How to Save Thousands by buying on eBay, part three

Looking for a good deal that may seem suspicious?

When looking on eBay, you may think that the Wii going for $150 being sold by a person with 4 feedback, no picture, and a trite description may be fraudulent, but if they are from the US, then don't worry about it--because if it is a scam, PayPal will protect you. Sellers on eBay are much more likely to get hit with scams than buyers, but please note that if you are buying a Coach purse from China, or "sterling silver" from China (or pretty much anything valuable from China), they are more than likely completely fake. If you are buying anything from China and the price is really really good (including the shipping price...you have to pay that and sometimes it's more than the item itself is going for), please be aware that they are cheap there, they will find a way to make it for less and sell it for less, so when buying, think about that. That said, you can get great quality from China, but the prices won't be even 1/3rd of the regular price, and they will generally have a customer service number or a US representative when they are selling high quality goods (but not always).

For instance, I wanted a good a quality, automatic Skeleton dress watch (yeah, back to watches); not an easy thing to find for under $200, but what I did find was a "Sea-Gull" brand watch (a national Chinese brand name). This watch had the same movement as some Staur watches that sell for about $300. When I finally found the exact watch I wanted, I had a difficult time finding comparison prices--until I found that at that time, new Sea-Gull watches were officially banned from being sold in the U.S. outside of their official website, which was not up. Now I can see that I got a great deal: http://www.usseagull.com/m182sk.htm shows $185 for my watch and I got it for $155. However, at the time, the the seller was selling only two types of watches and vacuum tubes, which threw a red flag in my mind.

After a long wait, the watch finally arrived, but it was a risk that paid off, as I had a watch to wear with my tux for my wedding, and a great quality timepiece that will not go out of style. That was a risk that I would not take again if I wanted another item, because with the lack of having a watch store, the fact that they were from China, and the fact that there was no competition, pointed to something being wrong--and there was: the watches were being sold on the "grey" market. But it could have easily been something else, such as a fake watch (if there were such a thing...but there isn't because fake Swiss watches with Skeleton movements generally have the Sea-Gull movement).

I was able to find out all of that before I purchased the watch, and now I am glad I did, even though it was a risk.

Be Open

When you are looking for a fantastic price on something, it is often best to keep an open mind. If you only want Banana Republic pants, you might miss out on the equally great ones from Aeropostale.

When you are open to what brand or whether it is new or slightly used, then you are generally going to be faced with a large amount of items...pages upon pages of items, many of which are similar, clogging up the screen.

This is where being good with searching pays off.

For instance, try this eBay search with me.
"Leather Jacket XL (or your size if you prefer)" Search!

Wow, there are sure a lot of jackets out there... now, go over to the left and pick your gender in the categories offered.

Still a lot eh? And some really cheap prices: wonder why all the leather jackets seem to be $30? Click one at random (one without a big embroidered skull or heart) and you will likely see "Italian Stone" which is just a fancy way of saying "scraps of leather sewn together."

Now, you need to exclude all of those jackets, unless you are only planning on wearing it for a month and don't mind looking like you can't afford a real leather jacket. Put "leather jacket" YOURSIZE -(stone) (with the "leather Jacket in quotations, and the word stone in parenthesis just as it is written. Now you will have mostly real leather jackets, and you can decide if you want one over another based on your research and how they represent the quality.