Shill bidders - Although it may be difficult to detect and even harder to prove, you need to be aware that there are some unscrupulous sellers who are using shill bidders. A shill bidder is an eBay user who is working with the seller to drive up the price of the auction. The shill bidder may even be the seller himself bidding under a different eBay name.

During the course of the auction, the shill bidder makes a bid on the auction to push the price up, normally during auctions with little bidding activity or as an auction nears its close and where the current bid is much lower than the normal eBay market value of the item. The seller knows that they will take a loss unless the price is bid up, so they use shill bidders.

The only way of detecting the presence of shill bidding is by reviewing the bid history for items sold by a particular seller. If it appears that the same buyer bids on that sellers' auctions repeatedly, but infrequently wins those auctions, shill bidding might be indicated. Again, this is difficult to prove so if you suspect that a seller is using a shill, the best thing you can do is avoid that seller in the future.

How to find good deals on eBay.

The best deals on eBay are auctions by sellers who have not done a good job marketing or describing their items.

Types of auctions that can end up being good deals

- Auctions with no images
- Auctions that end on particularly poor shopping days or times
- Auctions that have misspelled words or very brief descriptions

No images - Many people won't bid on an auction if it doesn't include an image. That's why these auctions can be such great bargains. But If you're comfortable purchasing an item from an auction without an image, these auctions can be great opportunities. If the item is well described with adequate condition information and the buyer has impeccable feedback, these may be the best deals you can get on eBay.

Auctions that end on poor shopping days and times - Because no one else is shopping on these days, there's little bidding competition. Shop on Christmas day, and the days between Christmas and New Years. In our selling guide we recommend that sellers not sell during holidays, major televised sporting events, or well-watched television shows. These are the times that buyers can find very good bargains.

Poor descriptions and misspelled words - Not every seller does a good job marketing their items on eBay. Poorly described auctions or auctions with misspellings may not generate much traffic because buyers are not able to find the auctions in their searches.

Fewer viewers result in lower prices. How do you find these auctions as a buyer looking for a great deal? By either predicting what those misspelled words might be and searching for them or by browsing auctions by category.

Miscellaneous eBay buyers tips

Save on shipping - If it makes sense, consider buying more than one item from the same seller. Many sellers will combine shipping costs and you can save some money.

Shop regionally - If you're shopping for large items (like furniture, antiques etc.) shipping costs are likely to be very costly. If you use eBay's regional search feature to find sellers in your area, you'll probably find sellers agreeable to allowing you to pick up any large items instead of having them shipped to you. You save the cost of shipping and the seller saves time by not having to pack the item. 

Leaving negative feedback - If you decide to leave negative feedback for seller and they have not yet left feedback for you, there is a technique which has a good chance of preventing them from leaving retaliatory feedback for you.