Once you know the drill, it’s downright addictive
Issue 53 : Mar/Apr 2007
I am convinced that with patience and persistence you can find almost anything for sale on eBay, as long as it is not currently breathing or a firearm. There is an exception to the breathing rule: you can purchase plants on eBay. On any given day, there are several million items available to the highest bidder on eBay, the Internet’s biggest auction site.
On the day that I wrote this, for example, there were more than 17,000 parts listed for sale in the Boat and Watercraft section on eBay Motors. Even eBay Motors itself is a site within eBay, a site for all things with a motor, boats included. If you’re a buyer on a budget — and who isn’t? — or a seller looking for cash to improve your budget in order to become a better buyer, eBay may very well be the ticket for you. Every month, eBay Motors has 12 million unique visitors. Items range from brand-new in the unopened box to the wouldn’t-begin-to-know-where-to-look-for item and everything you can think of in between. Sooner or later, if you persist, it can be found and purchased on eBay.
Most eBayers get started in one of two ways. There are the curious — those web surfers who log on for a “quick look” just to get an idea of what eBay is all about. That’s how I got started seven years ago. I remember hearing commercials for eBay on the radio and decided to check it out. It was innocent enough at first, but now my wife will tell you I am an addict and in desperate need of serious help.
The second way people get involved is through “show and tell.” An individual gets a real deal on an item or finds something that just can’t be found anywhere else. He or she then tells friends in this second group about it and shows them how it’s done. A personal endorsement from someone you trust is hard to ignore. If you’re in this second group, I’m offering my personal guidance and endorsement. Read on.
How it works
The average eBay auction lasts seven days. At the seller’s option, however, a small number of auctions last as long as 10 days and others last only 24 hours. There are fixed-price items, known as buy-it-now auctions, in which the item can be immediately purchased at any time. Buy-it-now auctions are used by sellers who want a quick turnaround on a particular item and offer it at an attractive low, low take-it-away-now price. Some of my best deals and some of my worst disappointments have been buy-it-now deals.
Those disappointments were in the nature of should-have/could-have-but-didn’t-and-wish-I-would-have deals. I purchased a nearly new Sunfish sail for my daughter’s boat last year in a buy-it-now auction for $120. I knew from experience that the average eBay transaction for a Sunfish sail sold for more than $120. I sold her 19-year-old Sunfish sail a week later for $175. Every eBay veteran has stumbled across that 6 a.m. Sunday morning buy-it-now deal that sent him running out to the garage with a ruler to make sure it would fit his intended purpose. He has also experienced that excited run back to the computer . . . only to learn that someone else has snatched it out from under him while he was measuring.
Like anything else, after awhile you begin to learn the ropes. As any eBayer who has won his fair share of auctions knows, there are tricks of the trade when buying and selling. The danger in writing this article is that, undoubtedly, I will be bidding toe-to-toe against you in the future. The positive side is that someday you may be bidding on that one-of-a-kind, can’t-live-without item that I just happen to have up for auction.
Becoming an eBayer
To get started you should first understand some eBay lingo.
Username – Everyone who buys or sells is required to have a username. This is your eBay identification name, which must be used for all transactions. Your username is like your bidder’s number at a normal auction.
eBay official time – eBay is a West Coast company. All auction start and end times are recorded in Pacific Standard Time. Each listing indicates the end of the auction in PST as well as the time remaining until the auction is completed in days, hours, and seconds. Bid timing is often very critical, so eBay posts its official time. Rumor has it that the sun actually sets by eBay time. I confess: for a real eBayer, it literally does sometimes.
My eBay – My eBay is a file that eBay sets up for you to help you manage everything associated with your online eBay experience. The account displays the items you have bid on, the items you are selling, those you are watching, who the current highest bid happens to be, the time left in any auction you are involved in, your favorite items, searches, messages from buyers or sellers, and on and on. Think of My eBay as command central. You should learn to use it all of the time to properly manage your eBay activities.
