Ebay: its in the name, the E - Bay (ebay.co.uk)

Member Name: gavallan2020

Product:	ebay.co.uk
Date:	11/06/09 (42 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: prices support security ease of use

Disadvantages: paypal charge fees to sellers

Ebay is basically what it says in its slogan: "the online marketplace". A lot of people who don't normally shop online seem to have this vision that ebay sellers are just thiefs, robbers and fraudsters out for your money. Although I am confident that through buying and selling 250 items that this is not the case. Just to start off this review, I have bought 170 items off ebay. One of them was a TV which was faulty, it was replaced within the same week. no troubles :). So heres a bit about what the actual website is like.

On the whole, Ebay is very easy to use if you don't have much experience in seling or buying. On the buying side of things, Ebay guides you through the signup proccess with Ebay and Paypal (see lower down section). Buying off of Ebay is incredibly simple. All you need to do is find the item you want, check the price and the sellers rep (all on the item page) and then click bid/buy it now. On Ebay, there are 3 ways of buying items. The first is probably the most famous, that is of course bidding. The way that it works is that buyers bid certain amounts against each other. The highest bid wins, simple. Or if you don't want to stay at your computer for the whole time, you can enter a maximum bid and ebay will bid for you. The second way of buying items is by using "Buy it now". This is the simplest way of buying on ebay. Basically, there is a set price. If you want to buy the item, the price is non-negotiable. Best Offer is the third way in which to buy items off of Ebay. Best offer will have a buy it now price and a best offer. Best Offer allows buyers to offer below the asking price. If the seller has lots of stock to shift, then this tool can save you a lot of money.

Selling on Ebay is also relatively straight forward. For starters, Ebay allows you the option to choose between a basic selling form or the advanced. The only differences being that the basic form only includes the essential features and a nicer background. Advanced will give you the reserve price, visiter counter types, etc. To check up whether an item has been sold, all you need to do is sign into ebay and any notices to with your selling appear there (with links to the relevant pages). For example, "your item has a question" (link). "You have 1 item to post" etc. Even if you do go wrong, there is a massive FAQ section, even more help pages and email support as well.

Paypal

Paypal is owned by ebay. Its basically just a secure way of transferring money. There are ups and downs of Paypal, but generally I like it as a whole. If you are a buyer then Paypal is perfect, there is no extra cost to you. Although if you are selling items that add up to a total of less than £50 then you will be charged a fee. Although there is an upside, now withdrawing any sort of money too your bank is feeless!

Thats really all there is to say about Ebay. On the whole its a very well run website that is very easy to use. The main advantage of it is really the price. Most items are around 25% cheaper than the highstreet.

So hope you take this review on board and try Ebay some time. If you already haven't.

Summary: see the end of the review