Can somebody tell me how this works? I see an item I want to buy but opposite the item are colums which state - Price - Bids - Time Left. How does this work and what happens if I like the price and just want to buy the item?

bob. whjen you see an item you like you can place a bid normally its best to enter the maximum price you are willing to pay for it.ebay automatically bids for you in small increments until it reaches your maximum bid. I have bought most of my wagons ( 124 now ) on ebay.the most important thing is to find out the postage charges (especially because you dont live in UK) Sometimes you will see a 'buy now' price and then its not an auction just a straight purchase. I have spent over 2ooo pounds on ebay now and never had a problem. It pays to do your research ie finding out the retail price before the bidding madness takes over.

Mikey

Bob, you'll need to sign up as a member, but the process is straightfoward and quick.
Opposite the item you like, you'll see a link to "ask the seller a question", click on this and enquire about postage. If it's more than 1.5 times the shown UK postage, it's probably too much for delivery to Spain. I've sent loads of items there and it's not excessively expensive.
Any specific questions and you are welcome to PM me, I've sold around 400 items on ebay and bought about 200, so I know most of the ways to trade.

So what's the price shown for at the side of the item? Do you know what the minimum price is? Does it get sold no matter what?

Bob when you see a item it should say what the start bid is and you just bid fron there but when you register you will have it alll explained when you go into the main page's, dont worry its easy once you start, even i can do it. Only thing is you pay a monthly fee regardless if you use it or not .
Phill

If it's an auction entry, which most are, the original price is the minimum bid the seller will accept. This goes up whenever someone bids and then you have to bid higher.

Whatever the price is when the auction closes, is what it sells for.
If it's worth £30 and the opening bid level is set at £1.99, you can bid £1.99. If there are no more bids, the seller must sell it to you for £1.99.
Opening bids are normally set low to encourage more bidders. More bidders mean that the price rises.

If there are no bids for the £30 item, you can set your maximum bid at £20 and Ebay will show your bid at £1.99 (the minimum), if I then bid £2.25, ebay will automatically bid again on your behalf at the next level up (say £2.50) this way you always top another person's bid up to your maximum.

phill said

 Only thing is you pay a monthly fee regardless if you use it or not .
Phill

That's for selling though, Phill - not for buying.

phill said

 Only thing is you pay a monthly fee regardless if you use it or not .
Phill

 :?:  :?:  :?:  :?:  :?:  :?:  :?:  :?:  :?:
I've been an ebay member for 3 years and that's a new one on me :!:  :!:

Think you've got that wrong Phill :?:

Well i never use it but my boy sells and buys bikes on there and he pays a monthly fee Jeff. Maybe if you are selling over a certain price i guess then.
Phill

Then I don't know what the fee is for, unless he's paying for some extras that Ebay provide.
Things like sales management / tracking tools are free, but there are upgrades that you can pay monthly for.

What's certain is that you can be a member and buy as much as you like (as a private individual) without any fee.

I shalll find out when he comes in, think its about £1 something.
Phill

Fees are purely for the seller to pay

Buying anything on Ebay costs you nothing whatsoever

All you pay is the finish price of the auction if you have won it

plus any post and packing costs which should be stated by the seller for you to see before you bid.

Opening a Paypal account is a great advantage buying on Ebay as it is a safe way to transfer money to a seller and there are also built in protections for both buyer and seller.
Plus it does speed up the transaction much more.

When looking at possible things to bid on ALWAYS look at the sellers feedback this gives you a good indication of how this person has traded in the past.

hope this helps

Brian.W

Phill,

If you sell an item, Ebay takes a small percentage of the price it makes. Likewise, if you pay for something you've bought by 'Paypal' then Paypal takes a small percentage. If you pay by cheque then there is no charge.

Apart from that I am unaware of any fees - monthly or otherwise.

Is this perhaps something a dealer rather than a private vendor or purchaser has to pay?

Perry

beware of new regs as well   Bob once you have registered they are all explained.for instance all sellers with under 100 good feedbacks can only sellvia ,or must accept, Paypal. Thats a payment company  (owned by ebay)You register your credit/debit card with them and the purchases are made by them thus negating the need for the seller to see your card details. It all sounds very complicated but isnt really. model railways are at the cheap end of the scale.As a musician i have bought guitars, amplifiers, mikes etc  sometimes costing hundreds where the benefits of paypal are enormous;insurance etc.

mikey

Just tried to register with e-bay and hit a snag straight away. I filled in the form but because my e-mail address is Spanish and my postal address it immediately switched me to e-bay Spain where they wanted my Spanish ID number. Now this number is different to the one they give to foreigners who are resident in Spain so of course it wouldn't accept my registration. Hmm, there has to be a way round this. Any ex pats on here registered with e-bay.

Bob
i worked over seas for 18 months, first thing is open a hotmail email account it only takes a couple of minutes. you can then use this just for ebay and any online registrations you complete.

what i done was register with my sisters address and everything works fine.
when you purchase an item you can choose what address to send the item to. either to the address you have registered at or sent straight out to you in Spain.
if you have family in the uk then this is the easiest way to go if they don’t mind send it to your family and ask them to forward the item. i hope this helps Bob.

just check the sellers feedback before any purchase, i got stung once for a couple of quid. look for about 30+ feedback at about 97% positive. i have recently had someone hack my account and start selling BMW's under my name. didn't realise until my account got suspended. it took me 2 hours on an instant chat thingy like MSN to sort it out. but don't let this put you off.  ALWAYS DO A SEARCH to find out the retail price of a item, i have seen wagons go for 19 quid when the actual retail price is 12 :roll:  happy bidding bob and take a look at PAY PAL.

Bob as someone who's only a few kilometres up the coast from you I can tell you it works.  :D

I am registered at my daughters address in the UK but choose my real address here in Spain as my main delivery address. Occasionally if I know she is coming out here I get a delivery to her and she brings it because the postage can vary. I think Jeff's advice is very sound about enquiring what the postage is. The items I have received through international mail have always be very well packed but I must confess I'm not sure what the situation would be if an item went missing.

Also if you are in a bidding situation that you are watching rather than automatically bidding, be careful as the deadline approaches because you could be in a bidding war just before it closes. I once nearly paid more for a second hand item than it would have cost me new.

I have a Paypal account funded through my British bank which makes it really easy and quick to pay.

By all means contact me if you need to know more.

Les

Thanks for all the info chaps. I'll look into it again.

… And if I might add my warning to that already given by Matt about researching the retail price:  I am looking for a modern, commuter-style station platform and found one on eBay (the "Buy it Now" listings) for $7.99. I nearly clicked 'yes' but decided to take a look at Walthers to see if there was anything else suitable.  There was the very same platform for $5.99 :evil:  :evil:  :evil: And for far less shipping.

Guess which one …  :wink:

Les - I understand having a UK address registered - I tend to use my Brother/Mum as that address.  I haven't used e-bay-  yet !!  Where I have come a cropper is trying to buy, for example, UK train tickets online.  They'll only send them to UK addresses - no problem (see above) but when it comes to payment by card, it won't accept it because the address on the card is non-UK and doesn't match the UK address given to them.

How do you manage it via your bank ?

Petermac