How to buy without overpaying on Ebay.

1. Use ADVANCED SEARCH to find previous sale prices for the item you want to buy. Next to the Ebay Seach Box is a small hyperlink titled "Advanced Search". Click on it and an expanded search screen will open up. Type in the description of what you want to buy and then CHECK THE BOX UNDER THE SEARCH DESCRIPTION TITLED "COMPLETED LISTINGS ONLY". A page or pages will appear listing the sales price for completed (previous sales) Ebay listings for the item.

2. ONLY THER GREEN prices represent auctions that have actually sold. The red prices are auctions which ended without the item selling. Only the green numbers mean anything for your purposes.

3. Examine the listings to see why the lowest have sold; probably no warranty, the items being used, etc. To determine which of the items is EXACTLY what you want and open up the listings and read through them.

4. When you have found the EXACT item you want to buy, click on the small hylperlink to the right titled "View Similar Active Items".

5. Step #4 above should take you to the active listings for your item. Sort them by price using the sort box at the top right of the page. That should seperate the Buy It Now listings from the bid listings. Examine the listings and decide whenther you want to purchase the item immmediately (Buy It Now) or try to get a low bid price through an auction. Having performed step #1, you should know the "Ebay Price" for the item. BEWARE that many bid auctions will go ABOVE THAT PRICE.

Also, know if that Ebay price is actually a deal over the real world. Occasionally things do sell for less somewhere else, but most things you need in your daily life are MUCH less expensive on Ebay. In my case, I buy EVERYTHING I can off Ebay. For example, razor blades, even including shipping, are a bargain on Ebay.

6. I recommmend you look for the lowest price (including shipping) of the Buy It Now listings. Remember, many unscrupulous sellers will list a LOW Buy It Now price and then include a high amount of shipping. For what it is worth, Ebay ius trying hard to stop that practice, but it still is rampant. ALWAYS factor in the shipping AND Buy It Now price.

7. Read Seller's Feedback comments. Few Sellers have 100% Positive Feedback, so do not let a few Negatives scare you off. There is 'one' in every crowd. Read the comments and determine if the seller seems to have reasonable business practices.

8. One you have picked a Buy It Now auction, do it. and PAY IMMEDIATELY. How fast you pay generally determines how fast your item is shipped. If you pay the seller slow, the handling time to get the item ready to ship will probably be slower. Ebay Sellers APPRECIATE prompt payment. I can tell you that because I m a Platinum Level PowerSeller.

9. If you pick a bid auction to try to win, just make sure that your highest bid amount is within the "Ebay Price" range explained in #5 above.

10. Many Ebay purchasers use bid placement services to help them bid without bidding up the price before the auction ends. For example, EZ Sniper, will submit your bid at 4 seconds before the auction ends. If you have every had a last second bid fly in and beat your bid price, they are probably using a bidding service.

I hope these tips have been helful for you. If they have PLEASE VOTE noting so in the vote box at the bottom of this page.