Spelling mistakes:
In eBay when someone searches for something, his search word is matched with the titles of listed items. If however, one searches for Nokia, but a seller has typed in his title Nokiia, this phone will not show up in the list.

There are times people misspell simple things, typos and the like. There are some handy tools that allows you to find listings with spelling mistakes.

www.fatfingers.com

www.typobay.com

What these websites will do is try and guess alternative possible spelling mistakes. For example, if you input Nokia, some of the output you get back is Nokiia, Noka, Nokii, Nokkia, Nukia, Nokya, Nokai, etc.

All you have to do is copy the output text and paste it in the search box in eBay and see what people spelled.

The result is that, Nokia is in itself a very popular searched item, but hardly any one is looking for the alternate. The seller will miss out on the number of visitors, and as a result, potentially you can get the item for a lot less, even for eBay standard.

Caution – Safety check is essential. If a seller makes critical mistake in the title, chances are there may be more mistakes. Do all sorts of checks, feedbacks, item listing, pictures, the lot. Ask questions, and make sure about everything.

Timing
It is often you will find that people lists items to finish at odd times. Like 6am Sunday morning. In unreserved auctions, it is the ending time when the price normally jumps. If the current bid on the item is not much, and the item is finishing at odd an time, chances are you might end up with a nice bargain.

If you do not want to be awake at odd times just to make a bid, there is always the paid sniping option.

Sniping: Sniping is a term often used to define the bid made at the very last possible moment, just before the bidding ends.

Professional sniping services are provided by many companies.

EXAMPLES
What these companies do is, place the bid on your behalf at the last possible moment automatically. For example, you may want to buy a nice lamp shade, but its ending late (say at about 0430 am), a sniping service will bid for you at the last possible moment, with the amount that you mentioned.

Why not use a maximum bid?

Maximum bid is an automated service too, except not at the last moment. Say if the current bid is at $40, and you want to pay $60 maximum for it. If you enter $60, the current amount will still stay at $40 till someone else comes along and bids for $55. You will still win, but at $55 (or a little more). But if you placed your maximum bid of $60 in a sniping service the other person would have stayed the highest bidder at $40. But at the last possible moment your max bid of $60 goes in, and you will still be the winner, but it may turn out that the other person may have left the max bid at $40. So you may have won at $41.

With a sniping service you can potentially avoid bid wars.

Most experienced eBayers recommend Auction Raptor for Sniping, we tried it and found it reasonably easy to use as the interface is very simple and it worked well.

Pickup Only – Some of the sellers do not want to parcel items, or they are more comfortable at taking cash only on pick up. This can work out greatly on your favor. Although the item is viewable nationally, only the local people will bid on the item as the seller will not ship the item. As a result, you may have very little competition on the item.

One of the very big advantage of pickup is that you can inspect the item at the time of pickup. Pay last, check first. If the item is not as described, or there are problems with the product that was not mentioned on the listing, just walk away. There is little that the seller can do if he was on the wrong to start with.

Seller On Pressure
This tip may not be agreeable by some due to ethical reasons, depending on situations.

Some sellers, (regardless of in eBay or other places such as Trading post or Gumtree, etc) are in a real rush to sell their stuff. For example, it often appears on the advertisements that the seller is moving overseas, or interstate, or just moving house. These people will often sell off their items for a cut of the original price. Sometimes if you make an offer to end an auction early for a given price, they may agree to that, as time is of essence for them.

A word of advise – think about their situation too, and be considerate. In certain situations sellers find themselves truly cornered, but I would not recommend anyone to take advantage, please.

True case I came across was then a seller was going overseas permanently and he needed to sell his car before his departure. Talk about pressure. The guy had no idea how to sell, and he went to the car dealers for a good deal. Unfortunately for him, he expressed his desperation very clearly, in hope that the dealer will give him a good deal on account of his distressed state. Well, the opposite happened. Seeing no options the man sold his car for peanuts.

Not nice!

While buying, please make sure that ethical issues are looked after. While it is true that ones loss can be others gain, there is a line that should not be crossed.

Single Liner
There are some sellers who do an extremely poor job of listing their item. You will often find listing will just one sentence and one picture (poorly taken I might add). That does not mean that there is something wrong with the item. Just that, probably the seller did not have much experience selling online (or buying) previously. The result is that not many people may take interest in buying that item. And you may end up with a competition free end of auction.

Note – With sellers like these, make sure what you are bidding on is a properly functional item, worthy of your time. Ask questions, make sure the item really is as you are picturing in your mind. Less description can leave a lot of holes in communications too. Proceed with caution and rid yourself of doubt 100%.

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