Watch List – If you find an item of interest, either to buy or sell or even if you just want to follow for fun (to see what it sells for), you can keep it in your watch list by clicking the “watch this item” box located on each auction page. eBay will automatically insert that auction listing on your My eBay page. On any given day, I am watching 10 to 20 items.
Feedback – Feedback is the method used by eBay users to rate their fellow buyers and sellers. For every transaction you make, the other half of that transaction rates your behavior. If you are a seller and the item is listed well, you answer questions in a timely manner, and you ship promptly, you will most likely get a glowing positive feedback report from the buying half on that transaction. For every positive feedback you get, you will receive a feedback score next to your username and a positive feedback percentage number for the eBay world to see and review. Receive negative feedback and a number is subtracted; your percentage is then adjusted and recorded.
You can check your feedback rating or that of any other buyer or seller at any time. You can look at the history of transactions and the comments made by people who have conducted business with that eBay buyer or seller in the past.
If you find a questionable rating attached to a seller, you might want to think twice about bidding on his item. How well you conduct yourself in the eBay community is very important and is watched closely by buyers and sellers alike.
Proxy Bid – eBay has a system that allows you to bid on an item without being at your computer. A proxy bid allows you to set a maximum amount that you would like to spend on an item. Let’s say you find a Harken block you’d like to buy if the price is right. The current auction bid price is $1 and the auction ends in 6 days. The first thing to do is to click “watch this item,” so you can track it on My eBay. You decide you would pay up to, but no more than, $12 for that block.
Using a proxy bid, you can bid your maximum of $12 against the current bid of $1. If you end up as the high bidder, all you will spend is $1. However, if someone comes along four hours from now and takes a liking to that Harken block currently at $1, and bids, say, $1.10, your proxy bid will automatically rebid to the next bid increment ($1.15) to retain your position as high bidder. This will automatically keep you in the game until you reach your maximum proxy bid of $12. Your proxy amount is never available to the seller to see, not even after the auction.
Sniping – This is a technique used by bidders to win an auction at the last second of the last minute of the last hour of the last day of the auction. The sniper places his last bid, topping yours, at the final second.
Reserve – The seller has the right to set a reserve price on any item he is selling. The reserve is the minimum amount that the item will sell for. Let’s say the Harken block was listed at $1 by the seller. The seller is not interested in a purchase price of less than $6 or the deal is off. The seller has decided that he would rather keep it than give it away. He sets a reserve of $6. A penny over $6, and both the seller and buyer would be happy. The reserve price is never shown to the buyer, but the auction does indicate that the seller has imposed a reserve on the item up for auction. So just because you are the high bidder when the dust settles,
if your bid did not exceed the seller’s reserve, that item did not sell.
Timing tips
I have made some observations over my eBay years. One is that if you are outbid on an item, no matter how rare and unusual it appears to be, sooner or later another one just like it or maybe even better will come along. This is a common trap that most newbie eBayers will learn on their own. Try to remember that you won’t be the first person who has bid on three of the same exact things that you didn’t need just because they were at a great price. Another little quirk: Sunday and Monday nights seem to be the best times to get a real deal. There seem to be fewer bidders up against you on those nights. I am not sure if people start to think about the week ahead and are getting back into the weekly grind. Maybe it’s Monday-night football, but they seem to forget about the items they were watching on Sunday and Monday. Something gives the dedicated auction hunter an edge on those nights.
After several years, I am still amazed on how people bid, when they bid, and how much some of them will bid. I have won by a penny and been burned by a penny. I am also still amazed at the excitement generated by that last-second bid. You have been watching that Harken block for seven days. It started at $1 and it is now sitting at $3.50. You have the perfect boom bail to hang it on and a $5 bill burning a hole in your pocket. Hey, after all, it’s brand-new, still on the original packaging card, and retails for just under $25 at your local chandlery.
