Once you have registered with an auction site like eBay you are able to begin bidding for any of the millions of items that people are selling. There are, however, several tips that can save you money and reduce the chances of you making costly mistakes.
When to bid
When you find something you want to bid for, it is not always wise to immediately place your bid as you can get caught up in a bidding war with other buyers. It is usually best to place your bid near when the auction is due to finish.
For instance, if you see something that currently has a bid of £20 against it you could immediately place a £21 bid. However, if there are still a few days remaining before the auction closes then the original bidder could see his/her bid has been bettered and so raise theirs. You might then see this and raise your bid. This could go on until one of you decides it's too expensive.
If you were smarter, though, you'd have made a note of the item you were interested in and when the auction was due to close. You would then wait until then and return to place your £21 bid. That wouldn't leave the original bidder any time to place a counter bid and you'd have won the auction paying less than you may otherwise have done.
Do you know what you're buying?
Make sure you have thoroughly checked out what it is you're buying. What's included? Do you need to pay postage? Is there a photo? Is there any damage to it?
While it is difficult if the seller is being fraudulent or economical with the truth, it is infuriating to find you've misunderstood something that was included in the item's description.
Knowing your seller
Auction sites like eBay provide information about sellers from their previous sales. People that have previous bought from them provide feedback on how reliable the seller was and points are awarded/deducted for each positive/negative comment.
These enable you to make a judgement as to how trustworthy an individual is. If a seller has many negative comments, or is new and doesn't have any, then you should treat them with more caution than if they are an established seller with lots of satisfied customers.
These ratings are very useful as they provide an incentive for a seller to treat you well as when you trade with them you will be able to leave comments for other potential customers to see.
Ask questions
If there's something you're not sure about you can usually contact the seller to ask for clarification. Don't be afraid to send them a quick email if there's something you need to know about what they're selling.
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