eBay

I've used Ebay/Paypal for years and thus far, it's been fine. Always a first time, though.

I've had problems twice: once the goods just never arrived and the seller was, to put it mildly, uninterested; just told me to take it up with the Post Office. And more recently I enquired after a late order and the courier reported that the parcel "had been left in safety in the garage". Well, for starters I don't have a garage (no-one in my street does!) and secondly, I was in all day with the front door standing open so why did the driver feel the need to leave the parcel anywhere?

However, back to the topic of this thread (ahem!) I've ordered heaps of plants from Ebay this year and been extremely happy with all of them. They arrived safely, well packed and in very good condition and have grown on wonderfully well. Also I've been able to source specific plants that I wanted instead of spending hours uselessly hunting around garden centres. And the prices were great! Many were free shipping too.

I also collect jam spoons and have done for years. Originally I would find one in a car boot sale but what a waste to spend a whole morning scouring stalls in a field, often in a force 9 gale!, only to find one that you wouldn't want to waste your money on. I now buy them on Ebay and have doubled my collection just this year.

Yes, all in all, I'm a committed (and happy) Ebayer and use PayPal as well. There are always going to be problems but I've had more using credit cards on the high street than I have online - so far, anyway.

 

Paypall are actively trying to encourage people to use their facility for other purchases rather than just eBay. As long as you follow both the rules of eBay and Paypall, you should be OK.

The "horror stotries" are mostly when people have tried to short-cut the system to get out of paying the charges, or have been encouraged by "dodgy" purchasers to do so.

As I mentioned earlier, I won't deal with anyone who isn't an established eBayer and hasn't a 100% feed-back record.

 

I've used eBay for the last 4 years to both sell and to buy. Recently, I've stopped selling, partly because I've run out of things I don't want (!) but also because eBay have changed their feedback policy for sellers, so that buyers are unable to leave anything other than positive feedback. But as for selling, I've never had an issue - I only use paypal to pay for items and apart from a few genuine mistakes (sellers forgetting to send items!), I've never had a problem.

Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick, but I'm a bit confused about money getting ripped off from paypal accounts. Mine is set up so when I pay for something, the money comes out of it and if there is no money there, comes off another account. There is never any money in my paypal account, so it always comes out of the external account, via paypal.

I love eBay - cheaper than a lot of shops or online sites, great for finding rarer items, especially discontinued lines or out of print books. I also have bought a lot of plants via eBay - they are small yes, but all have survived. Beware some of the bulb sellers though - I have seen packets of bulbs sold in Pound Shops (for £1!) selling on eBay for £3, plus postage!

I use it as another search facility for goods - don't always buy from there first.

And it's brilliant for buying and selling motorbike leathers

 

I think you've got it covered.

I've used eBay for years, but like you I look elsewhere too. If there's something I want that is "new" I check elsewhere, trawling through several pages on Google as the top search results are rarely those with the best price, because suppliers pay to have their sites at the top of the first page.
If I want something that's being auctioned I'll put in a bid and then immediately keep upping my maximum bid by £5, to the highest amount I'm willing to pay. This means my name appears at the top of the list of bidders as many as six times, though my current bid may be half that. In this way I hope to put off other bidders who think my maximum bid may be much higher than it actually is and sometimes you can get the item for half what you were willing to pay because other people drop out.

I won't put a bid in for anything that has a reserve price that "hasn't yet been met."

With selling, I can't believe how some people are so poor at "presentation"
The facilities to "showcase" your item are excellent. There's also some pretty poor photography used sometimes.

If I'm selling something I wait for a "gap" if possible so I'm not competing with several people trying to sell the same thing. I also make my close-out time late enough for some "alcohol fuelled bids" from people returning from the pub. In that way, in the past I've sold a couple of saxophone mouthpieces and a saxophone for a lot more than I paid for them...on eBay!

The only downside is the 10% it costs to sell between the Paypal and eBay charges. But it would be the same in a "proper" auction with fewer potential buyers.

I always have to remind myself that a successful bid of mine is "the highest anyone is willing to pay in the country at that moment."

 

I have noticed that there are less and less auction style sales on eBay now and more buy it now sales. This is probably down to the fees you have to pay - more and more smaller sellers are no longer doing it, leaving only the powersellers who have the funds to pay.

It used to be cheaper though - I think a lot of sellers realise how much it's used and have taken advantage of that!

 

I always try and use Buy it Now for substantial buys as then you are covered distance selling laws:thmb:

 

I've just bought a new pump for my koi pool installation. The seller had two as separate items. One offered at a "Buy it now" price of £160.00, the other was open for bids.
The cheapest I could find on the internet was £125, though I was a bit suspicious of that as the average price was £194.00. In these instances they are often "out of stock" or it's an old web page. Anyway, I made my maximum bid in the eBay auction £120 and I got it for £105. So I was well pleased.