ebay.co.uk > Reviews > Buying made so easy

Author's product rating:   

Layout & Design	Excellent
Navigation	Excellent
How fast is this website?	Fast
Quality of the Content	Excellent
Range of Services / Products	Very complete

Advantages:	easy to use, you find unique products at very low prices
Disadvantages:	Must be good with bidding on your item you are interested, especially if the auction finishes late

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The reason that I've decide to write about ebay, (the UK part) is the fact that I'm so very pleased with all the purchases I've made so I would like to let others know why I think ebay is the best auction site there is.

I've registered with them back in April 2001, just for the fun of it, when I accidentally ended up on their site. I wasn't planning to buy anything and I wasn't keen either on buying items second hand.

But in October I was in desperate need to get a laptop not just second hand but anything that actually was working, no matter what model or how old it was. My search to other computer related-second hand sites was in vain as all the prices, even the cheapest ones were well beyond my means at that time.

Having nothing to lose I decided to try ebay, on my "spare time at work". Maybe I was first time lucky but I found what I was looking for which cost me with delivery included less than £50. I was over the moon.

That's when I started getting interesting on online auctions and had a look around to some others (QXL, FS Auction, Ebid, Yahoo, etc). I was really disappointed by the lack of categories and items they were auctioning.

In ebay you can find almost anything you like. From music to crystals and since my hobbies are being covered by one of their categories I have been a very regular buyer since.

They've got a very big selection of metaphysical items and most of the people are selling items there are very friendly and nice.
Everything I have bought so far it's being in good quality, reasonable price and the deliveries have been much faster than I would have normally expected.

The bidding is straightforward as you can place from the beginning your maximum bid and ebay will do all the bidding for you. At the same time you are kept inform either by email or text message if someone has outbid you.
As soon as the auction finishes you get an email with the confirmation of your successful bid and an email, usually the same day, from the seller who tells you how much to pay total (delivery charges) and how to pay.

There are a lot of ways to pay either by cheque or money order or Nochex or paypal or others. The problem I found with Nochex is that though it is faster, as you don't have to wait for the cheque to clear for your items to be delivered since the money it's taken from your debit card straight away, there is a fee of £0.99 each time you load money to your Nochex account. So it's better to load a large amount once on your account than doing each time you want to pay. I guess it's better for the sellers. I'm not so keen on have money taken from my bank account by somebody else, no matter how safe they tell you it is so I'm using the old fashion cheques.

Another good think is the ebay-shops where you can find all your favourite sellers' products listed and you can buy what you like straight away without bidding.

Buy now is another good feature but unfortunately it's not available for all products and you have to be quick because it disappears as soon as somebody starts bidding on the item.

I have found ebay such a good bargain for a lot of items, since a lot of sellers sell their own hand made products at very low prices. Something that you can't find sometimes even at the cheapest shops.

In all there are a lot of good features which make ebay unique as well as the community forums where you leave feedback after your purchase has been completed or the customer services if you have problems.
But in all my dealings with ebay sellers so far I've never encountered any problems. Everybody has been very friendly and helpful. Something unique and most welcomed.

Highly recommended if you're looking for bargains and very easy to use(at your spare time at work).