eBay® for Dummies®, 6th Edition

Chapter 6. Shopping eBay: The Basics

In This Chapter

• Knowing the ins and outs of the Item Listing page

• Knowing the seller

• Figuring out the extras

• Placing a bid

• Bidding by proxy

• Avoiding bidder's remorse

Browsing different categories of eBay, looking for nothing in particular, you spot that must-have item lurking among other Elvis paraphernalia in the Collectibles category. Sure, you could live without that faux gold Elvis pocket watch, but life would be so much sweeter with it. And even if it doesn't keep good time, at least it'll be right twice a day.

When you bid for items on eBay, you can get that same thrill that you would get at Sotheby's or Christie's for a lot less money, and the items you win are likely to be slightly more practical than an old Dutch masterpiece you're afraid to leave at the framer's. (Hey, you have to have a watch, and Elvis is — er, was — the King.)

In this chapter, I give you the lowdown about the types of auctions and fixed-price listings available on eBay and a rundown of the nuts and bolts of bidding strategies. I also share some tried-and-true tips that'll give you a leg up on the competition. Hey, I buy almost everything on eBay.

The Item Listing Page

At any given point, you have more than a million pages of items that you can look at on eBay, making item pages the heart (better yet, the skeleton) of eBay listings. All item pages on eBay — whether auctions, fixed-price items, or Buy It Now items — look about the same. For example, Figure 6-1 shows ...