BAM eBay Blog

Virtually everyone you talk to about eBay will tell you that the way to win great deals is by sniping. As we all know, sniping means waiting until the last possible moment to place a bid with the intention of beating out anyone else's high bid at the last moment. And one of the best programs to do that with is by using the BAM software tool for winning on eBay.

Letting your bid ride

But sniping isn't always the answer. A lot of people snipe and win, but conversely, a lot of people snipe and lose. Although there is no doubt that you will greatly increase your chances of winning when you use the BAM software, there are some times when it is better to place a bid early and let it ride.

Here is how that works

Let's say you see an item that you want, and you know what you want to pay. After all, if you have been doing a little research, you will have gotten the general idea about how much the item is going for and how much you'll expect to pay for a winning bid.

So, at the beginning of the auction, punch in your top bid and walk away. That's it. Just by doing that, you'll be surprised how often you'll be winning instead of losing, and there isn't a lot of stress to this method at all.

Set Prices and Sniping

The reason why this works is because most people, like you, have a set price that they are willing to pay. Because most people win by sniping, they are counting on their one and only last and final bid to win the item. Since they punch in their bid at the last moment, there is generally no time left for another bid. If that last bid is less than your original bid, they don't have enough time to bid again and...you win!

This technique works best if there are several of the same items listed. The first few will be gobbled up quickly by high bidding snipers, but after that, the winning price will stabilize and an original first bid may be very likely to hold up through to the end.

Bid Increments

Many people employ bidding by increments to see how high the price may be. Ebay allows you to bid a minimum each time you bid, but won't show you the highest first bid—yours--until it is reached. This works in your favor if someone decides they only want to pay a set amount for an item. They will bid in increments until their set price is reached, and they will give up at this point if they haven't reached their set price. Granted, if they bid higher than you they will win anyway, but for those bidders looking for deals, they will either be hesitant to bid a higher increment, or they will give up and wait for the next listing.

Think Out of the Box

Sometimes doing something that is not of the norm is the way to winning items on eBay for the best price possible. That's called thinking out of the box. And in this day and age when sniping is considered the best way to go, bidding early might be the difference between winning and losing. So take a shot, bid early with your highest possible bid and see what happens. And when you win you'll be smiling all the way to the check out button. Hey, you heard it here first, because as always, knowledge is the key and BAM's got your back!

I have often been asked: is it safe to buy on eBay? My answer is always Yes! providing you take a few easy precautions.

Check the Feedback

When you are looking for an item on eBay, the first thing you always want to check is the feedback. If the feedback is lousy, and that means in the 80 percentile range, consider avoiding that seller no matter how much you want to get that item. This becomes doubly true if you read the feedback and many people have written about the items quality, poor shipping and even payment issues. Stay away from these sellers at all cost.

Making Payments

A lot of people get tripped up when making a payment on eBay. The best way to do that is with an electronic payment service like PayPal. There is no muss, no fuss, you simple transfer the payment directly from an electronic payment service directly to the auction seller. These transactions are recorded, and they will give you powerful evidence if the item is not received or the person says that you've never sent a payment.

Checks and Money Orders

Sending a certified check or a money order is not as good. Although they can be tracked to the person who cashed them, it will take time. The worst part is that someone can intercept your check from the mail, change a few things about it, and cash it for themselves. Does this happen often? No, but it does happen, and it can lead you into weeks or months of problems when you are trying to prove where it went, and to whom.

The worst thing to do is to send cash for an item that has been won. Cash is untraceable, and even if the seller gets the cash, they can say they didn't, and no one will know otherwise.

The Honesty Of eBay

In most cases, asking yourself, is it safe to buy from eBay is a no-brainer. eBay, as a whole, is very honestly run and people who sell there want you to have no trouble bidding and winning. They want the transaction to go smoothly and as effortlessly as possible. Just remember that you will always maximize your safety by using an electronic payment service and by always dealing with reputable people. Just by doing those two things, it will be safe to buy on eBay nearly 100% of the time. And buying right with safety in mind is another reason why BAM's got your back!

Most BIN items are not bargains

In many cases, using the Buy It Now feature won't get you a bargain. Sure, you'll get the item you want quickly, but it may be overpriced or worse, under-priced with a huge shipping and handling total tacked on. Of course, when using BIN, there won't be any bidding wars, you won't have to worry about using sniping software, and you'll know exactly what you'll be paying for the item up front.

However, there are bargains to be had with Buy It Now purchases, if you can get in on them before someone else. Sometimes people are looking for some fast money, so they'll use the BIN feature for a quick sale. Sometimes a person may just want to get rid of an item quickly, so they'll put it on a BIN auction. And sometimes a seller would rather liquidate their item because listing something with a Buy It Now price is far easier than listing it as an auction. In all of these cases, the item listed might have a BIN price that is considerably less expensive than the going rate.

Finding great deals with Buy It Now

The trick to finding these auctions is by looking in the "Categories" section at the immediate left of the screen. The next section will be labeled "Format", and here is a little box that you will check-off that says "Buy It Now". Once checked off, only the BIN sales will pop up for the item you are searching for.

