I am a self confessed eBay addict. I think the majority of my wardrobe's contents is from the online auction site, the same goes for my DVD and CD collections. Yep, I really cannot help myself from having a quick little look on the site for something that I undoubtedly do not need,. For this reason eBay can be a bad thing. I am not complaining however, even if most of my weekly wages are sent across the globe to someone who I've never met who in return posts a little parcel with ,y name on that comes straight to my door. Ahh I do love eBay.

I think the addiction started back in 2005, I remember buying tickets to a sold out gig that I just could not afford to miss from eBay. I was tense wondering if the tickets would arrive in time and I absolutely loved the last couple of minutes of bidding time and picturing all the other bidders sat there behind their computer screens as eager to win as I am. I have bought gig tickets, festival tickets and all sorts from eBay, all of which seem to have arrived just in the nick of time, e.g. for Reading festival 2009 the ticket arrived the day before I was due to go. This was such a scary feeling but I was SO relived when the Postman arrived! I would recommend trying out legitimate ticket selling sites before you resort to eBay to buy such things, as I did encounter a bit of a problem when I bough my festival ticket. On entrance to the grounds I was asked to show my ticket and I was then asked for my surname and who bought my ticket and I started to get a little worried as to whether I had been conned or sent a fraud ticket. IT was legit, but I don't think I would take that risk again.

Buying clothes for me is one of the best benefits that eBay holds to a 19 year old girl who's eyes are bigger than her wardrobe. I could literally sit and roam through pages upon pages of vintage clothing one offs that are listed on the site. That's what eBay is essentially. Lots of people putting forward their own items that you will probably not find elsewhere. I would rather use eBay to buy clothes sometimes than asos.com where you KNOW that someone else will be wearing that item.

EBay allows you to search for items through selection of different categories e.g. Cars, clothes shoes and accessories, electrical goods, books, TV and film, Antiques, collectables, coins, the list goes on, this is just a few examples of how vast the collection of goods on eBay really is! When you have found the kind of items you are looking for there are also different ways to order them which is really useful. For example you can identify which items are closest to you (by entering your postcode when you first join eBay) This is probably most beneficial if you are purchasing something like a car or some furniture, something that you don't have to travel far to retrieve. However if the object you have in mind can be posted then you might want to arrange the goods in order of price e.g. Price + Postage and packaging lowest first. This means that you don't exceed your budget and can eliminate products that are too pricey for you.

In terms of listing your item on eBay, I don't even want to know the amount of time that I have spent listing my items, taking photos of my items, packaging them and the time spent queuing at the post office. Eurgh, it is such a long, long process and can sometimes be frustrating. I mainly sell clothes and shoes on eBay (my wardrobe can only handle so much!) and the amount of times that people will send me a message asking me for extra measurements such as inside leg and certain widths etc of the garments can get a little tedious, you don't want to be left with negative feedback after all.

User feedback plays a key part in eBay's functioning in that if a user has a poor feedback rating, you generally won't want to trade from them. Feedback is left in a line of comment but you can also rate people out of 5 stars for the following:
Item as described- (whether the item you're selling arrives at the buyers condition as you have described it in the lsiting)
Communication- whether the seller communicates with the buyer- so if the seller cannot dispatch the item, they should ideally inform the buyer straight away etc)
Dispatch time- how long the item took to arrive at the buyer's house
Postage and packaging charges- How much the seller charged for postage. On a lot of parcels that I have received on the postage stamp it will tell you how much the postage has cost the seller. This way you can see if someone is ripping you off.

All users want a clean feedback page and it can be quite hard to maintain this, especially when postal strikes kick in and you can't dispatch a parcel. So yeah, there are quite a few issues with selling on eBay, but don't let this put you off, some items that I've sold in the past that I thought would go for pennies have actually made a decent amount- e.g. some shoes that I listed went for £40 odd pounds- hurrah!

From being a member of eBay for 4 years it has become evident to me that almost anything can be bought from this site, the list truly is limitless. I really recommend this site to anyone who is interested in or wants to find out more about the wonders of internet shopping.