About me:Previously owned a webite on which i reviewed my games. if enough people want me to, i may bring it ...
Member since:28.02.2001
Reviews:37
Members who trust:5
Review rated by 10 Ciao members on average: very helpful
This review received a counterstatement by a party concernedRead Comment
I am a very active buyer and seller, mainly of Computer Games, and until I was introduced to ebay I used a site called Preloved. This was all well and good but it took ages for the seller or buyer to respond to my mail. I was shown ebay by a friend and decided to give it a try. I didn't regret it.
First off I noticed that when you sign up you have to use an e-mail address that is personal ie AOL not Hotmail. I thought at first that this was being a bit picky, but then i realised that they did it so that the people who like to annoy others could not join. What Im saying is that no-one can just make a Yahoo address and the bid on all the items without ever paying for them. This is very good, as I have yet to have a bad experience with them.
When you bid, you enter the maximum you are willing to pay; for example if an item is 5.00 pounds and you are willing to pay up to 10, they will automatically outbid people for you until the auction reaches that amount. Then they e-mail you asking wheter you want to continue. This is excellent because it means that you don't have to worry about checking to see if you have een outbid.
You have to pay to advertise to sell on ebay. You pay nothing for membership, and you pay nothing to buy, but to sell you need to pay them a set amount to put the items in the auction, and then a certaiin percentage of the final outcome (soething like 2.5%). I can understand this, however. To prvide such an excellent service they must make some money from somewhere. Obviously advertising doesn't cover it.
The trouble comes when the auctions are over. Normally things go smoothly, however once the auction ends Ebay have nothing to do with it. They let the buyer and seller deal with payment etc. This is OK because it means you have "cut out the middle man". Its also bad becuse it means that you can get some annoying people who mess you around. There is a scheme that is supposed to stop this; once the auction ends, you are allowed to post feedback on the other participant. if everything went smoothly, you post positive feedback. You get the point. The better your feedback rating, the more ebay and other bidders and sellers will trust you.
In conclusion, Ebay is great for both buying and selling.
Tim, as I am also an avid auction seller - and to a lesser extent buyer - I quite like eBay, but am put off a bit by the fact that I have - as a seller - pay a listing fee for each item. So if I list 20 items and none sell I still have tp pay. If I use yahoo.co.uk or amazon.co.uk I don't have anything to pay unless the item sells. PLUS both those sites have just as many users as eBay, pretty well as there are always plenty of bids flying around to make it worth my while. As far as bidders not coming up with the money - I've had that problem with both yahoo and amazon, I'm sure that eBay have the same prob (although I listed 28 items recently with them on a free listing day - sold 6 and ALL of them have paid up!) Good op - but there are other options you can try as well
by (90%):
by (10%):
11.03.2001 19:19
Tim, as I am also an avid auction seller - and to a lesser extent buyer - I quite like eBay, but am put off a bit by the fact that I have - as a seller - pay a listing fee for each item. So if I list 20 items and none sell I still have tp pay. If I use yahoo.co.uk or amazon.co.uk I don't have anything to pay unless the item sells. PLUS both those sites have just as many users as eBay, pretty well as there are always plenty of bids flying around to make it worth my while. As far as bidders not coming up with the money - I've had that problem with both yahoo and amazon, I'm sure that eBay have the same prob (although I listed 28 items recently with them on a free listing day - sold 6 and ALL of them have paid up!) Good op - but there are other options you can try as well