Guide to buying on eBay

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It is a fact that eBay is the leader in Internet auctions, usually have anything you are looking for, and usually at a good price. But despite being a well-known source, there are many people who don't know How to buy on eBay, and sometimes feel afraid to put a credit card number to make a purchase online.

How to buy on eBay?

This tutorial is based on a generic purchase on eBay, so the steps will be similar for all types of purchase we make. We must also remember that there are two types of basic shopping on eBay : a direct purchase, where the product is our after purchase, and the auction, where we must compete against other potential buyers for the product.

What should I keep in mind to buy on eBay?

Let us make a hypothetical case where we have already registered on eBay and we have found a product you want to buy, whatever. In this case, there are some details that we must see before making the purchase:
  • Shipping: If the product is sent to everyone (worldwide) or your country, you can see this information in the Shipping and Payments tab.
  • Seller reputation: in terms of the reputation of the seller, it is best to buy users with high reputation as they are more reliable. However, you can always take the risk of buying products to new vendors.
  • Product status: it is recommended to buy new items boxed, but obviously used are cheaper, and it will depend on us the confidence that we grant to a product used to thousands of kilometres away.
  • Payments: at the site most common payment method is PayPal, and in addition to being a widely reliable mechanism, works easily and fast. Anyway, we can always count on the international credit card, if the product allows it.
  • Time remaining: in case of being in front of an auction, the amount of months, days, hours, minutes and seconds remaining so close it is extremely important. It is good to look for one that ends in few hours or days to avoid having to track you for a long time and know more or less the price, given that in a month many offers, and something which was worth may appear 20 dollars could increase up to 500.
  • Returns / warranty: If you repent, or that the product is not what you expected, keep in mind those paragraphs, since the rules will be displayed for a possible complaint. In addition, in some cases we can even receive our money, if the purchased object does not us on conditions.
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Direct purchase or auction?

Well, is the bid or buy time. If it is a direct sales we can make click on the Buy It Now button located to the right of the price or Place Bid if it's an auction. In the first case the product already is ours, so we will focus on the second
When you click on the Place Bid you will lead us to another window where we enter our offer maximum, this system works in a very intelligent way. What we do is say eBay the maximum amount of money we are willing to pay for that product.
Let's take a practical example to better understand this maximum offer. The product that you want to buy is in an auction that has an initial value of $300. Then we want to raise the money from the auction and offer $500 as maximum bet.
From this page of the product changes the current offer for 320 dollars (our offer). If someone makes one higher offer our increases until you reach the top of 500 dollars, a log of offers would be something like:
Product: Price $300.
I: Maximum of $500 offer.
Product: New offer for 320 dollars.
User x Offer for $400.
Product: New offer for 400 dollars.
I: The system automatically offer by my current price less than the maximum that I am willing to pay, then my offer now is 420 dollars.
Product: New offer for 420 dollars.
User: Offer for 550 dollars.
Product: New offer for 550 dollars.
I: To be the highest bid that the most I am willing to pay the system does nothing and let me know by e-mail.

Made the purchase, and now?

Well, let's make account then the end of the auction were "winners" of the product. We're going to have to contact the seller through eBay or email to pay and coordinate shipping, here is the center of the issue.
What do we have to say to the seller of the product to increase the chances of receiving our purchase at the door of House?
  • The shipment by USPS (United States Postal Service): this form is handled by the postal services of each country. This can make us save money where our package is arrested at the Customs office or mail, since in some countries charge cups hold packages for a few days.
  • EMS (Express Mail Service): this is optional, since the package will cost more expensive if we want to reach faster than our home, where we want it fast so we may request EMS. The price change is seen in the Shipping of the product section.
  • Gift: ask the seller that mark the product as gift can make your package to be saved from a stay at the Customs Office. If you are a single product and is marked likely that the customs they miss it, however, if it is a package with various objects certainly stop it.
  • Declare a value lower than the actual: again, in the form of mail must request the seller to reduce the real value of the product. If you bought a $500 camera it would be good for the seller to declare a price of 250 dollars, that is if they retain the customs, since we must then pay a percentage cost in relation to the product.

Last steps of the buying on eBay

Now it only remains for waiting to get the product, pay the seller, ask the tracking (tracking code) number to see your new purchase travel and when you receive it in your House give a positive vote, as a thank you.
If that package has not come to your home in the stipulated time, this can either be delayed or simply stopped at customs. In the latter case the safe will be receive a note saying that you should remove it any depending on the mail.
The rules of detention of products change according to time and country, so we are not going to focus on detail specific cases. However, usually in the case that our package is arrested at customs or in the mail we have to do is go to the town where we have quoted and pay a tax for the import of the product.
This value is usually in relation to the stated price (why we ask the seller to reduce it) but in other cases, the box is opened and the price is stipulated by the officials of the unit, being that they have a system that shows them much is each product.
With these tips and advice on the laws of importation of products imported from the country surely can find the right way to buy products online.
Article contributed for educational purposes