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GLA eBay Sales Group INTRODUCTION
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GLA eBay Sales Group INTRODUCTION
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eBay! Everyone's talking about it and the great deals that they found. Now you want to see what all the fuss is about and want to learn more about how to buy eBay. Buying on eBay can be as simple or as sophisticated as you want to make it and that's what this introduction is all about. In addition to this buying primer you can learn a lot about eBay by reading our FREE, "Introduction To Selling On eBay."
From musical instruments to screwdrivers, from ashtrays to automobiles, from audio equipment to books, you'll find most any conceivable item on eBay. eBay is open for business around the globe 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, this unique online auction house boasts an inventory of about three million items, a billion-plus browsers per month, and billion of dollars of merchandise moved annually. With a few choice keystrokes, you as a bidder can clinch spectacular deals—and can save a bundle. But it's not a game of chance: eBay most profits buyers who do their homework.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Sniping and Other Dirty Tricks |
eBay is the premier online auction site on the Internet.
The website, founded in September 1995, now claims more than 50 million registered users. In 2001, the eBay community transacted over $6 billion in annualized gross merchandise sales.
So why is eBay so popular? Well, because this auction site really offers something for everyone. There are millions of items listed on eBay in thousands of categories. eBay can be best described as an massive electronic flea market.
According to eBay's CEO Meg Whitman, the popular website was created for the purpose of building online communities essentially by giving strength back to the individual buyer and seller in a world that's become over-commercialized by massive chain retailers.
But eBay has actually expanded far more than many people realize. The online trading community now offers a Business-to-Business Exchange, Chat, Forums, and hundreds of forums for specialized needs like AutoTrader.com, Barbie Collectibles, and Elvis-O-Rama.
The basic principle is that eBay creates a virtual environment for millions of buyers and sellers to come together to broaden the market for their goods and their money.
We've outlined the basic process of buying items on eBay below.
Sellers list available items: The seller pays a nominal fee of $.25 to list his/her item, fills out a quick form, often gets a picture of it, and that's it. Additionally, the seller can pay another $2 to have his or her item listed in bold print or $99 to get it on the list of "Featured Auctions" which appear at the top of the page.
Buyers search through items: From there, the buyers search for the item they're looking for in over 15,000 categories and place their bids.
Bidding process: Like a traditional auction, the bidder who places the highest bid in the allotted time wins, except that, unlike a traditional auction, the bidding does not extend at the end of the time period regardless of how many people bid right at the end of the auction.
Most of the bidding on eBay is called proxy bidding. This means that when bidding, a buyer can enter the maximum amount he's willing to pay for an item. But instead of instantly putting your high bid on the item listing, eBay will list your lower bid. If anyone makes a higher bid, eBay will automatically increase your bid for you until it hits your maximum.
After the auction closes, the seller and the buyer contact one another by email and arrange for shipment. The buyer sends the seller a check or credit card number. The seller sends the merchandise. At that point eBay charges the seller's account a small percentage of the final sale price.
After delivery of the item, the buyer inputs feedback on the transaction at eBay, which serves as a reference for future buyers who might want to get other things from the seller. High ratings can be very important for future sales.
To get started buying on eBay's online auctions, you must first become a registered user.
eBay requires all registered users submit the following information:
- Name.
- E-mail address.
- Mailing address.
- Phone number.
- Credit card number. This last criterion is new as of October 22, 1999, and doesn't apply to everyone. For example:
There is also optional information that you can also provide for your user profile. Just remember to review the information to make sure that it is accurate.
Your personal information remains completely confidential and is secure due to SSL encryption. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or SSL encryption is an industry-standard security protocol that transmits users' personal or credit card related information securely and privately over the Internet. SSL provides data privacy, data authentication and message privacy.
For 30 days after you REGISTER you are given a "shades status." This is where a small picture or icon of sunglasses
is placed next to your bid or item for sale. During the first month, this may make some sellers cautious of dealing with you. So, after 30 days of registration, your shades are gone and you don't look "shady" anymore!!!
The sooner you register, the sooner your shades will disappear! So REGISTER NOW! - It takes less than 1 minute! Click here to register NOW
Once you have registered, you can begin searching eBay for your desired items. As you search, remember to research all available items carefully before bidding on them.
As soon as you register, you can check out some brilliant eBay features you'll find on every page of auctions that interest you. For example, clicking on "Items You Are Watching" will allow eBay to remind you of an auction that interests you. You will also be able to save your "Favorite Categories," "Favorite Searches" and "Favorite Sellers"!
