Winning on Ebay Revisited

Last July I did a post on winning stuff on Ebay - Stewart added a comment to my original post the other day and it's such good advice I thought it worth sharing in September 09!
My original post:
Winning on Ebay at the right price
Just thought I'd post my thoughts on getting an item at the right price (in particular where it's an item that's new and being listed by a dealer). The Garmin Edge 205 is a case in point. They're available for £174 on Amazon but you can get them cheaper online outside of Ebay. However on Ebay you get pretty much anything cheaper (in my opinion, one or two things to watch out for but most things cost less). Here's what I did to get the Edge for a good price. First of all put loads of them in a watch list. Then made a note of all the prices they'd gone for and put them in a spreadsheet. I then took out all the ones that went for more than £60 as there was no way I was bidding £60 for one with £13 on top for delivery and insurance. Any way after I'd done that I knew that a good number had gone for between £54 and £56 and the best times were 8am, 2pm and 8pm (by best I meant going for less than £60!). I then bid on 16 before winning the item for £54.56 which with the p&p and insurance came to £67So here's the key points:
Research price thoroughly
See what times the item sells in the price range you want to get it for.
Be persistent - keep bidding again and again on the same items but no more than the max you want to pay for it.
Posted by Paul at 20:55
Labels: ebay

Stewart's additional tips:

• Always check the Completed Listings for the sold prices, under advanced search.
• Check the Sellers Other Items, they may have more of the same article, let folks have a bidding war and you go for the other one completing an hour later.
• Consider using AuctionStealer, you'll get 3 for free without paying. It's rude to snipe a bid at the last few seconds but everyone is doing it.
• If you bid manually open 2 windows for the same auction, that way you can up your bid quickly in the last seconds.
• If you see a new item with a buy it now but you don't think it will reach that then entering a bid to get the auction started will remove the buy it now.
• Do a google for your chosen product. If lots have appeared on Ebay and seem cheap it's possible that Aldi for example are selling them off. EG, PC World recently had Garmin Edge 205 end of line for £50, snapped up and foks put them on EBay starting at £50.

It's raining again...

You can never get sick of the rain in this country, can you? Not bl**dy much. Only got four miles done this morning on slow but comfy bike, thought it best as knee giving me a bit of grief, think it's going to be run every other day.

Five miler on a monday

Back to the grindstone but got a five mile run done this morning. Not the fastest with a pace only just under 10 minute miles but with the knee still getting better I'm happy with 10 minute miles!! Am wearing an Umbro X-Static knee support thing that has this silver thread in it that's supposed to channel natural electricity round the problem! Remain to be convinced of it's effectiveness!

After the rains have gone..

Stopped raining yesterday afternoon so went blackberrying up the golf course. Could go pretty much anywhere as golf course closed for play as expected. Noticed new water hazards on eighth fairway and the bunker on the fifth. What a pain.


Eight fairway with new pond - it had receded a fair bit I reckon by late afternoon.


Bunker by fifth green, Ashbourne Golf Club, now with added water!



Did a steady four mile run to fetch papers. Don't normally get the News of the Screws but as they've got a five pound off your weekly shop at Tescos voucher in it, it makes sense to buy it - you can always use it to line the budgie cage or something more fitting?

Pleased and getting on with it...

Been out on the bike in the pouring rain this morning. Didn't bother GPSing it as was only doing four miles. Week off the juice today with not a single unit of alcohol to blemish my new campaign so pleased on two fronts so far today. I reckon golf course will be closed so am tidying up round the house today I think and doing some project work. Have been given an big new project to manage at work and really looking forward to the challenge so am getting some legwork done ahead of first meeting next wednesday, onwards and upwards...

Pleased and gutted at the same time

Gutted - pound on as expected. Only myself to blame but felt I'd done much better this week. Still six days alcohol free so far and running again reasons to be cheerful are two.

Thanks to Louisa and NicNack for the supportive messages, much appreciated - am getting my head in the right place next week will definitely see an improvement.

Pleased went out running in the pouring rain (only did three miles but it was in the pouring rain).
Gutted - a preliminary weigh seems to indicate I've put on despite not drinking since Saturday and being much better I thought. I'm going to have to start a food diary if I can't start getting it together soon. Blast.

Back to the future that is Tuesday

Did same 3 mile run/ 7 mile cycle  as Tuesday.  Legs felt a bit tired which is good must be doing enough now!!!

Double Wahey - five mile running again

Thought after no real great pain in my knee following yesterday's three mile run so I thought I'd go out on it again this morning and as it didn't hurt much I bumped the mileage up a bit and did the old five miler. Well-Pleased. Bit slow but Rome wasn't rebuilt in a day. I find that the knee is fine for up and down running motions it's when it rotates a bit such as when you go round corners that it becomes an issue.



Did a quick three and half mile ride on the FCR1 to fetch papers. Thought while the roads are still dry you got to get out on the FCR1 a bit!

Running the Road to Recovery

Wahey, been out running this morning. Only three miles but it's a start. Knee doesn't feel too bad so that's gotta be good.





Then did a steady half an hour on the FCR1 round Mayfield, Mappleton, Ashbourne and back.

Pleased - think I got my focus back after being more than a little bit inspired by this blog:-
http://nicnack31.blogspot.com/ Now there's someone who's achieved something!

Anglesey Adventure

Been to Anglesey for a long weekend. Weather a bit hit and miss but good fun all the same. Our hosts were my brother Andrew and his missus Shona who were bloomin great - set up a whopping big tent for us and looked after us camping virgins the whole time. We went fishing three times including a session til 1am on Saturday night and caught precisely .... nothing! Never mind, the sea was like a mill pond which isn't ideal conditions for it but it was nice for swimming in (although a bit parky). I've got the kids wetsuits now so it's not so bad for them but by crikey for me and our Andrew it was mighty cold.

We stopped at a camp site near Church Bay which is a lovely spot (if a little light on fish). The site was in easy reach of the beach and Vic, the chap that runs it lent us his bait shovel so we could dig lugworm for bait, which was damned decent of him. I learnt the technique of digging lug as well this weekend - if I can draw a diagram and scan it in I will - it's quait clever so t'is (in a posh accent).

I've made this commitment at group that I'm going to be off the alcohol for all of September. Well after the session on Saturday I decided to stop the booze on Sunday. So we're on number two of the new D.A.F.T. (days alcohol free). Just another 29 to go!




Sunday morning I went a walk along the cliff top path and took this picture back towards the camp site. The big white house on the right of the beach is available for sale for just £795K if anyone is interested and just to the left of that is the campsite.