Buying from E-Bay?

[Shoeless Moe]

If your just buying, and not selling, there are no fees.

Buyers just pay the price they win the item at, and then if there is a shipping charge shown, some sellers have free shipping.

My 2 cents, if its an auction and not a buy it now, bid at the end, within the last minute......it avoids you getting in a bidding war early.

Just know what your max price is factoring shipping too, and bid that, sometime you will win, sometimes lose, sometimes well below your max bid sometimes right at it.

Good luck!!!

[gregr2]

Another good method is to use a sniping service such as gavelsnipe.com

You enter the URL of the eBay auction and you max bid and in the last few seconds of the auction it bids for you. Same theory, you'll win some and lose some but it takes out the urge to keep pushing up the bid.

[irv]

Thanks guys.

I tried to enter a bid and it wouldn't accept it? Tried a few times, read some stuff then called E-Bay.

Was informed, due to my lack of use, that I had to be reset. The lady on the other end was great, although a tad hard to understand at times, but things went smoothly.
She reset me, I tried it and it worked. Thing is, what I bid on wasn't exactly what I was after, nor did I pay much attention to what it actually was, so I also learned how to retract a bid today.

After being careless, I will now pay closer attention, be more careful, and definitely look over things better, including shipping fees. Those vary greatly and there doesn't seem to be a reason for it that I can see?

[irv]

Well, I got my feet wet and purchased a couple cards from E-Bay last night.
A 1959 Fleer Ted Williams and a 1961 Fleer Goose Goslin, both PSA graded.

Like what has been already mentioned, shipping rates vary exponentially!

Passed on a few I wanted more but the shipping rates/fees killed it for me, plus when I add up the CDN exchange rate, a $10.00 card can easily turn into a $40.00 or $50.00 dollar card!

Being since I was given a bunch of 52 Topps cards, I thought I'd give back or contribute to the hobby, but I am not sure, especially with what I mentioned above, if I can do this very often or not?

Any idea why shipping rates are so expensive compared to others? I assume the sellers also make money off of those?
I can understand, maybe, an expensive card, but when you see a $10.00-$20.00 dollar worth about half the shipping costs, it sure makes you wonder!

Edit: Can someone tell me why some cards/ads have an import fee/charge and others don't? I seen last night and today, some of those are just as much if not more than shipping costs.

[D. Bergin]

Unfortunately, International Shipping Rates going outside the U.S. have been going up exponentially in the last few years, with another huge jump this last month.

Import fees are the fees your country or Postal service charges to let items into the country. It has nothing to do with the seller. Some sellers have Ebay's Global Shipping Service activated, which means they ship the item to one of Ebay's clearinghouses, and then they get shipped internationally from there.

Ebay collects those fees from the buyers up front (the sellers don't see any of that). Sellers who use that service would generally not ship Internationally at all if this was not available to them (it's less risky for them), but it generally ends up being much more expensive for the buyer, since Ebay usually rounds way up on any shipping calculation in their favor.

Other sellers who are more confidant shipping internationally themselves won't have that tacked on to their listings, and it's up to the shipping service on your end to collect any associated fees from you, if the type of shipment being sent applies, usually based on value.

[irv]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Unfortunately, International Shipping Rates going outside the U.S. have been going up exponentially in the last few years, with another huge jump this last month.

Import fees are the fees your country or Postal service charges to let items into the country. It has nothing to do with the seller. Some sellers have Ebay's Global Shipping Service activated, which means they ship the item to one of Ebay's clearinghouses, and then they get shipped internationally from there.

Ebay collects those fees from the buyers up front (the sellers don't see any of that). Sellers who use that service would generally not ship Internationally at all if this was not available to them (it's less risky for them), but it generally ends up being much more expensive for the buyer, since Ebay usually rounds way up on any shipping calculation in their favor.

Other sellers who are more confidant shipping internationally themselves won't have that tacked on to their listings, and it's up to the shipping service on your end to collect any associated fees from you, if the type of shipment being sent applies, usually based on value.

Thanks, D. Bergin. I appreciate the info. It's going to make it tough for me to purchase any cards State side now and in the future.

It's funny the shipping/importing differences between cards? Some, it looks like it is based on the value of the cards and others, there doesn't seem to be a reason for it?

I appreciate the explanation.

Thanks again........Dale

[Ray Van]

Irv/Dale ... run far away from any auction that is attached to the Global Shipping Program. You are very correct that a $10 cost can quickly become a $50 cost. I can't understand why ebay charges, for example, $25 US shipping on an item that would normally cost $5 shipping. Outside of this program, most items (95%) shipped through regular means will not get stopped by customs and will not have extra duties and taxes added to them, that's just my experience and I buy a fair amount on ebay.

I can speak from experience as I am also located in Canada.

Also not sure if you are accessing ebay.ca or ebay.com but note that some US sellers on ebay.com will not ship to Canada. So it's safer to view items on ebay.ca but understand the selection, especially for baseball, will be smaller. You still see US sellers on ebay.ca, but only those that are willing to ship to Canada.

Ray

[rascalsally]

Originally Posted by irv

Thanks, D. Bergin. I appreciate the info. It's going to make it tough for me to purchase any cards State side now and in the future.

It's funny the shipping/importing differences between cards? Some, it looks like it is based on the value of the cards and others, there doesn't seem to be a reason for it?

I appreciate the explanation.

Thanks again........Dale

Dale, My main selling items on ebay are usually jewelry items. We have a buyer in Vietnam who likes old watches. We no longer ship internationally (due to some real bad experiences) so he has a friend stateside who lets him ship to his (paypal verified) California address and then when he has a few items he then packages and ships in one box to Vietnam. It saves him a ton of shipping charges.
If you have a good friend in the States this might be an option for you?