Online auctions made easy - Part 1 - Buying

Anyone who has had a day off sick in the past few years will have seen at least a few minutes of a daytime, home makeover show on TV, one of those where a foppish decorator flounces about and tarts up some poor beggar's house.

Whether they're trying to recreate a Saharan sunset in a suburban dining room, or make a drab prefab into a saleable asset, they always do one thing: get rid of clutter.

Traditionally, de-cluttering a house involves a car journey to the Oxfam shop, or filling black bags in the vain hope that the bin men will take them. But it's becoming increasingly fashionable to get rid of your rubbish online.

Your computer is the ultimate de-cluttering device. Simply connect to the internet, point it at an online auction website and you are on your way to a tidy house and a few extra pounds in your pocket.

BUYING

Buying stuff through an internet auction is very simple. In fact, it's almost too simple. It's all too easy to bid on something and only later realise that, although the headless Barbie doll and a tube of growth hormone were well described with good pictures, you didn't really need them.

The best way to ensure that you don't get sucked into bidding for things you don't want is to browse. All auction sites allow prospective bidders to browse their pages without registering, so it's worth spending half an hour just leafing through the lots to see what sort of things are on offer. This will also give you a feel for the prices that certain items fetch.

Finders keepers
The key to finding things you want in auctions is to master the art of searching. All sites have a rudimentary search facility in the form of a small text-entry box on the main page. Simply type in what you are looking for and click Search.

While this method will bring up the item you want, it is often buried among a thousand items you don't. The way to apply some discrimination from the start is to search by category or use the advanced search facility that allows you to enter keywords and search only for them.

All auction sites categorise items to ease the searching process. Click on a category and all the items within it will appear. The first entries will be from sellers who have paid extra to have their products given pride of place at the top of the page. Other than those, items are listed in order of the auction's deadline.

When viewing a particular category on eBay, for example, another search box appears at the top of the left-hand side. This enables users to search for a particular item in that category alone, which is helpful for narrowing the search.

Be aware that each category can be split into sub-categories, which makes finding your dream buy a good deal easier than with a general search from the auction's home page.

Spotting dodgy deals
When you've found the items that you are interested in, it's important to ensure that you have the right end of the stick about what exactly is on offer.

Read the description of each item carefully to make sure it is in fact what you are after. If the item has a picture with it, look at it closely and if either the image or the description is vague, email the seller to get more information.

It does pay to exercise a little caution as once you bid, you're obliged to buy the item if you win. If you bid on a £2 paperweight it's not a problem, but if you are waging a few hundred pounds on a car or a computer, it is essential to be certain of the product before you commit yourself.

Judging the trustworthiness of a seller is quite straightforward. Every registered eBay user who has either bought or sold an item will have a feedback profile.

On QXL, a similar system exists in which users acquire ratings. Such responses are placed by previous buyers or sellers who have dealt with the person and, once the transaction has been completed, you will get the chance to express your own opinion. They also the get the opportunity to rate you as a customer.

If the person you are buying from has no feedback or ratings points, it does not mean they are a con artist. Everybody has to start somewhere.

On low-value items, it's pretty safe to buy from the majority of auctioneers if they don't have much feedback, but steer clear of expensive items if the seller has limited or bad feedback. You should obviously avoid sellers that have consistently bad feedback. If other eBay users have encountered problems, you might too.

Be more demanding
While auction websites specialise in sales where the highest bidder wins, there are other options. The first is a straight purchase, such as you might make on any online shop. On eBay, these are called 'Buy it Now' transactions, while on QXL this is truncated to 'Buy Now'.

In such cases, the item is up for auction in the normal manner but there is also the option for someone to skip the bidding process and simply pay the asked-for price. These auctions can be a gamble: the fixed Buy it Now price is always higher than the opening bid and you might end up paying a higher price than one reached by bidding alone.

There is one slight difference between eBay and QXL. On eBay, if a traditional bid is made for an item which has a Buy it Now option, the Buy It Now will disappear and the auction will proceed in the traditional way. On QXL, the Buy Now option will remain until the bid price matches or exceeds the Buy Now threshold.

Money talk
When it comes to settling up after a successful bid, there are plenty of ways to do it. Traditionally, it involved a cheque or postal order being sent to the vendor and, once the money cleared, your booty was popped in the post.

Postage costs were generally tacked on top of the finishing price of the auction, but the seller would offer an idea of the cost before a bid was made if asked.

Nowadays, the sheer scale of the internet auction business has engendered much more advanced ways of moving money from one party to another.

PayPal, an electronic person-to-person cash transfer service, is the preferred method used on eBay. This speeds up the whole transaction process, as the seller can receive the money just minutes after the end of the auction and the buyer can have the item the next day, depending on the postage times.

The good thing about PayPal is that you don't have to divulge your bank details to another person. The money is transferred (via credit card) to and from your PayPal account.

You can arrange to wire money directly to the other person, but that relies on them being happy to give you their bank details. PayPal or another secure payment method is vastly preferable for both parties, despite the small surcharge which is applied to each transaction.

If you are dealing with a high-value transaction, or you are naturally suspicious, you can opt for an Escrow money transfer. This procedure involves a third party who holds both the auction item and the money in trust.

When the middleman is happy with the product and the payment, the items are then forwarded to their respective recipients. This is very secure but the fees which apply to this are high and difficult to justify for a low-value sale.

Bidding tools
Bidding for things on internet auctions can be frustrating. You can be the top bidder for days only to find that someone sneaks in during the last 30 seconds and outbids you.

This practice is called auction sniping. It is not illegal, just infuriating. Still, there is nothing to stop you sniping a few auctions of your own.

Auction LotSnipe is a free facility for winning eBay auctions. It can time your bids to appear as late as the final three seconds of an auction to give you the best chance of being the winner.