I just have to give my opinion on ebay.co.uk.
This is the first time I have tried an online auction, and decided to use it on the recommendation of an American friend, who is always ranting about ebay.com!
I did not have a clue when I got there (remember, I had not done this before), but I went through the registering process and waited for the confirmation of ID and password through email. Unfortunately, it did not arrive, but I noticed that you could login using the email address that I registered with.
I was looking for a particular film that I had been waiting to watch again for some time, and had just missed it’s showing on BBC1 the previous week (drat)!!!
I found the search feature very useful, but all the items are listed in category and I soon found the item I was looking for!!!
It was currently bidding at £1.20, and bids were going up by 20p each time. The best feature about this site was that you can place a proxy bid.
Now, this means that you can put in a bid for, say, £3 but the item would only go up by the usual 20p. So the bid would show as £1.40. If somebody else came along and bid £1.60, they would get a message saying that they had been outbid, but the bidding would go up to £1.60 and so on. Following me?
Basically, ebay would be bidding for you up to your proxy bid value - in the above case - £3.
You would be emailed by ebay should somebody match your bid allowing you to bid more or forget it.
The above actually describes what I did, but I ended up paying £2.20 for my film because that is the highest amount that another bidder had placed. This is a great idea if you do not have the time to follow your bidding in an auction - place your proxy bid and wait for the email to say your bid has been matched, or the email to say that you have won the bid!!
I sent off my postal order to the person selling the film on Tuesday 29/08/00 and I had it in my hands on Friday 1/9/00. Thats great service I think!
Now that I have been using ebay for a while I can now add to this opinion my experiences of selling items. In another opinion about Pokemon, someone suggested ebay was a great place to buy the trading cards.
It is true! You can look for cards that your child does not have, instead of wasting £2.50 on a booster pack in the hope that the card is there.
I have also placed my son’s duplicates for sale on ebay, and when the money arrives it is used to buy cards on ebay that he does not have.
This site has to be the better of the popular auction sites for selling.
For a start, you do not have to register a credit card before you can buy or sell. At Yahoo and QXL you do!
ebay give you a £15 credit limit, so once you reach this you cannot add anymore items until it is paid.
Payment can be made either by credit card, or you can print out an invoice and post it to them with either a cheque or postal order.
Credit card payments are quicker to pay your balance, within 24 hours. Sending the payment can take up to 7 days.
To sell an item is not free. There are various charges for different things, so it would be a good idea to read through all the FAQ pages first.
To place an item for sale under £5 costs 15p. Above £5 and up to £25 is 35p and so on. It would save you to insert an item for £4.99.
If you do not want to accept less than a certain amount for your item, you would state a reserve price. This is the lowest you would accept for your item. This costs 65p.
You can also add a picture of your item at no extra cost, and you can state who pays the postage, what payment methods you will accept and where you will post to (UK, Europe, USA and Worldwide).
From what I can see, they appear to be be charging 5p in the pound commission on everything you successfully sell.
If you do not sell your item by the end of your bidding date, you can insert it again, and if it sells the second time around ebay will credit you the listing charge.
I have had lots of fun selling old videos, CD’s and Pokemon cards.
I have even sold a ferry ticket to Ireland, that I won playing the Fetch game on Tombola. It fetched £20!
People are selling anything and everything on ebay. One thing I saw for sale was an ICQ UIN (the icq member number). Because it was one of the older, shorter numbers, people were actually bidding for it!!
Well! I thought, I have had my number for years and I no longer use ICQ so up it went for sale! I got £10.
I have had no trouble with receiving goods or payment for goods I have sold. People seem very friendly and I wouldn’t use any other auction site!
I love my ebay!