From there, look around until you see something you like. Or, keep looking day after day, or even hour after hour if it is something really popular, until the item you want pops up at a price you want to pay. Sometimes you'll get lucky and it will show up on the first search. Most often, however, you'll need to remain diligent and do several searches before what you want comes up at a price you want to pay.

The key in all of this is to remain diligent. If you do not remain diligent, you are going to lose. However, remaining diligent in your BIN searches is going to mean spending a lot of time sitting in front of the computer and then refreshing the page time after time after time. Now, if you have nothing else better to do, if you are a computer junkie and you have no other life except for eBay, then this will be easy. But for the rest of us, with spouses, kids, recreation and jobs, social functions and family, being this kind of diligent is virtually impossible.

Find and win best BIN deals

To get the best BIN deals on eBay and still have a life, there is only one real solution available. Get the BAM or Buyer Auction Manager software. The software searches eBay for you, alerts you to the newly listed BIN item that you want searched, and you'll get the best deals ever.

This is a no hassle easy to use software that you subscribe to. You just set up to search for the items you are looking for, hit the "Win It Now" search button, and it will show you all of the newly listed BIN items. You see them, you find the deals, and you WIN IT NOW! That's all there is to it.

The software is actually a full service program that comes with an ending time search and a sniping tool too, but we will get into more of that at a later date. The bottom line here is that you cannot go wrong with the BAM eBay software program. It is simple to set up, easy to use and you are going to be getting killer bargains as soon as you use it.

Of course, never stop checking out regular auctions, because on eBay, you just never know what you might find. But if you search in the Buy It Now category, many times that's where the best bargains are to be found. And for the best bargains when it comes to eBay buying, the BAM software is the way to go! Like I have been saying all along, for the best advice and the best way to buy on eBay, BAM and the Buyer Auction Manager software has got your back! You can count on it!

Local pick-up deals

In most cases, people are happy to box up and ship the item you won. Usually that's no problem, but for bigger ticket items, many people list them for local pick-up. And when listed like that, you can get some fabulous deals with low winning bids.

The reason is that, in most cases, only a few people within driving distance will bid on an item that advertises local pick-up only. That makes sense because no matter how beautiful or gorgeous or even though an item that is listed at a low price, people are not going to want to drive more than a hundred miles or so, and you can't hardly blame them. However, that cuts down on the available people that will place a bid, and the less people that bid, the greater the potential that leaves for an absolute steal.

Drive and save

But distance works in both ways. If you are willing to drive that extra few miles or so, you can save a bundle on both the final bid price and the cost of shipping. Granted, this won't work out very well if you are using a gas guzzling truck or a large passenger car. But if you can get your winning purchase into your back seat, and if you get some decent miles per gallon with your vehicle, you could easily get a great bargain as well as save on the cost of shipping.

To search for items local to you, choose "More refinements" in the left navigation on eBay search page, "Item Location" tab, check Within certain distance from your zip code and press Go:

Double up and save even more

Of course if you can double up on a trip, that's even better. Take a ride out to Grandmas or take in the State Fair, and while you're at it, take a little detour and pick up the item that you've won. This way you can do two things at once, save money in the process, and make Grandma happy!

So go local when you go eBay, because sometimes the best deals are right in your own neck of the woods. And remember, BAM's got your back, no matter what you bid on and win at eBay!

Cell phones are great but take lousy video

Almost everyone has a cell phone, and many newer models have the capability to take video. Granted, using a cell phone like this is incredibly convenient, no doubt. However, if you like the fuzzy picture quality, pixelation, lousy low light capabilities, questionable sound quality and a video that looks like it was taken with a potato, than a cell phone video camera is perfect for you!

Camcorders are cheap now days

New camcorders have drastically fallen in price for a couple of reasons. The technology is getting less expensive to manufacture, and cell phones are being equipped with video cameras. Some top of the line camcorders are selling new for less than the price of a 4G cell phone. With that in mind, imagine what camcorders are going for on eBay!

Buy used and save

Used camcorders with HD quality picture, low light characteristics, stabilization, that print to flash media can be won for pennies on the dollar. These are high quality units from brand name makers that you'll win for far less than the newest feature packed cell phone. Camcorders have gotten so common that if you miss a low bid on the first one, chances are you get the second one, possibly for even less!

Now, these are not the bulky camcorders that you need two hands to hold. These are state of the art Hi-Def units that are sometimes no bigger than a modern key pad cell phone. They can be slipped in a shirt pocket, strapped to a hat, aimed with one hand and in all instances, will give crisp, clear and outstanding video. Many are even equipped with stereo microphones for quality audio. They all take flash media that inserts into a receptacle, and many come with built-in memory so you can shoot video right out of the box. This is truly one of the most outstanding deals on eBay right now.

Just remember, when bidding and winning a camcorder, make sure the shipping price is calculated in, and also check the feedback to see if there are any issues with the seller not packaging correctly.

Conclusion

So, if you are looking for high quality video and think that your cell phone can deliver, forget it! Your Smartphone isn't quite that smart. Win a camcorder off of eBay, get HD picture quality, smile at how little your final bid price was, and remember that when it comes to finding deals on eBay, BAM's got your back!