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eBay Adventures
Teri and I did our first bidding together on eBay over the weekend, and got two rare books in the "Tim" series by Edward Ardizzone for a good price. In the process I realized that the smartest thing to do is to place your first bid bid as close to the close of the auction as possible, with a backup maximum bid a few dollars higher.
Yes, that's probably obvious to almost everyone, but it was a discovery for me.
At one point Teri started bidding on a book for herself, and discovered the power of eBay's maximum bid scam. It's pretty sleazy; for those who aren't familiar with eBay, when you place a bid they invite you to put a maximum bid in as well. Then if anyone else bids, eBay automatically bids you one increment higher than them.
The problem is that if more than one person does a maximum bid, the price automatically rises to just over the second-highest maximum bid. Since eBay takes their cut out of the winning bid price (sort of), this encourages high prices and enhances their profits - but it isn't good for people who want to buy things cheaply!
Anyway, Teri was bidding on a book online, when I had a sudden suspicion. She'd last bid $19, and if she wanted to stay in the lead the new bid would have to be $21.50; that sounded like an awfully high price for a relatively new book, even one in hardcover. So I had her wait on that bid, and popped over to Amazon.com...where I found the exact same book, NEW, for $7.98. With shipping, a little over eleven dollars.
We let the auction go and bought the book from (choke) Amazon.
It's important to be a smart shopper.
Yes, that's probably obvious to almost everyone, but it was a discovery for me.
At one point Teri started bidding on a book for herself, and discovered the power of eBay's maximum bid scam. It's pretty sleazy; for those who aren't familiar with eBay, when you place a bid they invite you to put a maximum bid in as well. Then if anyone else bids, eBay automatically bids you one increment higher than them.
The problem is that if more than one person does a maximum bid, the price automatically rises to just over the second-highest maximum bid. Since eBay takes their cut out of the winning bid price (sort of), this encourages high prices and enhances their profits - but it isn't good for people who want to buy things cheaply!
Anyway, Teri was bidding on a book online, when I had a sudden suspicion. She'd last bid $19, and if she wanted to stay in the lead the new bid would have to be $21.50; that sounded like an awfully high price for a relatively new book, even one in hardcover. So I had her wait on that bid, and popped over to Amazon.com...where I found the exact same book, NEW, for $7.98. With shipping, a little over eleven dollars.
We let the auction go and bought the book from (choke) Amazon.
It's important to be a smart shopper.
no subject
Anyway, if the item is fairly common and not too incredibly popular and you can be patient, then you will get it very very cheap eventually. Just pick your price, subtract out S&H, and place your bid. If you are outbid on that particular auction, go bid on another one. Never bid twice on the same auction if you can avoid it, as that way lies competition and the likelihood of paying more than you have to. Under these conditions supply outweighs demand and it's a buyers market. There's a "favorite searches" feature that will email you anytime there's a new item matching your search, which is a fine feeature indeed for the patient bargain shopper.
If it's more rare, or you are in a hurry, though, then that won't work. Either pay more, or go somewhere else looking for it cheaper.
I love eBay. In fact, all of the clothes I'm wearing right now (except for my underwear) came from eBay. These pants? $48 at the store, but $8 (with shipping) from eBay. This shirt? $124 at the store, but $16 (with shipping) from eBay. Yummy savings!
Clothes!?!
Our biggest eBay problem is that we don't use PayPal. Teri was warned off of it by a friend of hers who's an old eBay expert, and I did some research (i.e. I googled "eBay sucks"), and found some more disturbing info.
So Teri sends money orders, which slows the whole process down.
no subject
These particular clothes were new (still had the tags on them, too) but I have bought some used clothes from eBay, too. Be sure to wash them before you wear them if you do that, just in case.
On average, about one out of six garments I've purchased off eBay turned out to not fit well or to be uglier than the pictures made it looks, enough so that I never wear them. On the whole, even with a 1 in 6 worthlessness rate, it's still a lot cheaper than just about anything else besides a good cheap second-hand store (and I can't find any of those around here with a decent menswear selection).
Do clothes make the man?
Sometimes I think that I'd have an easier time finding clothing in the south; I have the impression that people are fatter there, and are more comfortable about it.
Hmm. I probably shouldn't do this, but just for the record I'll write my current sizes down now. I might as well let it all hang out...this is basically a historical record for myself, in the hopes that some of these will shrink some day.
- Pants - 44 waist, 30 length (got to try them on, because often they seem to be designed for enormous, distended abdomens. Levis usually fit me like a dream, though)
- Shirts - 20 neck, 35 sleeve (but I have to be careful, as the bodies are often WAY too huge)
- Hats (a rare event): the largest available. Like the boy, I have a HUGE head.
- Shoes: usually 12 extra wide or 13.
Re: Do clothes make the man?