Let's say there's something you want to buy that interests you, for example you collect ukuleles and you want to see if there are any for you to buy. On eBay's home page, click on he "Browse" button and enter the word "ukulele" (case doesn't matter -- the entry word can be in any combination of upper and lower case) in the search box (found near the upper right hand corner of eBay's Home Page. Then click on the "Search" button.
Almost immediately the search will yield all the ukuleles listed on eBay where you can see their descriptions and what kinds of prices people are paying for them.
TIP: While auctions usually last seven days, most of the bidding takes place in the last hour or so. So the minimum acceptable bid and the bids early in an auction are no indication of what these things sell for.
Before you place your first bid, be sure to read the many pages of information that eBay provides explaining the process.
As an eBay beginner, you are probably wondering how you can protect yourself from being taking advantage of by a fraud. While this is a real concern, eBay takes many precautions to insure that all theft and fraud is kept to a minimum.
The following features and tools are provided by eBay for your safety.
Because there are millions of people on eBay, people who have never met each other, eBay established a clever way for people to build an online reputation. This feedback system lets users comment on each transaction and on each other's activities. In his/her respective comments, the user either assigns a positive, neutral or negative ranking to his/her description.
Every eBay user has a Feedback Profile made up of comments from other eBay users - an official "reputation." By looking at the user feedback, a user's reliability can be determined easily by their rankings, with a high positive ranking meaning that the user received a large number of positive comments.
If you buy something and the seller is responsive and the item arrives just as advertised, you’d give the seller positive feedback and write a short comment.
Next to any eBay member's User ID, there is a Feedback Rating number in parentheses ( ). For example: Metoo2 (133) means that this member's User ID is Metoo2 and s/he has received positive feedback comments from at least 133 other eBay members. This feedback is extremely helpful in indicating if a seller sells quality merchandise, if a seller is recommended by others and if a seller ships promptly and packages well.
eBay's Feedback Rating system is easy. You too will receive:
- +1 point for each positive comment
- 0 points for each neutral comment
- -1 point for each negative comment
- A star icon for 10 or more comments
- While on an eBay auction page just click the colored star to see what each star color means.
You can also leave neutral feedback for transactions that were just so-so, and more importantly, negative feedback for transactions that didn’t go well for whatever reason. Say the auction seller never shipped you the merchandise you paid for — you’d leave them negative feedback. Or the item you bought arrived and it was not as described in the item description — again, you’d leave negative feedback.
Before you buy any item, it’s wise to get in the habit of looking at the sellers feedback. You do this by clicking on the numbers in parentheses after their name.
On the off chance that a transaction goes bad and you can’t resolve it with the other party, eBay has a Fraud Protection Program that covers each transaction up to $200 (minus a $25 deductible).
eBay's online police force of sorts, works to maintain the integrity of the company's web auctions and transactions. It is basically eBay's "comprehensive safety resource and protective arm" — basically a service that allows eBay to monitor its users.
Whenever users log into the system, eBay's servers record their Internet addresses. Although users cannot view this information, SafeHarbor personnel will respond to complaints by users and will determine whether, for instance, an eBay user is using multiple usernames in order to manipulate auction prices. So it prevents you from registering 15 times with 15 e-mail addresses, and bumping up an auction price to get people to pay more.
Not only does SafeHarbor promise full customer support, but it also provides a number of useful features to members like: Feedback, Escrow Services, verification of users, and insurance for bad transactions.
Whenever users log into the system, eBay's servers record their Internet addresses. Although users cannot view this information, SafeHarbor personnel will respond to complaints by users and will determine whether, for instance, an eBay user is using multiple usernames in order to manipulate auction prices.
Users may also view each other's bidding histories. A bidding history shows which auctions a user has bid on, and also lists the other users who have bid in those same auctions. This can be especially helpful in determining whether users are playing by the rules.
eBay has a few different types of auction formats. Here is a brief description of each of these types:
Standard Single-Winner Auctions
Is simply where one item (or a group of items sold together) is being offered to the highest bidder. Most of the listings on eBay use this format.
Just like any normal auction, in a Single Winner auction, the item goes to the highest bidder. Bidding begins immediately after the item is listed by the seller and continues up to the closing date and time.
