Hints and Tips for Buyers
What are Snipers?
Snipers are a extension of eBays own bidding tools, they automatically bid on your behalf upto your preset bidding limit. This facility does increase your bid, the moment another bidder enters the bidding war, snipers enter your lowest bid until the final moments. The idea behind a sniper is to keep bidding actions down to a minimum and also by keeping the final price low.
There are two types of Sniper: PC Based which require an interent connection to be active as the auction approaces the end and secondly their is a web based tool that goes ahead without your involvment, this offers the ability to bid on similar items simultaneously and then stop bidding once one has been won.
Snipers can not guarantee you a win, especially if the price rises above your maximum limit.
Second Chances and Offers
Not all items get sold via auction, especially if the reserve price was not met. The 'Best Offer' facility enables buyers to offer a price for their chosen item in which they are interested in purchasing. The sellers at any time can reject any such offers if it does not meet their requirments. This is very often the case when sellers and traders have high volumes of stock or old stock that needs to be moved on.
Also, if a seller has multiple items or the winning bidder could not go through with the transaction, even though you did not win the auction you could recieve an email offering the goods at your highest bid. On many occassions you may pay alot less then the winning bidder.
Ebay does not just offer auctions, there is also 'Buy It Now' option where the price is set and you can buy immediaitely, another option is Ebay stores go to http://stores.ebay.co.uk where you can look for items using the search window and directory.
A word of warning
As a buyer on ebay, always be very wary that some offers may not be genuine as you first think. We recommended you always be on the air of caution and check out the sellers history which is on the right handside of each listing, this will give you details of the sellers history and previous feedback.
If you buy from outside the UK their is very little you can do if something does go wrong, other than feeding negative feedback.
If goods fail to appear and you paid via Paypal some compensation is available. Sellers that have achieved a specific trading reputation with Paypal are granted Paypal Buyer protection which is indicated by a blue tick on a white shield. This offers buyers a safety net of upto £500 against qualified sellers if claims are made within 45 days. Most other transactions qualify for Ebays standard protection of £120, minus £15 fee for claims made upto 90 days.