Any Ebay ninjas here // Does the UK sellers hate mainland Europe?

[Donpimpom]

afters years being sniped I finally joined the sniper club, but I find it so stressful  that finally I stopped using ebay, just to save the pain bidding in.
Currently I only use it as reference for prices or buy it now auctions

[Conquistador]

If you want to save a bomb on ebay and 'win' more often than not, Google the bloody thing you are going to buy. More often than not you can pick it up off a hobby stores website for less.  
<snip>

Well, if it still being cast by someone somewhere, yes.  OOP stuff is just that - OOP.

A lot of the old "OOP" stuff to fill out small units has always been my main effort.  

A lot of stuff is not really OOP so much as is implied.  I just discovered that research is the "location, location, location" of EBay.

It got much easier when Classicminiatures.net start making legitimately a lot of the stuff I wanted - now if he would only rehab the old dwarf molds... and give up his real life just to cast the figures I failed to buy when I had a vastly smaller (proportionally) income at the time...

And seriously modern metal he uses is vastly superior to the old "nearly solid lead" stuff.

Gracias,

Glenn

[FramFramson]

If you want to save a bomb on ebay and 'win' more often than not, Google the bloody thing you are going to buy. More often than not you can pick it up off a hobby stores website for less.

THIS! Many sellers even list the item on both ebay and their own website, just for the exposure and for the multiple sales portals. But the item is almost always a higher price than in their website store because they need to also cover ebay fees on ebay sales.

Although, that's usually only for buy-it-now items.
  

Also many many many buy it nows can actually be had for crap tons less if you hit the contact seller button and state a good case why they are not going to get more than X for it and you will give them that amount right now.

Eh, sometimes, but I've given up banging my head against stupid sellers who are selling an item that 20 Euros, because it USED to go for $20 USD months ago in North American sales, even though the same item is now only $5 USD. When I try to tell them this, they ignore the message or offer something absurd like "Oh okay, I'll lower it to 18 Euros". Even when I send them recently ended auction links, they still won't budge. Many of the euro ebay sellers I've dealt with seem to be bad for this and I just cannot fathom why.

The other thing I have noticed about ebay over the years is its getting more full blown retail as the years go by. Especially when postage is added to figure out the actual cost.

For sure.

[Cubs]

especially if its been hanging around for a while.

Ah, the 'dusty label' tactic. If you see something in a shop with a really elderly label, it's been there for a looong time and chances are the shopkeeper will want to get rid of it and is open to offers. The same applies to online auctioneering.

[maxxon]

No, I don't bother with sniping.

I just bid what I'm willing to pay and that's it. If someone else is willing to pay more, it's theirs and I've no beef with that.

The automatic bidding system always makes it seem like they only outbid you by 50 cents or whatever, but there is no way to determine how high they really would have gone. It's designed to feed the bidding frenzy.

If you feel you lost because of sniping, it means you didn't set your max price realistically.

Here's a fact of life: if the bid is already at your max long before the auction ends, the only way you are going to win is if no one else is interested in it.

Not too long ago, I needed a part for my car. I located an auction that was going for about $30. I really really needed the part so I bid $200 for it (which was still around 25% of the price in Europe). I ended up getting it for $30 because no one else needed it. Plus about $70 in postage... but still a steal compared to authorized dealers in Europe.

If I'd been outbid, I probably would have immediately upped to $500 or so. Above that, figuring in risk with used parts etc. just buying locally would have been a reasonable fallback option.

In a real auction (which I also occasionally go to), you might want to drop in a high bid early to scare others off. On eBay that doesn't work quite as well.

[Conquistador]

<snip>

The other thing I have noticed about ebay over the years is its getting more full blown retail as the years go by. Especially when postage is added to figure out the actual cost.

Most of the stuff I have sold on Ebay had postage as the biggest cost factor...  Same with a lot of OOP miniatures (99 cents or $2.99 might be "reasonable" for the cost but add another $2.99 or $4.99 postage per figure and people draw back like it was attached to a ticking clock and stick of dynamite.)

I have had people complain about the postage cost on Ebay as if I was committing a mortal sin when I select how I want to ship it.  I could send it in an padded envelope still attached to the Litko base like they want but if it breaks do you think the buyer won't want his money back?  And that Paypal/Ebay won't insist they get their money back?

There is a reason Ebay encourages people to post a starting price of 99 cents and free postage - and it's not really for the buyer's reasonable expectation of profit.

Gracias,

Glenn

[Centaur_Seducer]

Well kharma, and a sellers inability to spell, finally arrived. 6 lovely citadel minis for a mere 6 quid.
I just assume that this will never ever happen again.

[Tacgnol]

Well kharma, and a sellers inability to spell, finally arrived. 6 lovely citadel minis for a mere 6 quid.
I just assume that this will never ever happen again.

I search eBay for "rouge trader" regularly, got some nice finds from it!

[Centaur_Seducer]

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only make-up!

[Conquistador]

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only make-up!

    

Gracias,

Glenn

[Bugsda]

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only make-up!

Coincidentally I picked up some Darkest Africa while searching for Coppertone 

[THE CID]

I'm a sniper too, and have been done myself in the last two seconds. I have got some great bargains though. THE CID.

[Centaur_Seducer]

Changed the topic title a bit. I've spotted a lot of different auctions where the sellers has a UK only text. I know that some of these sellers can be persuaded to actually send to europe if you ask them (apparently, ebay has a postage setting that people forget about). But on quite many occassions, I've stumbled upon a seller that just refuses to send to europe. Is there an issue of people frauding, or just the seller being lazy and unsure when he needs to do the address tab?

[Too Bo Coo]

Changed the topic title a bit. I've spotted a lot of different auctions where the sellers has a UK only text. I know that some of these sellers can be persuaded to actually send to europe if you ask them (apparently, ebay has a postage setting that people forget about). But on quite many occassions, I've stumbled upon a seller that just refuses to send to europe. Is there an issue of people frauding, or just the seller being lazy and unsure when he needs to do the address tab?

I've had the same exact experiences....

[Centaur_Seducer]

I rarely go anywhere else. Perhaps the german one. But there is a lot of language barriers there, both for me (being fluent in Swergman isn't the same as being it in German), and the sellers sometimes lack language skills.