Let's say you place a bid the 1st day the item is listed. You're question now may be "Do I have to go to eBay every day and submit a new, higher bid if someone had outbid me?" Not at all! eBay has this amazing feature called "proxy bidding." This allows a buyer to enter the maximum amount s/he's willing to pay for an item. But instead of instantly putting your highest bid immediately on the item, it'll put in a lower bid for you, and if anybody makes a higher bid, eBay will automatically increase your bid for you until it hits your maximum. Hmmm... an example may be called for.
You really want to bid on a vintage trumpet. The current bid is $100. Let's say you study the Trumpet and decide you're willing to go as high as $500 for it. With a few keystrokes, you tell eBay to "proxy bid" on the item for you. eBay will then put a bid in for you of, say, $150, (which is the highest amount of any other user's proxy bid). You now become the high bidder, and eBay will keep increasing your bid to keep it the highest until another buyer bids over your maximum bid of $500. If someone bids over your maximum bid you either lose or you can go back in and place another higher proxy bid.Is where the seller is offering more than one of the exact same item. These auctions can have multiple winners, all of whom are bidding on the same item.
Dutch auctions also allow buyers to bid on multiple quantities of an item. The great thing about Dutch auctions is that, specific to eBay, the lowest winning bid for any user is the amount that all users will pay. Dutch auctions are complicated, so please read the complete rules as shown below.
The Dutch Auction format is perfect for sellers with many identical items to sell. In order to use the Dutch format, sellers must: 1) Be ID Verified OR 2) Have a Feedback Rating of 30 or above and be registered on eBay for 14 days or more.A seller has 10 sterling silver teaspoons that he wants to sell, starting at $15.00 per spoon. This means that 10 people could go and bid on an individual spoon and each would win one of those spoons.These seller requirements help protect bidders and help eBay maintain an open, honest and safe environment for online trading.
Sellers start by listing a minimum price (greater than $0.99), or starting bid for one item, and the number of items for sale.
Bidders specify both a bid price and the quantity they want to buy.
All winning bidders pay the same price per item — which is the lowest successful bid. This might be less than what you bid!
If there are more buyers than items, the earliest successful bids get the goods.
Higher bidders are more likely to get the quantities they've asked for.
Proxy bidding is not used in Dutch Auctions.
Bidders can refuse partial quantities. For example, if you place a bid for 10 items and only 8 are available after the auction, you don't have to buy any of them.
The only exception to the requirement that all items be identical relates to trading card listings. Lots of trading cards need not be identical due to the nature of these sales in the trading card arena.
Multiple quantity listings (Dutch auction, fixed price or store) may offer a choice of color in otherwise identical items. However, the seller must be able to fulfill the entire quantity of every listing in any offered color even if every winning bidder makes exactly the same color selection. This exception for choice of color does not apply to single quantity listings.
Here are some examples of how Dutch Auctions work:
OR
A seller has 10 pens for auction at $1 each. 10 people bid $1 for one pen each. In this case, all 10 bidders will win a pen for $1.
Let's say that 5 people bid $1.25 for one pen each and 10 others bid $1. The minimum bid for the pen will be raised to $1.25 because demand exceeds supply. Because the $1.25 bidders bid higher than the $1 bidders, they will be guaranteed a pen. The other 5 pens will go to the earliest $1 bidders. The final price for each pen will be $1 (even though someone placed a high bid of $1.25) since all winning bidders pay the same price — which is the lowest successful bid.
It might sound complicated, but the majority of Dutch Auctions are simple: Most users win the items they bid on at the minimum asking price. However, there are some special instances you might want to know about:
If you are the lowest bidder in a Dutch Auction and you specify a multiple quantity, you may not get to purchase all that you specify. Why? Because there may be little left over after the high bidders get their share.
In other words, if the lowest bidder requests a quantity of 3 pens, she may only get one since the first 9 pens have already been allotted to the higher bidders. The only way to avoid this problem is to make sure you are not the lowest bidder!
In Dutch Auctions (Multiple Item Auctions), successful high bids are displayed when you click on the 'High bidders' link. The complete bidding history (including any unsuccessful bids) is displayed when you click on the 'Bid history' link.
The reserve price is another feature of single winner auctions. Reserve price auctions allows sellers to have a hidden reserve price that the bidding must exceed before the seller is required to sell the item. When a bidder's maximum bid is equal to or greater than the reserve price, the item's current price is raised to the reserve price amount.
The "Reserve" therefore is the minimum amount you as the seller are willing to sell your item for. Here's an example.
