Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!!!! Oh yessssssssss!!!!!! *Throws head back in expected and unsurpassed pleasure* *slumps back in computer chair with knowing relieved grin on face* ;o) *heartbeat slowly returns to a normal resting rate* It’s over, I’ve finally achieved something that I have been attempting to accomplish since last Saturday!!
Want to know more? Read on!!!
Last Saturday evening I discovered a new experience! Something that I had known about for some time but hadn’t bothered to check out for myself, being the naïve, shy and retiring creature that I am, *ahem!
Something that friends had told me was excellent fun and totally addictive. Something that wasn’t illegal, fattening or bad for you but was depressingly enough, addictive. Oh how right they were!!
I am an Ebayaholic!!
But what? I haven’t the time for this :o( I barely have enough time for this wonderful place, (and the other one!!) :o( I barely check my emails out these days and my poor neglected online pals are beginning to desert me in their droves, come back pleeeease!!
So what on earth has this site got to offer that has driven me, a usually sane, all-together, rational, level-headed, (ok that will do woman!!) soul to the edge of addiction and insomnia! More about the latter particular condition later!!
I won’t go into all the ins and outs of what Ebay is about right here, right now; I hope to be able to enlighten you in my own inimitable way as this op unfolds! And if I end up making very little sense (Oi!!) then there are heaps of others on here that you can check out to remedy that!
I have to mention here that this op is mainly based on the experiences of a ‘potential’ buyer as opposed to a seller. Give me time, it has taken me long enough to get this far!!
I must first confess here to thinking that Ebay was a bit of an ‘anoraky’ thing to partake in, I mean after all how much time could one person spend watching other people buy and sell their unwanted stuff? Answer…far too much time!!!
As mentioned earlier I wasn’t in the business of selling anything, asides from the fact that I don’t have anything I want to sell at the moment I also do not have the knowledge nor the experience needed on how to do so on Ebay. I am sure that both these attributes would come in time.
I also do not own a digital camera or a scanner to show these items. An addition that, in my very limited experience of Ebay I would class as
essential. If there wasn’t a photograph of what I was searching for then I did not even give the item description a second look.
I am going to a pretty posh wedding up in Yorkshire in May and I wanted something really different and out of the ordinary (bit like me really!) to wear to it. I knew roughly the kind of thing I had in mind and had scoured the local shops etc but come up with nothing that had remotely caught my eye.
I don’t know what made me do it but I checked out Ebay last Saturday, as I said earlier and clicked straight onto the clothing category.
It was a very well laid out site. Oh I forgot to mention, I had to register first but that was pretty painless, choosing a user name and a password. My first chosen one was gone so I settled on the same name as on here, in for a penny in for a pound, or dollar as the case proved to be!
It is a dead easy site to navigate with everything you need to know either laid out there for you to click on or a very useful search facility to utilise, to death as I have done over the last week!
So there I was clicked on the clothing category followed by the sub one that I was after, tops, dresses, skirts etc. I scrolled down the list and there it was…the perfect outfit!!!! Just what I had been looking for and it beckoned to me saying, “I’m all yours, come along and check me out…”
Oh how naïve I was then as I hastily clicked on to be taken to this particular item, thinking, “It’s mine, it’s all mine!”
Clicking took me to the item which revealed that it was indeed exactly what I was looking for except for one vital problem, it wasn’t my size:o(In fact I doubt that I would have gotten it over my big toe!!! Problem solved, click onto the ‘other items in this sellers auction’ or ‘visit my Ebay store’ link!
Wahay!!!! Row upon row of similar apparel in my size!! If, like me, and are into this type of clothing, Gothic/Renaissance/Celtic/Hippy/Gypsy then I strongly suggest you check out Holyclothing.com on Ebay…you will love it!! I do!!
Anyway as usual, I digress!
I spent a good couple of hours checking out the various apparel located in this teeny weeny part of Ebay. Noticing that as I clicked on each item the colour of the text changed so that the next time I went to check out the site that the ones I had already looked at were a different colour. This way I can always tell when new stock has been added, essential when you are after something in particular.
It took me some time to pluck up the courage to make a bid, clicking back and forth on the AOL currency converter in order to suss out the difference in dollars and pound sterling.
Hint here: - do check that the seller you are planning to buy from does indeed ship worldwide. Once you put in a bid you should really honour that bid, failing to do so could give you ‘black marks’ against your name and jeopardise any future dealings you may want to make.
But once I realised that it wasn’t indeed ‘going to bite’ I hesitantly clicked on the ‘bid now’ link. I upped the current high bid by just one dollar, idealistically thinking that if I was outbid as the sale progressed then I could just up it a bit at a time…. mistake!!
I was glued to my computer screen for the remaining hour of the bid and was getting more and more thrilled as I noted that I was still the highest bidder, “How easy is this” I thought!
And then it got to the 5-minute mark, my heart started to beat a little bit faster as I clicked the refresh button time and time again, I was still the winning bid! I was sooo looking forward to getting my chosen outfit and bragging to everyone that I had bought it from Canada via the Internet!
Then it got to the 2-minute mark and I swear I began to hyperventilate!! This dress was rapidly heading across the water!
1 minute 30 seconds…still mine:o)
1 minute….still mine:o) :o)
43 seconds…WHAT!!!!!!
Another bid leapt onto the screen, and then 5 seconds later..another!!!!
Yaaagghhhh!!! I thumped away frantically at my keyboard in a last ditch effort to outbid them and then….
