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Using eBay for your Christmas Shopping [Guide]

Category: Tech Stuff | Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 6:56 pm

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If you're like me and you hate shopping for Christmas presents in crowded shopping malls then the Internet is a perfect alternative. This is my second Christmas using eBay as my source of gifts. "Hold on" you say, "doesn't eBay just allow you to buy second-hand items? I'm not that desperate!". Well that's where you would be wrong, you can buy completely new, packaged items at lower prices than elsewhere. The selection is also wonderful, you can find items on eBay that you can't find elsewhere online, e.g. Amazon.

Before I continue let me just mention that the easiest way to use eBay is if you have a PayPal account for making payments. Most sellers require that you have one to buy their items. Also it is the most secure way to make payments, I recommend avoiding other types of money transfer. I have a PayPal account that is tied to my credit card so that ordering items on eBay is a breeze..


Ok on to the shopping!

Visit eBay and search for something you are interested in. When I use eBay I like to view items that I can buy straight away without having to go through an auction process ("What, you can do that!" - Yes you can :)). When you perform a search you should see a little "Buy It Now" icon listed beside items you don't have to go through an auction to get. It looks like this:
You can filter your search results to only show "Buy It Now" results by looking for the area "Buying formats" on the left hand side and selecting the "Buy It Now" option.


When you find an item you may like to buy there are a few things to look out for:

- Seller's feedback score. This will tell you what the eBay community thinks of this seller in a useful percentage score. If it says 98% this means that 98% of buyers liked their interaction with this seller. It goes without saying that the higher score the better. Personally I like to look for a score of 97% or higher.

- Detailed feedback for the seller. It makes for interesting reading to peruse the comments left about a seller by the buying community. If I am interested in a seller's item I visit the detailed feedback and search for the item name within these comments (use the "Find" feature of your web browser for this, CTRL+F). That way I can find out exactly what others thought of this exact item from this exact seller (e.g. was the item as described when delivered). Set the number of comments per page to 200 to search faster.

- Read the item's description very carefully. Is it exactly what you are looking for? Are the features described what you are looking for? If it is an electronic item will it work in your country? (e.g. some DVDs only play in certain countries). Contact the seller directly through eBay's messaging system if you are unsure.

- Shipping and handling. Check if the seller ships to your country. If the seller of an item you are interested in buying resides in another country then you will pay higher shipping and handling fees then if they reside in your country. On each item's page there is a Shipping and handling section where you can calculate what the costs will be.

-Return policies. Have a look for the Return policy section on each item's page so that you know what your options are should you be unsatisfied with your purchase.

- Committing to buy. When you decide to buy an item you will be asked to commit to buy. Be aware that this is a legal agreement between you and the seller so in this way it works differently then adding an item to your shopping cart on a site like Amazon.


Using eBay last Christmas was a success. I ordered from 4-5 different sellers with high feedback scores and followed the rest of the tips above. I had all of the item's delivered straight to my family's home in Ireland so that I didn't have to so my shopping here in Sweden and carry it all home in my travel bags/rucksack.

I hope this short guide helps you in some small way. Happy Christmas shopping, wherever you end up doing it!

Last edited: Fri Dec 05, 2008 7:19 pm

This blog entry has been viewed 2871 times

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How to Prevent Email Spam

Category: Tech Stuff | Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 12:15 pm

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Ever now and then I'll get an email into my inbox saying something like:

"I'm receiving lots of spam all of a sudden and because I signed up with your site then of course YOU are the reason why I'm getting it!!!"

I really hate these mails but rather than get peeved I'm going to share a few tips that everyone can follow to reduce the amount of email spam they receive.

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- If you receive a spam/unsolicited email NEVER follow their 'helpful' Unsubscribe instructions at bottom of the mail. What the spammers do is send out millions of emails to random email addresses. If you happen to prove that your email address is alive by Unsubscribing then what you are really doing is subscribing to their spam list indefinitely. I'm tech-savvy but I still fell for this one for a while.

- Related to the previous point, it's a good idea to use an email provider that doesn't display images in emails until you specify to display them. This is because if you open a spam email containing images as soon as the images load the spammers will recognize this and you have proved that your email address is alive. Gmail is one of the email providers that offers this protection.

- Never sign up to any forum/community using your email address as your username. If you do this spammers can read your email address straight from your profile page and when you write posts. You are displaying your email address to them, it's like throwing a little innocent lamb in front of a pack of lions! DINNER TIME!

- If a site asks you to sign up but you don't completely trust what they are going to do with your email address then I would recommend using a temporary email address service like SpamBox. Using this service you can sign up using a temporary email address that you can discard afterwards leaving your original email address untouched. However if you are signing up with a website that you DO trust and that will need to use your email address for sending notifications etc... (like here at GardenStew or sites like Facebook, eBay) then I would not recommend using these services.

- Instead of using a temporary email address you can set up an entirely separate email account just for purposes like signing up to services etc... and use your existing email account for important tasks like emailing friends etc... Divide and conquer!

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I'm sure I've missed a few tips, when they come to me I'll share them. But for now these are the most important tips. Have a spam free day!

Last edited: Thu Dec 18, 2014 3:34 pm

This blog entry has been viewed 9285 times

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