Find obscure eBay deals with Get it Next

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Looking for a great deal on eBay for the holidays? Emily Chang over at eHub has done it again by finding a little gem called Get it Next.  Quite simply Get it Next puts a fast and appealing web 2.0ish face on your ordinary eBay searches.  With bigger graphics and most of your most important buying information up front you won’t need to drill down into each auction to find a deal.  Get It Next shows current price, time left (down to the second), sellers rating, and shipping costs right up front.

Also nice are the “find a deal” and “bulk deal” tabs which help you find auctions ending in the next 4 hours.  Think of it as a four hour woot that allows you to search by item.  You would be surprised at some of the auctions ending with little or no bids.

All in all Get it Next is a great tool for the bargain hunter surfing eBay.

Check it out

November 13, 2007 | Filed Under General, Music, Sound and Editing, Web 2.0, eBay | 3 Comments 

The Death of eBay and the Rise of Craigslist

It used to be that you could post your item on eBay pay small fees and sell your item without barely a question.  Today if you are a regular person selling on eBay you have to treat it like a business.  Why?  Simply because a large cross-section of buyers on eBay, buy in a hostile manner and do so like they are buying from a business not a individual.  It starts with 20 questions on the details on the cheap item you are selling from color, how it is to be used, how quickly it will be shipped.  Somehow you are assumed to be a business owner when you are posting, maybe thats because there are so many businesses selling on eBay. Most people’s experience is one of consumer to non-caring and non-personal business.  By proxy of Joe’s warehouse selling an item and not shipping it for a month, you because you answer your emails and phone calls, become a target for the high maintenance buyer.  Afterwards you become a customer service person.  How does this item work?  Can you send me a driver download?  I wasn’t expecting a scratch there?  This isn’t exactly what I expected.  All of this is fine except for the fact that you sold your item (as is) online to recover extra cash.  All the while you were charged exorbitant fees by both eBay and Paypal for your trouble and transaction.  Your time to package and ship the item also factors into the amount of cost to rid yourself of the offending object.  It seems buyer beware has been forgotten, replaced with a easy way to hassle you into helping.  If you balk at the repeated and rude emails you are likely to loose some of your feedback.  This of course is the ultimate weapon.  Regular scammers flip eBay accounts like Pancakes at the House of Pancakes but for you your feedback is like your credit.  The hostile buyer would just a soon leave bad feedback as send a email.

It seems that eBay is no longer the online garage sale that had made it so popular.  After all you wouldn’t have all these home business owners getting rich on eBay if it were a internet garage sale.  The problem is, that was the attraction of it all.  You easily post an item you no longer want and someone buys that item.  It also used to be that everything was used on eBay not just one more e-commerce site.  Now its the first stop for your new Nintendo Wii purchase.  Why is this?  Sure there’s deals to be found and used items that are inexpensive on eBay but lately a quick search of amazon will show you that the deal you thought was so great may not be a deal at all.  So as a buyer you get ripped off and don’t get the service and support that comes from a reputable dealer.  For instance if you buy your Nintendo Wii for $275 from BestBuy you at least have a multi million dollar corporation to go to when the Wii fails to work instead of Nintendoboy1984’s virtual shrug.  It makes you wonder what people are thinking when they are making a purchase. 

This brings us to Craigslist, a quick look at the Alexa rankings of Craigslist.org compared to eBay shows some strange activity over the last 5 years.  Now I know that Alexa is constantly gamed and it not a accurate depiction of traffic but when you are dealing with such huge sites such as Craigslist and eBay the numbers get very hard to fudge.  Basically it reads that Craigslist traffic is accelerating and eBay’s numbers are deflating.  Why might this be?  The easy answers are money and hassle. 

I had the opportunity to sell on both eBay and Craigslist in the last week.  The experience on Craigslist was one of quickly posting an item, someone nearby coming to get the item, and getting paid in cold hard cash without giving anyone one extra dime.  The experience on eBay was post the item, wait several days, get asked a million questions as to where the item can be shipped to, can I end my auction early, and tons of details questions asked.  The after purchase feeling was less bright also as you get to ship the item and then respond to impatient buyers wanting to know “where there item was” after one day.  My feelings sunk yet again when I added up how much I actually made from all that trouble and how much Paypal and then eBay sucked out of the transaction.