THIS AUCTION HAS ENDED hit the screen, “the winning bidder was **@@++?$”
BITCH!!!!!!!! (aplogies if this was YOU!!! But I WAS very disappointed!!!)
I think it is true to say that my feeling at this point can’t have been far short of a ‘would be’ world record beater who gets pipped at the post by a zillionth of a fraction of a nano-second:o(!!!!
How bloody cruel and unjust is that!! How can anyone else on the whole of the World Wide Web have wanted the same dress as me, as much as what I did!! Bitch again!!!
Note to me:- I must, I really must get my RAM upped!!!!
So, there was one more option open to me at this point. Put in a bid for the same outfit in blue, my second choice! Ha!! I wasn’t going to be ‘sniped’ (official term I believe) a second time!
This time I opted for the proxy bidding and went straight in at a $50 bid, way above the current high bid and still less than I would have gotten the thing in England for, had I indeed found something as gorgeous!
So with 5 hours to go until the end of this auction I retired to me bed, (it was 1.00 am at this point! I am surprised I didn’t wake the rest of the household up with my desperate wailing upon losing my first bid!) safe in the knowledge that Ebay would bid for me and that when I awoke the next morning that I would be the proud owner of the chosen item…yes you know where this is going don’t you?
“You have email” Oh whoopee, that’ll be a message from Ebay telling me that I am the lucky bidder and informing me as to what to do next as to how to pay for and get my dress delivered…..ho bloody ho:o(!
“...you have been out bid, this auction closed at a bid of $51!!!”
Bitch was just the tamer or the expletives that I used this time!!
Ok, so what have I learned from this thus far?
1..If you are really desperate for a particular item I would suggest going for the ‘buy now’ option that is available on some items on Ebay. You have to pay the price set by the seller but at least that way you will get it!
2..Keep an eye on your item, a real close eye that is! In future I will not be going to bed before an item that I have bid on has closed, bearing in mind that some stuff comes from America and other places and there is the time difference to take into account!
3..Bid at the last minute, if and only if you have a nice speedy computer!! That way you can be on the ‘silent’ end of the receiving expletives!! Instead of cussing yourself!
And last but not least….chill!!!!
It isn’t the end of the world if you don’t get what you are looking for the first time around. And all being well by the end of next week I will be the proud owner of a Spiky bottomed pink Gothic skirt as well as a Burgundy Renaissance/Gypsy inspired one.
Note to me:- Don’t bid on more than one skirt at a time in the hope that you will get one of them, you will most likely be completely surprised to discover that no one else bids on the wretched things and you will end up with both! Use the ‘watch these items’ facility on Ebay and bid only at the last minute if you really do want just the one!
Now all that remains for me to do is suss out the payment system, Ebay appears to have a secure paying site but I can’t yet work out how to access the PayPal set up…sigh…there is much I still have to learn!
To condense:
~~~~~~~~~~
From a buyers point of view:
As well as the things I have pointed out in the main body of this op can I also add a few more pointers that I have discovered during the past week?
Check out the seller.
Go to their feedback section and check their statistics. Read through comments left by past customers to see how good/bad they are. Check out how long they have been trading on Ebay.
If there is anything you would like to know before you out in a bid for a particular item, email the seller. I needed to know whether a particular top I was after had buttons that undid or whether they were purely decorative. I emailed Janice at Holyclothing and she replied within 24 hours. If they are a reputable seller then they will care about their customer enough to respond in a timely manner.
Reply quickly to their emails when you have won an item and they have informed you of their chosen payment method. Poor buyers will soon gain a bad reputation and you will find yourself struggling the next time you want to bid for an item I shouldn’t wonder.
As far as things go with me, right now I am waiting to hear back from the two sellers I have won bids from as to how much shipping I have to pay to have the items shipped over, as well as how they want me to cough up.
I am investigating Paypal right now, anyone any ideas as to where to find that on the site? I think that credit cards are the preferred method of many, being quicker and more reliable.
When I receive my two skirts I will leave some feedback on my sellers feedback area to let them know how pleased (I hope?) I am, and hope that they will start up a feedback area for me saying how good a payer etc, I am, so that I can in turn begin to build up a good reputation as a buyer on Ebay
I won’t update this op when I do receive my skirts, well I don’t plan to, it rather depends on how much I have to say! But will most likely leave a line or two on my profile page!
As for selling….well watch this space…only not too closely, you all know how slowly the wheels of Kazzie grind!!
Hope this has helped a little, if you are more interested on any selling aspects of Ebay I can only suggest you check out some other excellent ops on Ebay here on Ciao from very reputable op writers…you know who you are!
Me? I’m off to replicate my orgasmic experiences on Ebay right now in the search for the ‘perfect’ top to go with my perfect skirt!
Ciao!!
Kazzie xx
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11.09.2005 22:25
haha! That made me laugh, I know all about that outbided feeling, especially when you really want something! sara x
07.06.2003 15:06
I hope you managed to get your PayPal account sorted out. If you haven't already got an account, I would suggest asking if any of your friends have one as they'll get a bonus if you sign up under their referral link! x
21.01.2003 15:14
I hope you were able to find out all you wanted to know about Paypal. Other forms of payment I would recommend are NOCHEX and FASTPAY (the second you can do from your mobile phone). If you want details on any of these payment methods or would like to become a seller on Ebay and would like some tips, then please leave a message on my GB. I have been buying and selling on Ebay since 1998, it's great, especially when you want to clothe a young family well on the cheap!