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Thread ID: 58488 2005-06-02 05:43:00 ebay -- anyone use it, little help needed Morgenmuffel (187) PC World Chat
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360561 2005-06-02 05:43:00 greetings all

I have just had quick look at ebay
(was looking to see if some software i wanted was cheaper than on trademe, and it was by a factor of about 80% even with the exchange rate taken into account but I digress)
The only Auction site i have ever used is trademe, and there seem to be some differences between the two

in ebay
how do you find out if the reserve price has been met?

what do you have to do to sign up, is it free?

where they say they accept payment by paypal how does that work? is there a paypal site where i enter their number in, then my credit card details and the amount and press enter or do i have to have a paypal account myself

Thanks In advance 		Morgenmuffel (187)
360562 2005-06-02 08:47:00 If the price does not say reserve not met, then any price will be met. If it starts from 1c and it makes no note of that word, then no reserve. :)

Paypal is with ebay, you sign up with www.paypal.com you can set it up and then (2) ways. You can use paypal.com and assign the details like auction # from the auction of ebay, or yahoo auctions etc etc.. and the guys' email address he has set up for paypal then send payment. Money is deducted off your c/c. Or the 2nd way is you can link to payment while at ur auction u won.... it goes around then you sign up to paypal and action payment. Sign up to paypal is free with maybe a $5US or such credit to your account at the start.

Sign up for ebay not sure as I done ages ago, you may need a c/c to do it but its free.

It takes a moment or two for ur c/c to be validated online. For repeat purchases payment with paypal all you do is login and send payment to a person's email address and pop all the details in like auction #, from which auction (yahoo, ebay .. ... ..) ur delivery address etc... extra notes for seller. You don't need to insert c/c numbers again on ur repeat purchase with paypal as they have your account - just login to it and fill in details. You only need to do it if you got a change of credit card # or need to fix the expiry date of your c/c when you get a new c/c.

Almost forgot, the last step for c/c validation is that it will bill you $1 US abouts on your c/c you need to wait for your statement or Internet Bank and see how it is listed. It will say something like paypal.com $1US converted to NZD at FX rate of XXXX and it will list a special access code. You need this access code to fully validate ur paypal account before use. The $1US is refunded as a credit to ur paypal account plus they gave me $5US more to it ... kind of an incentive or such ... being a customer. 		Nomad (952)
360563 2005-06-02 09:54:00 I think Ebay is very much better than TradeMe in the way bidding works, in fact superior in every aspect.

With TradeMe if you make a maximum limit bid and the reserve is not met, then your bid leaps straight to your maximum, whereas on Ebay it will just increment if others are bidding until your maximum is reached.
If you find out that the seller on TradeMe has set an unrealistic reserve, there is no way of voicing your opinion about that, except to request a relisting or a fixed offer.
With Ebay, you have much more opportunity to communicate with the seller, and for example if a reserve is not met, and the auction ends, you can email them with an offer.

Edit: some vendors only use Bidpay instead of Paypal, so you may have to open an account with bidpay too. 		Terry Porritt (14)
360564 2005-06-03 22:44:00 Ebay is great, none of the frustrations you get with TradeMe - in particular you don't need to deposit $10 . 00 with them to get full membership, which is a pretty sleazy revenue-gathering trick . The vendors are pretty honest on the whole, and airmail from the USA is fast .

The best feature is the seller's feedback - you can check feedback before you bid - too many negatives, don't bid . You can search back for a seller's negative feedback using either a Firefox extension (ebay negs), or if you use www . bidnapper . com - an auction minder that bids for you in the last 5s or so of the auction - bidnapper has a feature that allows you to check all negative feedback for a seller .

Also, the same goods tend to be quite a bit cheaper on ebay than on TradeMe, even taking postage into account, and reserves tend to be much lower, if present at all .

One thing worth noting is that many sellers state that they refuse to post outside the USA, and the goods in such auctions tend not to reach as high a price as they otherwise might . It's worth emailing the seller to ask if they'd consider posting to you in NZ - many will say yes .

And I have found PayPal completely reliable . BidPay involves posting a cheque to the vendor, which takes time, and also costs you quite a bit more . 		annie (6010)
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