Does anyone buy on ebay?

Yes! I buy and have sold over 50,000 items on Ebay.

Ebay is actually a great place to buy (assuming you know what you are doing), but not so good to sell anymore. Their fees are ridiculous and I'm sure they are going down hill right now. Invest your money in Google, they will be uphill for a while.

 

From my experience... Never buy websites on eBay. I have gotten scammed for thousands.

 

I've been buying and selling on ebay for quite awhile now...Transactions almost always go smoothly, but not all of them do. The incredible bargains that you can find will usually far outweigh the losses you incur- but if you do enough dealing on ebay you are likely to encounter at least some problems. When problems do arise, you will find that most sellers are reasonable and willing to work with you.

I definitely agree about checking feedback, but I would advise being more careful about the percentage than some of the previous posters have been. In my opinion, 98% positive feedback is not good. I think twice about buying from anyone who has less than 99.5% positive. Also, if you read feedback carefully you'll often see that a lot of neutrals should really be negatives, and a lot of positives aren't all that enthusiastic. Keep in mind that you can't always go strictly by the percentages.

Also keep in mind that any transaction can go wrong, even one with a seller who has 100% positive feedback. I've had hundreds and hundreds of transactions go smoothly and a few that didn't, and the last 2 transactions I had problems with were both from sellers with 100% positive feedback. So, you never know! With that in mind, never bid more than you can afford to lose.

Some categories are better than others. I've never had a bad experience buying original art from artists in the self representing artists category. My husband has had nothing but good experiences buying sports equipment. My best friend buys lots of pottery and glass and has had many more problems than we've had. Fragile items can be kind of risky just because they are so easily damaged in transit, especially if a seller doesn't package carefully.

If you're a non-smoker, it's a good idea to check the description to be sure if the item is from a non smoking environment, and if it doesn't say, ask. With old paper, or old books, make sure to ask if it smells musty or unpleasant- you'd be surprised at how many sellers will advertise a moldy book as being in "good" condition.

That brings me to another point- "good" condition means different things to different people, but "good" rarely means "like new". Never hesitate to email and ask for clarification if you are in doubt about what the condition is like.

I agree with previous posters about being sure of shipping charges up front.

Hope you'll have lots of fun bidding & buying!

 

One more thing. You'll often find that sellers get bad feedback from unreasonable buyers (bidders who bid and never pay, and then leave bad feedback. Or bidders who obviously didn't read the description.) I never hold that against a seller when checking feedback.

 

Don't do it! Don't sell especially. The reason I say that is because the first time you sell something, EVERYTHING in your home will have a price tag. Maybe it's just my addictive nature but it wasn't hard for me to sell just about anything that didn't weight over 50 pounds.

LOL, my experiences selling WERE great, buying even better. Take the advice from this forum and read the rules, forum and Google for research on bad experiences or what to watch out for.

You'll be fine! Give it a go. Buy something first to get the feel for the site.