I’m not a professional Ebayer by a long shot. I’ve bought a few things and learned a thing or two about being too quick to bid. The most important things to look at are: Sellers feedback - READ the negatives. It just takes a few minutes to scroll through and find them… Check on the Shipping Fee’s I once bought a white 4′ Christmas Tree for $3.99 in haste! I didn’t do the calculation before hand… when I paid was I shocked to see nearly $40. for shipping !!! (why would I DO that??? we’ve got a local store where I could buy the same tree for $19.99) !!! I paid, thinking well .. I won and have to pay. Then I wrote in the feedback that shipping was a rip off. The seller refused to send the tree!! I reported him/her to PayPal. It took a while, but they did recover the entire costs for me.

If you will take the time to surf the internet you can find out what prices are on various items if they are new from the source. For example: Video Games. I’ve visited Sony websites, and other retailers’ sales and found that there are sellers on Ebay - selling for more than the local retailers in some cases - so beware!

Overall - I have put my learning experiences to good use and enjoy ‘finding’ special items at great discounts. It is fun and I can do this at any time of the day… that’s what keeps me going back to Ebay AND OTHER INTERNET SITES - Shopping convenience.