When is the best time to shop on eBay?

The great thing about eBay is that it's there, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (well, unless they are down for maintenance, etc. :))  But really, the best time to shop depends a lot on you and your schedule.  Of course, the best time to find deals depends on other things besides your schedule...

Now, what we are really talking about here is the time of day and day of week that you should look for items on eBay.  And, while you may have the Internet completely to yourself at 1:00 in the morning, and while it may be super-fast at that time, there probably wont be many auctions to bid on that are ending at that time. Similarly, there may be a lot of items ending at lunch time on a weekday (your lunch break of course) but there might also be a lot of internet traffic, making your experience more painful that it's worth, and driving the price of the auction up and up as more people bid against each other.

One method that you can use to counter both of these drawbacks is to do your browsing late at night, when there isn't much Internet traffic, and then bookmark the auctions that you want to go back to later.  In fact, eBay even has an "Add to Calendar" link on all auctions now that you can use to automatically add a reminder to your Outlook.  Cool.

Another method you can use is to work through the items on eBay without pictures.  By turning pictures off, you wont have to download as much information, making the experience MUCH faster.  Then, you can just turn on the pictures for the items that you think have potential.

If you want to get the best deal on an item, you may want to wait to bid until (close to) the end of the eBay auction.  Of course, there are strategies for bidding at any point in an auction, which we'll get to later.

Oh, and there's one more thing. The best time to go searching on eBay is after you have done your research! A tool like AuctionIntelligence can really help you here.  Before you bid on anything, you need to browse through a bunch of items to see how much the widget you are looking for normally brings on eBay.  Of course, you can also tell how popular (or rare) an item is by the number of similar items that have been sold over the last few weeks.  AuctionIntelligence can help you here by automating this process - you just enter your search criteria, and it chugs away, matching all of the completed auctions on eBay and analyzing the results for you.  For instance, why do so many auctions have no bids at all? Maybe the opening bid is way too high (which AuctionIntelligence will tell you) but, only an informed shopper would know the difference. If you have the time and patience, you can do most research yourself using just the eBay search results, but using a tool to automate the process is well worth the often minimal price.  For instance, with AuctionIntelligence, $9.99/month is a cheap way to save $50-$200 on a single item.

How can you be sure to win an item that you bid on?

There's only one way to be sure that you'll win an item - bid more than everyone else.  Of course, you probably want a good deal too, or you wouldn't be here.  Here are some tips for making sure that you have the best chance to win when you bid on an item:

1. The first bidder has priority on eBay, so you want to be the first one to bid on an item.  
   • To do this, check new listings often, and bid if you see something you like.
   • Also, use eBay's favorite searches to tell you when an item is listed - otherwise, you might miss it.
2. When you bid, you should bid almost the very most that you would ever pay.  eBay will only charge you a bid more than the next highest bidder, so don't worry about bidding way more than the current price.
   • You may never get another chance to bid on the item if it is rare.
   • If you find yourself kicking yourself at the end of the auction for not bidding enough, that would suck.
3. If someone else has already bid on the item by the time you found it, bid now and bid HIGH.
   • If you bid high enough now, you may scare the other bidder enough to stay away.
   • Bidding less than your highest now will just start the competition bids from growing and growing.
4. Finally, you need to snipe at the very end.
   • You can't sit back and feel sure that no one else will try to snipe in a higher bid at the last minute.
   • This is when you snipe in the very, very most you would ever pay.

How can you make sure to get the best deal on an item?

Getting the best deal takes a bit of patience, some research, and sometimes just a bit of luck.  First, some quick tips:

1. When an item is listed, don't bid.  This lets others know you are interested in the item and think that it's valuable.  And that makes them think it is valuable.
2. Don't keep checking the item and bidding a little bit more than the highest bidder.  This bumps up the hit counter as well as the price.  You want to wait until the very end to bid on the item.
3. Snipe.  Basically, bid at the very last minute and bid the very most you could stand and still consider it a great deal.
4. Research the item and the price over time on eBay.  You may find that it's seasonal (winter coats don't sell well in 85 degree heat) or that even the time of day affects the final price.
5. Look around eBay before you bid, and even use a research tool. You may find the exact item you are looking for at half the price because a seller listed it in the wrong category.

Of the tips above, the two that will have the biggest impact on your final price are the last two.  Knowing the market is the best possible thing that you can do.  In fact, with a tool like AuctionIntelligence, you can understand who is selling what items, and when those items are sold for the lowest amount of money.  You can then target your buying patterns around that knowledge in order to get the absolute best price on an item.  For instance, if you use AuctionIntelligence to search the jewelry category, and then look at the keywords report, you may see some auctions with the word "Daimond" in them (misspelled "Diamond").  Since these items don't show up in searches for diamonds, you may be able to get a great deal on them.  Or, you may do a search for an item and see that if you buy the item on Tuesday at 3pm, you can get it for (an average of) 15% cheaper than Saturday at 7pm.

How can you help ensure that an item is shipped (and delivered) after you pay for it?

Buying on eBay is one of the safest things you can do, but we're always worried when we buy something from a source we don't know real well.  These tips will help to ensure that you are happy most of the time:

1. Buy from sellers with high feedback
2. Only buy from sellers that ship via methods that have some sort of tracking number for the package.  You don't want the seller to say they shipped the item but that it was never delivered.  (Note, you should never have to pay extra for package tracking - if you do, find another seller)
3. Pay for insurance.  It's usually cheap (talk to the seller if you think it is too much) and it's well worth the peace of mind.  After all, spending an extra $1.30 for your $350 stereo system is well worth the investment.
4. Be courteous in email - no one likes a buyer who nags about ship dates or pricing after an auction.  Most sellers want to get the item to you as quickly as possible, so please be patient.
5. Leave feedback promptly.  Sellers are more likely to ship quickly if they see that you are very good at leaving positive feedback - it's how they build their reputation on eBay.