A seller puts his toy car collection up for auction, starting at $1.00. The seller is concerned that only one person may bid on the collection and that he would therefore have to sell the entire collection for $1 (much less than s/he is willing to sell them for).So the seller puts a reserve on the auction of $350. This means that until someone bids $350.00 or over $350, s/ he doesn't have to sell the collection. If someone only bids $99, the seller will get a report at the end of the auction stating that the reserve was not met and that the highest bidder offered $99. At this time, if the seller is willing to sell the collection for $99, he may contact the buyer and offer it to the buyer for $99. However, the buyer has no obligation to buy the car collection since the reserve was not met.
The purpose of a Reserve Price auction is to interest bidders with a low starting price and at the same time protect the seller from letting the item go for too little.
Tip: Most bidders are wary of participating in reserve price auctions. It is very frustrating to come back again and again over the duration of an auction (typically 3-7 days), to finally enter the winning bid, and then to discover that there was a reserve which is higher than your final bid, which means you don't win at all.
Is a free service that lets auction sellers post a price for the immediate sale of an item. Buyers willing to pay the price do not have to wait for an auction to end.
This new option is very popular among many eBay users, because buyers love the convenience of an immediate transaction, particularly when shopping for gifts. Sellers also have benefited from faster auctions and the option to offer another way to buy."
As required by eBay, the Buy It Now price must be greater or equal to the minimum bid price or the reserve price. Buy It Now is only available before the first bid is placed on the item. As soon as a bid is placed, the item is sold through the normal process.
Place A Bid As Soon After Registration As You Can!
If you are thinking of becoming an eBay buyer it is very important that you bid on something soon after you register! By placing a bid, you'll begin to get the hang of how eBay works so later on, when you come across something you "simply must have", which is closing in 4 minutes, you will know how to bid and win your auction!
Bid on anything even though you are not interested in buying it. For example, search for something expensive, like diamond engagement ring, etc. and look to see that the auction has a reserve which hasn't been met where there are at least 3 more days to go before the auction closes. Then, simply bid the minimum amount... and presto, you have just made your first bid! Congratulations and welcome to eBay!
Once you find an item you're interested in, take these easy steps:
First, you'll need to register as an eBay member if you haven't done so already. It's free and only takes a couple of minutes. Carefully look over what you're bidding on. In this example, the item costs $20.00.
Enter your maximum bid in the bid box at the bottom of the page. Then, click on the "Review Bid" button. eBay will now bid on your behalf up to your maximum bid. You can now enter your User ID and password and then click the "Place Bid" button. That's it! You're done with bidding. If you need more help...
- Check your seller's reputation by looking at his or her Feedback profile. You can access it from the item listing by clicking on the number in parentheses next to the seller's name.
- Visit eBay's comprehensive Buyer Guide for more bidding information.
- Check out the Help Basics section for friendly answers or find top questions at the bottom of many eBay pages (such as search results or item pages).
eBay Education offers you more help.
eBay University, online seminars & recorded events, guided tours, interactive tutorials, and more. Choose the learning style that works for you.
Take a Guided Tour of Bidding. Viewable on PCs only. Coming soon for Mac and WebTV)
This is a 5- minute narrated tour which plays with the click of a button.
Just type in a bid.
Buyers who do not research the value of the items they are bidding on often end up paying a much higher price than they should. So do your homework before bidding on any item so that you won't screw yourself over.
Always go to online shopping sites first to determine the lowest retail price being offered. To find out which retail sites are selling a particular item, check out search engines like MySimon.com, or Yahoo!'s shopping section.
Also use eBay's completed auction search to determine the average price of the item on eBay. When considering the price difference between a retail site and eBay, one should factor in such things as warranties and customer service that are often absent from eBay purchases.
Even if you've done all the proper research, you're still not safe. Buyers incur the most risk using eBay because they're required to send their payment first, often without proof that the seller has any intention of actually shipping the item. And the merchandise they receive - if it comes at all - may not be of the quality they expected (e.g., a heavily-scratched CD, or a knock-off instead of an original). Here are three types of sellers you should be wary of:
Sellers who never ship the merchandise
Sellers who accept really low bids
Sellers who use multiple usernames
Sellers Who Never Ship The Merchandise
To avoid this situation, examine the seller's user feedback. If the seller has 100 unique messages attesting to his/her reliability, it is likely that he/she is reliable. If the seller has many negative comments attesting to his/her failure to ship the item on time, then insist on using an escrow service (such as I-escrow) to ensure that you will get what you pay for.
