A once brilliant auction site turining into a online shop which is not really a good thing. (ebay.co.uk)

Member Name: tomo359

Product:	ebay.co.uk
Date:	30/11/08 (148 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Products can often be found which cannot be found elsewhere, some good prices

Disadvantages: More businesses are selling and pushing out general sellers, prices are not as low as they once were

Ebay.co.uk is on online auction site where anyone in the UK can buy and sell products, new or used.

I first discovered ebay about 2003 when i was looking to buy a cheap N64 console to play a couple of games i used to love playing.
My dad helped me set up an account and he did it under his name as i was under 18 at the time. It was simple to set up, you put in all your contact information in, your email, you choose a password and a username then you have to confirm your email, and thats about it.

Once you set up your account, you get your own page called 'My Ebay' which is where you monitor all your actions such as items you are bidding on, items you have won, items you are selling and any other information. A couple of months ago Ebay updated the design to make it simple to work your way around and find anything you need so even first time users should manage ok.

Once you have your account all set up, and you can start buying and selling. Firstly buying.

There is a search bar on the home page, and on most other pages where you can type in any product and see if it is available. You can also search through different categories if you do not know the name of a product. From here, you will get a selection of products listed on the page, usually there will be an image shown (as long as the seller has uploaded an image) it will also show you the name of the product, and the current price of it, the postage cost, and when the item will end being listed.
To view more details of the product, you just click the name and the product description page will appear. This is where the seller can put up any information about the product including what the product is, the condition it is on, postage information and any other information they want to include.
If you decide you want to bid on the item, you have to enter a price. Its recommended you enter a maximum price you are willing to spend. E.g. if a product is currently priced at £3.45 and you are willing to spend £8.00, then enter £8.00. The price will then show as something like £3.55 but if anyone else tries to bid, you will still be the winning bidder unless someone bids over £8.00. It sounds a bit confusing here but its quite simple once you get used to it.
If you are out bid by someone, you can always enter a new bid. You can bid as much as you like until the auction ends.
If you find out you have won the item, you will have to decide how you want to pay for it. Paypal is the most used method payment on Ebay as its simple and quick to use, but some sellers will accept different payments such as personal cheque or postal order, but you will usually have to ask the seller before you use one of these types of payment. If you use Paypal, then you can usually just pay straight away and then just wait for the seller to send the item.

Even though ebay is an auction site, some sellers will also allow you to pay a one off payment for you to win the product. This is called 'Buy it now'. This means, if you do not want to wait for a product auction to end you can just buy it like you would on a general online shop. Some sellers only use this method now and do not even include bidding option.

Some sellers will use both methods so buyers have a choice of either just buying the item, or you can bid and hope to get it cheaper. With these types, if someone decides to bid, the buy it now option will no longer be available to buyers and they will just have to bid on it.

Sorry if this all sounds quite confusing, its quite hard to explain it without being able to show it.

Now like i said earlier, anyone can sell on ebay as well as buy on it.
When you first sell, you have to set up a seller account. Here you add your Paypal email to accept payments, and configure anything else needed. Then you can sell products.
To sell, you first choose a name to describe the product as best you can. You can also put a brief description of the quality of the product or any other information. You can also add a subtitle if you want to add a little bit extra information.
Then you write the product description.
You get a large white box where you write anything you want. You can change the font, the size of the text and the colour to make your description page look a bit more appealing. You can then add pictures. You get to add one picture for free, and if you want to add any others, they cost something like 12p. I will talk more about fees later.
Once you are happy with your product description, you choose a price, and whether you want people to bid, or buy or both. Generally people will start with a low bidding price, but a higher buy it now price. If you use buy it now, you are charged something like 10 or 15p.
There are then a few other things you can do. You choose the postage options you can use and the cost of those. You can also add a special design to your description page such as christmas theme or summer theme etc. These themes cost 7p.
There is also a general insertion fee of 10p which you have to pay.

If you put an item up on ebay, its a good idea to keep monitoring it to see if anyone bids or buys it. Also people can ask you questions if they are unsure about anything. You will also get an email if anyone buys your product or if anyone sends you a message.

Now ebay used to be a brilliant place to get some real bargins on products but lately it seems to be just getting full of businesses selling their own products on ebay for buy it now only prices and they are not usually any cheaper than buying the product in a high street shop. Fewer and fewer single sellers are using ebay. Often when you search for something, you will get the exact same product coming up several times for the same price and many of these items are now coming from places like Hong Kong and China which means products often take a while to arrive and especially if it is an electrical product, it may not even work properly.
Also because prices of products is getting lower and lower in general online stores, fewer and fewer people are using ebay so fewer people are selling on it so it can now be quite hard to get a good bargin from it.
I think people do prefer to buy from actual single sellers rather than businesses selling on ebay e.g. i just put up a PS2 game earlier today with both bidding and buy it now options, and about 1 hour later someone had bought it, yet there were other businesses selling the same game and some of these had been on ebay for several days. I am the same, i would rather than buy from someone just selling their one product.

You can still get some good products though, and ebay is a good place to try for products that you cannot find anywhere else, so still give it a try.

Summary: Still not a bad site but its not what it was.