Shoe Metro's guide to safely buying shoes on eBay

eBay is one of the best places to buy shoes online. At any given time there are about 200,000 womens shoes and over 75,000 mens shoes. Now that's a lot of shoes! In addition to this, eBay offers the lowest prices for shoes.

Before making your shoe purchase on eBay, there are a couple things to consider other than price. Before placing your bid or buy-it-now you should:

1. Carefully read item description

- Item Specifics
Make sure the shoe that you bid on is the correct size, color, etc that you want. There are a couple ways to do this. Many auctions have item specifics that show all the details of the shoes (below). Sometimes sellers won’t fill out these item specifics when listing so I would check the description of each auction listing.

- Shipping Charges
In addition to checking making sure you purchase the correct size, color, width, etc., make sure you include the shipping charges before making your final bid. Most eBay sellers charge about $10.00 to ship a shoe domestically but check the charges to make sure. See if the shipment includes insurance and tracking.

- Payment Terms
Be sure to review sellers payment terms to make sure you agree are able to abide by them if you decide to bid or buy the shoes. Most sellers accept Paypal and money orders but more and more sellers are now offering credit card payments.

- Refund Policies
Since buying shoes online can be a little tricky, make sure the seller has a good return policy. You should expect to be able to return shoes that don’t fit.

2. Review the seller

Purchase price shouldn’t be your only consideration when buying shoes.

- Check Feedback Rating
The first thing most important thing you should do is check the seller’s feedback comments and feedback percentage. This is section is located on the top right corner of each auction (shown below). It is best practice to purchase from an eBay Power Seller since you need over 98% positive feedback but there are non-power sellers that are trustworthy too, but chances of a smooth transactions are better with a power seller.

- About Me page
Many sellers have About Me pages. These pages are there to tell the buyer a little about the seller. Click on the “me” icon next to buyers feedback score to see the sellers About Me page. This page might give you more information on making your shoe purchase.