At the end of the day I just cannot justify using a service such as eBay to post items unless I am actively running a business.  This from former huge fan of eBay, it would be like me lamenting over a Apple product.  The thing is if Apple products became a pain to deal with AND costly I would no longer be a fan of their product either.  So eBay I bid Adieu to you, no more guilt of feedback and wasted money, Craigslist has won my heart with its simplicity and price (free).  I have found that I can sell nearly anything worth selling on Craigslist and I can spend only a couple of minutes to do it.   The best part is when I sell to someone buying off of Craigslist I am selling to a person looking to get a good deal and willing to take a chance but better yet I selling an item not a contract to devote my time.

November 5, 2007 | Filed Under CraigsList, eBay | 7 Comments 

Calculate your PayPal fees With PayPal Calc

Its thrilling selling that old Apple IIgs sitting in the basement on eBay for a cool $250 dollars so you can buy your new iPhone.  However when it comes time to get paid you suddenly feel a little ripped off.  You see not only do you get to pay eBay’s fees but you also get to pay a PayPal fee.  Now you can take out the guesswork with the PayPal calc.  Just insert the money you plan to get and PayPal Calc will tell you what you really will get.  A simple way to save the paypal fees is to tell your customer that they pay the paypal fees in the auction.  Send them to this calculator to find out what they really should pay.  Chances are most people will bid before checking thinking its a small amount, but that small amount can add up if you sell many items on eBay.  So save those extra dollars with PayPal Calculator.

Check it out

June 29, 2007 | Filed Under General, eBay | Leave a Comment 

Get your iPhone early, iPhone knockoffs show up on eBay

So the new iPhone is not even out yet and the web is all a flurry of iPhone knockoffs.  Its been going on for quite a while for iPods but most thought the bar would be set too high for a iPhone knock off, not so apparently.  Sporting what is believed to be a Windows Mobile interface that is skinned to resemble the iPhone GUI and a case that from a distance would fool most people its dressed to look the part. The problem is that it is filled with much of the same software silliness as a iPod knock off which is to say a GUI nightmare.  Sure you may be saving hundreds of dollars and getting about the same looking experience but the reliability of such a device is highly suspect as is its usability.  Apple’s biggest selling point is its ability to make functions that are normally hard use a little easier for the average user.  For what its worth you could at least be the first on the block with something that at least looks like a iPhone.

Check it out

June 21, 2007 | Filed Under Apple, eBay, iphone | 2 Comments 

The Ultimate eBay bargain bin with LastMinute Auction

From iPod Nano knock-offs to Motorola RAZRs many auctions end under a dollar without even one bid. Get the inside track on the forgot auctions on eBay and pick up great deals. Caution this site may reignite your addiction to eBay so be prepared to shield yourself from bargain madness…

Everyone loves eBay and everyone loves a good deal. LastMinute Auction displays only auctions ending soon (under 1 hour) that are under a buck. Now typically most of the auction activity happens in the last few minutes but I was able to find quite a few good deals that had seemingly slipped under the radar of the normal ebay searchers. It was good fun to find a iPod knock off for under $30 and a Motorola Razr phone battery for a dollar. This is exactly the type of site that can resurrect the old addictions to eBay so beware, good deals are very abundant. Think of this as the bargain bin at eBay.

Check it out

May 7, 2007 | Filed Under eBay | 5 Comments 

uShip saves you money on transporting large items you’ve won on ebay

So you are looking for cars on eBay Motors and you find the perfect deal, but its miles away. What to do? Look into uShip, a shipping auction service that gets you the best deal for transporting anything. uShip even has a familiar feedback interface to keep you from dealing with lowlifes and scammers.

You could save hundreds in shipping costs.

Check it out

February 13, 2007 | Filed Under General, eBay | 2 Comments