The purpose of this guide is to help newbies buy quality new and used computer parts and electronics.  Some of the methods include: sniping, buy it now, misspelled keyword search, and using completed item search as a pricing gauge.

            I have been an eBay member for almost a year now.  My main interests include computers, and electronics.  I also sell computer cables through eBay.  I am currently going to college for Aerospace Engineering, and since I am a poor college student, I can not afford to not get the best deals.  Here are some of the key things that help me find the best deals, along with some of the Lingo.
            Always, and I mean always KNOW your product.  Research it on your favorite search engine (mine starts with a G), and research it on eBay.  Determine, if you can, the exact product number (P/N) of the item you want.  This will help you search it simply by putting in the P/N.  Little known secret about product numbers, sometimes people often leave the leading zero’s (0’s) off the P/N so search both.  Through the research you will be able to determine if the product suits your needs, and most importantly you will be able to narrow down exactly what your max bid for that kind of product would be.  The best way to determine how much money a particular product goes for on eBay is through the Completed Listings.
            I can not stress to you enough how important the eBay Completed Listings are.  I spend more time looking at completed items, than I do looking at products I can actually buy.  Looking at the Completed Listings helps you gauge exactly how much money products are worth on eBay.  You may see some extremely low prices and some extreme high prices, this might be due to the fact of high Buy-It-Now coupled by people that want it now, and on the low end, low Buy-It-Now.  If there are a lot of these low spikes then that means that most sellers do not know how to price the product they are trying to sell in that category, and you might want to keep searching live items for a few days until you stumble upon one of those for your self.  Knowing the round about price can serve you well, when you are bidding on an item you will know your max bid and if you lose, you will know that you can get a better deal.       
            SEARCHING eBay: For starters, there are a lot of eBay sellers who come in contact with great volumes of products; this is not always a bad thing, as they often have good products at low starting bids because they are not as familiar with the product as someone whom has interest in the product might be.  This leads to lower starting bids, and possibly low Buy-It-Now options.  TRADE SECRET:  people are people, and often they make mistakes, a simple misspelled word, and they have no one seeing their listing in keyword searches, take advantage of this and try and look up some misspelled versions of the search.  This method is especially beneficial for higher dollar items.
            ALWAYS look at the shipping costs, shipping is crucial.  Due to eBay fees for sellers, there are price brackets, which make the fees go up.  If a seller lists an item for $9.99 and puts the shipping as $2500.00 he has not broken out of the small price bracket and will avoid a larger eBay fee.  This is a terrible practice and is outlawed by eBay.  Therefore, buyer be warned always look at inflation of shipping charges. Sending a quick note to the seller asking for a shipping quote to your zip code it does not take but a second.

               Big and heavy items can be great deals on eBay because people are hesitant to pay the expensive shipping.  Save on shipping by narrorwing your Search By Distance, driving 30-40 miles could save you upwards of 70 bucks in some cases.  Be safe and be sure to bring a friend.

            Buyer be warned, refurbished items, are just that refurbished.  These items are often returns, why do things get returned?  Sometimes people don’t want them but with things like a hard drive’s, memory, a cpu, mother board, these things would be returned due to defects.  They are then sent back to the manufacturer, and the company lets their bench tech fix it up and box it back up so it looks new and pretty.  After this electronics are often never the same.  These items are often listed as new; they are in new packaging, but not new.  Always be in search of the very fine print and read it.  With electronics in my opinion refurbished, remanufactured, reconditioned, re-anything is not a good thing.  EBay is the place of dream deals, if you take your time you can find the same item new and cheaper.
            If an item is listed missing the UPC code, or UPC code carefully removed.  This is “code talk” for someone trying to say: I bought this new from a store, used the UPC code and receipt for the mail in rebate.  Often these people haven’t even got their mail in rebates back yet.  Often with mail in rebates you can get brand new electronics from websites for “free” through using a combination of rebates.  Usually only one of those specific rebates per household per year.  In my personal experience I never have good luck with rebates.  I stick to eBay.  Therefore, these items are “new”, new for what you need them for that is.
            BIDDING:  this is everyone’s favorite part, the nail biting, the butterflies, the hopes and dreams all smashed to smithereens when you’re out bid or Sniped in the last few seconds of the “game.”  I don’t want this to happen to you.  Sometimes I wish eBay was like oil companies, all the buyers get together set their price and everyone just takes their turn getting $0.99 items.  Bah that wouldn’t be nearly as fun now would it?  Part of eBay’s luster is just that, it’s within those final moments; here is how I come out on top.

             So you’ve done all your research, you weren’t lucky enough to find a low Buy-It-Now item and you’re going to have to get down in the trenches and duke it out.  You’ve made sure to find the best item you could, knowing your research and the condition of the item, you should have a great idea of it’s final over all worth to YOU, don’t forget to take shipping inflation into account.  Pick a few items and put them in your My eBay watching page, be sure to pick items that are going to end when you are at your computer.  If you pick 7 pm at night for a closer, that item will go for more.  It will end for more because more people will be around their computers at that time.  If you can pick one that ends 5 minutes before you have to go to work in the morning, that’s a great one.  Plus winning it really puts a zing in your step and a smile on your face for the rest of the day. 
              This item is in your watch and you are simply monitoring it, do not bid on the item.  Bidding on the item will simply prematurely drive the cost up and you will possibly be out bid in the end.  You could also possibly get emotionally attached to the item and go over your max bid, that you worked so hard researching.  Waiting will also give you time to keep researching and possibly stumbling upon that low Buy-It-Now. 
              We are in the final five minutes before the item closes, you are getting ready, yes getting ready.  You have the page open so you can refresh it often tracking its progress.  Open an extra page of the item and place your bid on the item all the way until you get to the confirm bid page.  DO NOT confirm the bid until the last 3-5 seconds of the auction, this is only recommended for cable modem connections and higher.  While the “confirm bid” page is patiently waiting continue refreshing your main auction window, to monitor the time and bid increases.  Know how the max bidding system in eBay works, Check It Out.  Bid amount; do not ever bid $50.00 for an item, every one and their brother will be doing this.  If you want to spend around $50.00 set your bid for $53.75.  By doing this you are leaving yourself in the desired price range, while at the same time, you are beating the other last second sniper that bids $50.00.  Using this method I have beat many other snipers by pennies.  Confirm the bid in that last 3-5 seconds and cross your fingers, if you did not win, have the luxury of not knowing what the other bidders maximum was, they could have put a million dollars on it.  You were staying true to your maximum bid, which is what you researched, and are confident you could achieve, maybe it will take another of the items in your watch page.  

              In closing the most important virtue to have is patience.  Patience will find you great Buy-It-Now deals, and will also give you the edge when bidding on closers.  Most of what I have discused works great for most items, except collectible and art.  Electronics are a dime a dozen there will be another one of the exact same make and model, which is why this method works great for electronics.  This method works for a broke college student that enjoys spending a lot of time, and little money on eBay.