A frugal life is an easy life!

Bidding and buying on ebay can be costly to your pocket, especially when, as is often the case, there is another "bidder" interested in the same item that you are after.
Now that you can shop and buy using a one off card payment, you don't need to use or have a paypal account to shop on ebay.

But there are ways to win and win on the cheap!

Here are my personal top tips to viewing and winning on ebay - getting value for money.

* NEVER use the "watch item" feature!
You see an item and click to "watch it"
This is then advertised across ebay under the "see what others are watching" section for the entire duration of the auction.
This is plastered all over your side bar and your "watched item" is promoted, not just through the ebay website but other ebay owned websites, increasing the number of views is not good, this will only lead to more bids, especially expensive if the item you are "watching" is quite hard to get hold of and collectable.

* When entering a search term, be vague!
There are many tools available to the more knowledgable ebay user whom buys and sells via the website, that help them see what search terms are popular and what are not.
The seller is aiming for the maximum exposure to attract the maximum bids, popular search terms can also work to increase the starting price, pushing up initial bids, which, as I will cover later in this post, do not help your pocket when buying.

For example, say you are looking for a collectable product. We will call it "Box A"
You enter "box A" and run a search.
Any sellers listing their "box A" check how popular that search term is.
You might return to ebay and run a search for "box A" a few times over a couple of weeks, this pushes up the number of results.
If "box A" becomes a popular search terms, anyone listing one might well start their auction off at £5.99 instead of 99p, this costs you more, both in the initial bid and the amount by which the bidding will increase, ie, a 99p start price would rise by 50p per bid, something with a higher starting price often rises by over a £1 per bid. Not very frugal!

Try searching for the manufacturer of "box A" - granted, you will have to work through the results, many of which won't interest you, but from there you can view the ones you find for "box A" without increasing search results and popularity.

* Don't forget spelling mistakes!
You would be amazed at the amount of times I have searched for something and I have spelt it wrong when I typed it in, only to find one or two listings for what I was looking for where the seller has spelt it wrong.
Ignore the "did you mean..." option on the results page.
As I write this post, there is an xbox 360 game listed under "lwgo" (the W is next to the E on the keyboard) instead of "lego" with no bids on it in the 24 hours it's been listed.
Keyboard mistakes are easy to make for sellers, which can be very frugal for buyers if they are spotted.

* Change your own "last viewed" list!
Your sidebar and cookies display what you have last viewed, by clearing cookies or simply viewing three other items completely different from the item that interests you, you can remove these results.
Think about it, if it has information that shows you the last three things you viewed, everytime you log into ebay, it can show all the other users what you viewed also, increasing clicks on the item you want, possibly generating more interest in it.
If you have three unrelated items listed there, no damage is done and viewing results for the item you want will be reduced.

You've found your item, what now?

Now you have two options;
- Using your vague search term, find it in the results and keep your eye on it (*NOTE this does not mean clicking on it!)
- Place a minimum bid on it then keep an eye on it via "my ebay" (*NOTE this does not mean clicking on it!) Do not bid any higher on the item!

I have noticed that if I bid the opening bid on an item then just keep an eye on it, without clicking on the listing, via "my ebay" - in essence, leaving it alone - more often than not, no other bids come in for it.
My other tactic is keeping an eye on it - again not clicking on the listing - via my vague search term results.
Either way, I then move to my "win it" next step.

These two methods also help cut down on the possibility of becoming a victim of "shill bidding"
"Shill bidding" is where the seller lists an item and works with another bidder or has another account set up and bids on their own item to increase the end sale price (Costing you more money in the process)
You can normally spot shill bidding taking place, but although you can complain to ebay and they will review it, it is very hard to prove, as the friend or other account normally has a different IP address logged so the two accounts cannot be linked by those investigating.
Telltale signs of "Shill bidding" include;
* An account bidding on the item with no previous feedback left or given
* An account making several bids but only on this particular item or only bidding on some items with this particular seller
* An account making many bids but only increasing the bid each time by small amounts, then once they have gone past your "maximum bid" they retract their last bid, so their bid falls just under yours, you may win the auction, but you pay the maximum amount for it!

[This has happened to me once before - 12 bids of small amounts placed on the item I had put a maximum bid on, then retracted the winning bid so the rival bidder went just under the maximum amount I bid. Despite a complaint, ebay found no evidence of shill bidding and expected me to pay for it, warning of damage to my feedback rating if I failed to pay for the item and suspension of my ebay account. Two weeks later the seller magically closed their account and vanished, with no negative feedback or account suspension for me]

* The "Win it" final step!
If you have placed a minimum bid on the item, then watched it via "my ebay" I'm hoping you have not bid any higher on the item.
If you haven't placed a bid on it, but kept an eye on it via your vague search result term, then in the last few minutes, now is the time to return to it and click on the item page.

Many times I have been gazumped by a bigger bid in the last 10 seconds of an auction.
There are websites you can join, where for a fee, you can list an ebay item and place your maximum bid, the website will then wait until the last 10 seconds of the auction, then automatically place bid increments until it either reaches the maximum or wins the auction by becoming the highest bid then stopping.
This leaves you no time at all to increase your bid and the item you've been keeping an eye on for the past 7 days has gone to someone else.
It is extremely annoying when you are beaten by 50p to an item, especially when you have placed the opening bid of £1 and no one else has bid on the item.

You can vastly improve your chances manually.
In the last few minutes of the auction there is a countdown clock shown on the item page.
With just 20 seconds to go, I type in my maximum bid.
The "confirm your bid" box appears, which I move so I can see the countdown clock, then I hovver my mouse icon over the confirm box and wait until 3-5 seconds before the end of the auction, then I click confirm.
Once entered, it is difficult for anyone using an auto increment website automated bidding process, to have their bids increment fast enough to outbid me.
Remember that the automated website is trying to outbid my original opening bid or the latest highest bid. In the few seconds it takes to beat that bid, I have submitted a new bid, unless the website is capable of checking for new bids in a split second, then it doesn't have time to react and I win the auction.
Alternately, if the automated website is placing only the minimum bid, as I've only watched it from my vague search term results and placed no bid and neither has anyone else, then before it can check for other bids, the auction is over and I've won it!
If no automated website is involved and no one else bids, regardless of my maximum bid, I get it for the opening bid amount... it doesn't happen very often but it does happen.

Sounds silly, but the amount of times I've been beaten by these websites after a week of bidding, watching items, etc, is too numerous to count.
Many times, by placing the opening bid then leaving the item alone, so to speak, nobody else comes in with another bid and I win the auction at the minimum price.

The trick is to avoid showing ebay what you are interested in.
Would you go to a real life auction house and declare to everyone what it is you will be bidding on?
The same applies to ebay, if you do not feed ebay information about what interests you, then you can save a packet and be very frugal indeed!
Ebay's target is to obtain as much information about what you are interested in and using target advertising, promote as many clicks/views of that item as possible, to obtain as much commission as possible for their business.

The easier you make their job, the more it will cost you, the buyer, from your pocket!

MORE TIPS...
Thanks to Stelsters (Over at chatgames.com shameless plug of a totally FREE trivia/quiz website) for another money saving ebay tip.
When searching, try searching for national variants!

"luster/lustre, theater/theatre, and of course, the infamous U." - Thanks Stelsters hun.