In the case that you don't want to use an escrow service (they can get expensive), here are some other tactics for determining the reliability of a seller:
When a seller sends you a name and address to send payment to, it is always a good idea to look up the address on a White Pages service, such as Yahoo! People Search.
If the name and address matches a listing in the White Pages, the seller should probably be afforded some credibility. (Would you want people to be able to track you down easily if you were a scam artist?)
Also try looking up the seller's name and address in a search engine like Google to determine whether any other information pops up about his/her reliability. While you're at it, you may even find pictures of the seller in compromising positions.
Sellers Who Accept Really Low Bids
If you know that the price you are paying is unreasonably low compared to the true value of the item, you might want to think twice before sending payment. Here's a real life example of the "too good to be true" syndrome:
You bid $500 on a video camera that you knows retails for around $1,500 and typically sells at auction for around $1,000. (You have already determined the average auction price by searching completed auctions on eBay.) You're outbid by a few bidders, but you do not want to bid any higher than $500. Ten minutes after the close of the auction, you receive an e-mail from the seller that the high bidder has defaulted on his bid and that Jimmy is now the high bidder at $500.
It is obvious that the seller is trying to pull a fast one not only on Jimmy but on a number of other buyers as well. Since the seller can see a list of all bidders and their e-mail addresses (in the bidding history for the auction), the seller has probably gone down the list and told each buyer that the others defaulted and that they are now the high bidder. Jimmy has reason to be suspicious for two reasons:
1) It is highly unlikely that the high bidder defaulted within ten minutes, as three days is usually the period allowed for the seller and high bidder to make a deal.
2) $500 for the camera is unreasonably low. Why would the seller offer the camera to you when he could garner around $1000 simply by holding a new auction?
Sellers Who Use Multiple Usernames
Sellers have been known to use another username to bid in his/her own auction, thereby driving up the price. If you are concerned that a seller may have been bidding in his/her own auction, then you should contact eBay's SafeHarbor to determine whether foul play was involved. It's hard to know when this happens... you just have to go with your gut. But if you suspect it, then drop out immediately.
You've followed our advice, but somehow, the scammers got you anyway. Now you need to make the best of it and try to get even. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to seek retribution (and legal ways at that!):
1. Clarify the situation with the seller. Often, there is simply a misunderstanding and the seller has every intention of shipping the item. Or maybe he/she has already shipped it, but there's been some sort of delay. So when you make a deal, always ask the seller for a tracking number so that you can locate it if need be. Major carriers like Federal Express and UPS allow customers to track shipments online.
2. Write negative feedback about him/her on eBay; if you're sure that the seller is trying to defraud you, then you should This will prevent others from getting screwed by the same person and will make the users auctions much less popular. There is no need to falsify or exaggerate your negative feedback about the user, as this may shed doubt upon the truth of and motive for your comments, but simply explain the situation and why it is your opinion that no one should do business with that user ever again.
3. Use eBay's Defraud Insurance Option. Although negative feedback may keep others from being screwed, it won't get you your money back. Fortunately, eBay offers $200 in insurance, minus a $25 deductible, to any user who has been defrauded. "Defrauded" means either you paid for an item and never received it, or you received an item that wasn't exactly what you had in mind (you got a fake Rolex instead of a real one). In order to receive the insurance though, eBay has a few requirements, including that both you and the seller were in good standing at the time of the transaction. If the problem is that the buyer and seller do not agree on the terms of the auction, eBay suggests using a service like SquareTrade.com in order to arbitrate the dispute.
4. File Complaints With The Authorities: Other ways of getting even include issuing a complaint with the FTC, the National Fraud Information Center, or - if the seller is a business - the Better Business Bureau.
5. Finally, Contact The Seller Through Other Means. If you know that the seller is trying to screw you and you have previously contacted him only through e-mail, then this is when it will be useful to have his White Page listing. Call him over the phone! If the seller happens to be a kid (despite eBay's 18-year-old age limit), then you can speak to their parents in order to resolve the situation. Explain that you would like the item shipped or your money refunded, and that if the seller fails to comply, then you will contact their local authorities. The seller will probably do as you say in lieu of a potentially embarrassing appearance on COPS. Note: These measures should only be taken if the seller refuses to discuss the issue. If the matter concerns a disagreement over the terms of the auction, then arbitration should be sought instead of getting the police involved.
Sniping and Other Dirty Tricks
Well, there are dirty but legal tricks eBay buyers use and you might as well get to know them. It's more a matter of learning to use the psychology of the other buyers – to your own advantage.
