Page 1 of Do you buy stuff on ebay?

Ive bought a few things but not many, just wondered who has? and there experiences?

I predominantly sell on `ebay`, and it is amazing how lucrative selling your unwanted, or bought specifically for ebay, items can be!

It seems that buyers tend to get carried away, and start to compete with each other, and pretty soon the price has gone through the roof.

Example: I bought vcd copies (legit and licensed) of `Lion King` (Disney classic unavailable outside Far East) from a Malaysian website for $9.99. Taking shipping etc. into account, each copy cost me about £9.

List one at a time on ebay - couple of people enter a bidding war - price escalates - each time I make around £30 clear profit. This film can be legitimately bought from a number of sites for one quarter it`s resale price - why do buyers not check this out first?

Conclusion: ebay is a seller`s dream, but buyer`s should always check that any item they bid on is not available cheaper `under their nose`.

Having said this, if you are looking for that `once in a lifetime` item (you know - the `Needful Things` item), then it is probably available - at a price - on ebay!

I recently bought a so called Superstar 3900 manual which turned out to be 10 pages of downloaded information at the cost of a tenner, and also bought a Superstar 3900 3 weeks ago for £72 and it still hasnt turned up. Having said that there are some really good sellers on ebay who are true to there word!

i wanted the sims for my daughter and brought it on ebay and got ripped off it was only for 5 quid but the amount does not matter sent loads of email to ebuy got no joy thay didn`t want to know wouldn`t recomened them to a peanut so be aware..........

I tend to buy rare, deleted and hard to find items, as well as band live performances, and yes - I probably pay waaaaay over the odds for them.

But hey, you only live once.

Only bought two things on e-bay, had no probs really. Although, I have bid for certain things and I have witnessed stupid bidding wars that have got way out of hand. Some items I have genuinely wanted but there is no way I`m going to get wrapped up in a bidding war where it takes the value of the item way over its actual value.

I buy and sell on eBay and have had only 1 problem.. quickly sorted by eBay warning the seller and by me threatening a visit to the sellers home..

apart from that.. i`ve got nothing but good things to say...

mind my credit card company arent too pleased.. 1,000 quids worth of paypal purchases in the last month!!!!!..

I`ve bought and sold quite a bit of stuff, and now have a rating of 240

eBay is a great place to buy and sell - for selling stuff, it`s amazing what you can get for items that you thought about just throwing away, and for buying it`s a great way to get hold of things difficult to come buy elsewhere.

I did a column on eBay buying/selling which you can access from here:

http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/news/columns.asp?columnist=1243&Section=140

My main tip to buyers is however, be patient - there is ALWAYS another, so don`t pay over the odds and don`t get carried away!

Chris` last statement should be every ebay buyers mantra, chant it and learn it well.

I`m collecting the Steve Jackson/Ian Livingstone series of Fighting Fantasy books and have been for about 6 months now. I already had 1-25 from when I was a kid and mistakenly found out that they went all the way up to 59!

Oddly enough the lower the number the less they are worth, its the ones above 40 that go for silly money. However I refuse to pay more than £5 for these second hand books so I miss a lot of them, but every now and again I get one for a good price and add it to my collection.

Only numbers 54-59 to go!

Have also bought a lot of retro and dreamcast kit too, once again its a case of don`t pay over the odds, there WILL ALWAYS be another one.

I can see by the e-bay site that it is very popular both with sellers and buyers. One thing puzzles me and that is this. Surely e-bay are aware that there are more than a few sellers who are auctioning VCD`s etc that are quite obviously pirates. It doesn`t bother me whether people buy or sell these but I just find it a bit puzzling that no action is taken by either e-bay or F.A.C.T to remove them from the site.