategy for selling on eBay is to find a product(s) that you can sell over and over again. If you deal with one offs you will spend all your time hunting for the deal and writing new auctions.
I recomend you check out clickbank.com which gives you affiliate access to tons of great eBooks and also authorama which gives you access to books that have been entered into the public domain. The key is too add value to these products by writting your auction to attract a niche audience. So for example if everyone is reselling the same eBook about selling eBay but you write you would have much better succes by creating an auction to target “teachers” or “college students” who want sell on eBay and then maybe you add more value to the auction by including a classic book about “copywritting” and “time management” that you found in the public domain. Wa la you’ve got a uniquely bundled product that you can sell over and over again. Then you can write your own eBook (to sell)about using this strategy so other people can learn from you.
Your contributing friend,
Greig Wells