If you start hanging around eBayers, sooner or later you will hear them talk about "sniping". It's a common eBay term and is even listed in eBay's Frequently Asked Questions. It means going to an auction just before it ends (usually within the last five minutes) and placing your bid.
This might not sound like a particularly clever plan. After all, the person who will win the auction is the one with the highest bid, not necessarily the one with the last bid . . . and snipers rarely have time to bid again if their "first shot" isn't high enough.
However, few people actually bid the maximum amount that they are willing to pay. Therefore, if you outbid someone within the first day of an auction, they are likely to brood about the auction until they decide "I guess I could spend a few dollars more" and then attempt to regain the auction once more . . . by outbidding you. Also, the more bids an auction has, the more attention it gets. It's a feeding frenzy effect.
That's why sniping helps keep auction prices down. Bidder "A" bids an amount which isn't really the maximum amount she'd pay . . . and Bidder "B" swoops down in the last three minutes of the auction and outbids her. The result? Bidder "A" is not going to have time to place another bid, whether she's willing to pay more or not.
That's the theory behind sniping. Now here are the practical details that may require an advanced knowledge of PC usage:
1. If you want to snipe, the first thing to do is to bookmark the auction you're interested in. Carefully note when the auction will be ending. Mentally make a note of how much you'd be willing to spend on that item. When the auction is just about over (within the last thirty to fifteen minutes), take another look at it. Has the item already gone beyond your price range? If not, it's time to prepare a snipe.
2. Open two browser windows. Make sure they are both displaying the auction in question. Leave one window on the "main" page of the item--the one that shows the current bid at the top.
3. In the other window, enter your maximum bid (and make sure it's your TRUE maximum, because you probably won't have time to bid a second time) and hit the "Review Bid" button. This will transfer you to a page asking for your user ID and password. Type them in, but do NOT hit enter or "Place Bid" yet.
4. Now go back to the other window, the one displaying the current high bidder. Hit the refresh button on your browser as the auction time begins to run out. You don't want to bid too early or someone might be able to get a bid in behind you. When I'm sniping, I usually wait until the last two minutes of the auction.
5. At the perfect moment, go back to the browser window where you entered your password and ID and press the "Place Bid" button. Now pray that your maximum was higher than the other bidder's . . .
If it was, then you will probably win the auction!
Of course, all this provides a dilemma for people who don't want to have their auctions sniped from them. The simplest solution is this: when you're bidding, put in the ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM that you are willing to pay. Then if someone outbids you, it shouldn't matter--it will be out of your price range at that point anyway. Any other attempt to stop people from sniping you will ultimately fail.
Snapping is almost the opposite of sniping, yet they are closely related. This method of bidding only appeared after eBay introduced the Buy It Now ("BIN") feature. Sellers can set a price which their item can be bought for, assuming you get to it first. However, if someone bids on an item the "normal" way, the BIN option disappears (except in reserve auctions, I believe.)
This feature can be a godsend for bidders when ignorant sellers appear. We bought a $950.00 amplifier listed incorrectly as "Amplefier" and we got it for $7.00 because the buyer had spelled the listing wrong and it therefore didn't show up in the searches.
People who haunt the new auction listings eagerly waiting to snap up good deals are known as "snappers". There's nothing complicated about it . . . just watch for items with a BIN of $5 and then PRAY that you are the first one to get the BIN in.
Scavenging is a pretty dirty trick, but is nonetheless useful. (Practice it in moderation.) It became possible when eBay introduced the "Bidder Search" function. Basically, you keep track of people who tend to bid on items you like . . . then you keep track of their bids, scavenging anything you like.
To do this, click on "Search" at the top of any eBay screen. Now click on the tab that says "By Bidder".
Enter the name of the bidder. Press "Search".
Now you can pick through the auctions they bid on at your leisure.
As I said before, this is a somewhat dirty trick. I'm sure that Bidder Search function was mainly meant to help sellers with deadbeat bidders. But as far as I know, scavenging is not against eBay rules, and it sure beats having to go through 1,800 auctions yourself. But . . . practice this sparingly. Try not to target any one bidder too often.
Incidentally, this is one reason why I usually snipe.
A word about getting good deals . . . check areas other than the MLP section of eBay. I've found MLPs in all sorts of categories--including a MOC pony in the "Action Figures: Masters of the Universe" section. Keep an eye out for those hidden auctions, because they usually go for cheaper prices!
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