High bidder
At 1 minute 30 seconds to go, you fire a $5 bid in the bid box. $3.50 covers the bid price, leaving you $1.50 in reserve (proxy) just in case someone else bids against you. In cyber seconds you are declared the high bidder at $4.25. This means that even though the price tag was only $3.50, the last high bidder had 75 cents in reserve (proxy) as well and the silent proxy auctioneers at eBay bid back and forth until the other guy reached his limit and ran out of money. Lucky thing you had that big bankroll going for you. You ended up on top with 75 cents to spare. But what if? You quickly update your screen. Your heart pounds. You can’t help but think that if you blow this you are going to have to cough up the $25 at the store! Yeks!
Buying and selling tips
There is indeed a strategy for selling that will help you obtain best results. When selling, always include at least one picture of the item. Many people will not even look at the item if it does not have a picture. Make the item description as complete and honest as possible. Try to think like a buyer when doing the write-up. If you forget something in your description, you will get lots of email messages containing questions. Do some research. You can do a search on eBay for the same item you want to sell. This will give you a good indication of what that item may sell for and give you some examples for writing a good description.
You can even search completed auctions to investigate the actual selling price and the number of bids that were logged on a similar item. Have faith, don’t list an item that you would like to see sell for $25 at $25. I typically start all of my auctions at $1, even the items that end up selling for a couple hundred dollars. Let’s face it, if you see an item of interest that you feel is worth $50, and the opening bid is $1, you will typically watch that item. Quite often, the more people who watch an auction, the more money it will bring. So hook ’em early with a low opening price.
If you are a buyer, you should be doing research as well. I hunt every day for new items of interest. This typically gives me seven days to find what the item would retail for. I also research what similar items have recently sold for on eBay. I research the seller by checking out his feedback, and I look at the other items that the seller has been selling and buying. You can put together an amazing profile of a buyer or seller by observing what people buy and sell and when they bid. This will give you insight into whether the seller is knowledgeable on that type of item or if he is one of those who sell anything and everything. This could help in your interpretation of the item’s description.
I even research my competition when I’m bidding on an item. I look at the current high bidder on that item that I want. I research what he has purchased in the past and what style of a bidder he is. Often you can discover this bidder is a bid-on-it-if-it-is-real-cheap-but-not-a-nickel-more kind of a bidder, known as a “sport bidder.” Perhaps he is a last-minute sniper. In this way, you can often get some insight on what his bid number will be. You can often see that he is an even bidder — $12 even — or a 50-cent bidder — $12.50. Me, I am a 53- center, because those 3 pennies have won me many a tight auction.
Time travels
Because you are dealing in cyberspace and real time — or should we say eBay time — auctions span more than four time zones in this country alone. An auction in the U.K. is even more exciting. A late-evening auction for an East Coaster is only a dinner time transaction out on the West Coast. But if a West Coast seller puts up an item for auction at 10:30 p.m. his time, this means the auction will typically end 7 days later at 1:30 a.m. East Coast time. On the other hand, an auction that ends at 8 p.m. EST means the bidder on the West Coast is stuck in traffic when the auction ends at 5 p.m. his time. The time the auction ends can have a lot to do with your success rate, whether buying or selling. I stayed up on a Monday night once to bid on a Blue Sea Systems 40-breaker panel. It was brand-new and just what I was looking for. Unfortunately for me, that auction ended at 1:46 a.m. EST. Nevertheless, I won the auction at better than half of the retail price, probably because half the country was asleep.
What can you buy on eBay? In the past six months I have purchased that brand-new Blue Seas breaker panel; a very nice 406 MHz EPIRB; eight new West Marine safety harnesses and eight matching new double-retractable tethers; an Atlantic stainless-steel hot water heater; a pair of new 316 stainless-steel Dorades; a new Balmar ARS-4 regulator, a Duo-charge, and 110-amp alternator; stainless-steel through-hulls; a Xantrex inverter; a quick-release ABI forestay lever; and a spinnaker pole. Each item was purchased for less than 50 percent of what it would cost new on the shelf or from a catalog.
So what’s holding you back? Log on to http://www.ebay.com and check it out. It won’t cost you a dime to browse . . . unless, that is, you find something you just can’t live without. If that’s the case, follow the simple directions on the home page to become a buyer or seller. There is no cost to become a user and no fees to use the buying service. Good luck and good sailing.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
