Following on from last month’s article on how to uncover the best left handed guitars on eBay, i’m back with a follow-up guide on how to get the best prices on the guitars (and other gear!) that you manage to discover.
There are several methods which you can employ, some sneakier than others, some riskier than others, but they do all work…very well! If you have any of your own little tips be sure to leave a comment at the end of the article.
1. Bidding At the Last Second (Sniping)
If you bid on an auction early and show your interest in the item, you are likely to start a bidding war between yourself and the other trigger happy eBayers, which is generally great for the seller but not too great for you. A bidding war is likely to inflate the price of the guitar considerably.
Sniping is just a term for bidding at the last second. The hope is that if you bid late, the current highest bidder won’t have time to retaliate and place an additional higher bid. It is of course pot-luck, as the current bidder could have already placed a maximum bid which is higher than your last minute offering. However, more often than not sniping will result in a terrific deal.
There are several variations of sniping software available which will carry out this task for you, but they aren’t necessary unless you can’t be present when the auction closes. A few years ago they were convenient, but now that eBay has implemented a second by second countdown timer on all auctions, you can clearly see when an auction will end and can easily place your bid at the right time. Of course there is always the risk that your internet connection could crap out in the last few seconds of the auction!
2. Antisocial Auctions
Another great tip for finding the best deal is to look for auctions that end during unsociable hours. An item which ends at 3am is going to have far less people bidding on it at the last minute, if any at all. Likewise, auctions ending during work hours will attract slightly less attention. Possibly even items ending on Friday/Saturday nights when many people are out enjoying themselves.
3. Incorrectly Listed Auctions
A sure-fire method which will almost always guarantee a cheaper sale is to look for items that are listed in the incorrect category. If we stray from the subject of guitars for a minute I can give you a great example of this idea in action. Whilst I was studying at university I bought a PlayStation which had been listed in the Sega Dreamcast category, and ended at silly o’clock in the morning. I did some sniping and won the console for stupid money. Six months later I got bored of it and sold it for almost twice the price.
4. Use the Completed Items Filter
One sneaky method of landing a killer deal is to use the completed listings feature. If you search eBay for a guitar and don’t find what you are looking for, scroll down the page and on the left-hand side you will find the ‘completed listings’ option in the sidebar.
This feature will show you recently ended auctions from the past few months. If you spot an item which has its price highlighted in red, this means that it did not sell. Maybe the price was too high, maybe they listed it incorrectly, maybe they only offered local pickup, there could be any number of reasons why it did not sell.
If you find something you are interested in which did not sell, shoot the seller an email. Offer them a price you are happy with and you may just get lucky! After all, if it didn’t sell the first time they may just be in the mind-set to get rid of it quickly.
5. Local Pickup Only Auctions
Many sellers do not have the means or know-how to ship larger items, and so will often list their goods as ‘local pickup only’. Depending on where the item is located you can get fantastic deals on these types of auctions. If the item is located somewhere which is a little off the beaten path there will be significantly less competition for it. While I was at university I bought a mountain bike from a small nearby town for £350. I didn’t have a car at the time, so the seller even delivered the bike directly to me. I used it for 3 years while I studied and then sold it for £400, because I listed it for sale in a much larger city where there was far more interest.
Even if you don’t live near to the seller you may be able to convince them to ship it to you if you explain how to do it. So don’t just automatically disregard local pickup items – try your luck! I live in the UK, and have bought at least a couple of guitars from the USA where the seller didn’t offer international shipping.
6. Check Newly Listed Buyouts
Periodically sort your search results by ‘Time: newly listed’ and check the ‘Buy It Now’ (BIN) tab to show only the newest BIN auctions. Buyers will often list items for a great BIN price in the hopes of a quick sale, so some really great deals can be had here as well. You can try a similar idea with auction format listings by asking the seller if they’d end the auction early for a specific price.
7. Use Best Offer
Make use of the ‘Best Offer’ feature if the seller is offering it. Even if you send a silly offer the seller may send you a counter-offer with a price he or she would be happy with. They wouldn’t use this option if they weren’t open to accepting lower offers.
Recently I picked up a new set of headphones from a small store who had the best-offer feature enabled. I sent them a silly offer. Within 5 minutes I had a counter-offer which the seller told me was trade-price (i.e what they paid the distributor for them). I don’t know if the price they quoted was actually the trade-price, but it was way lower than what they retail for, so I grabbed the bargain!
8. Ditching the Middle Men
This tip is against eBay’s terms of service, so use a little common sense here. eBay will charge a seller Final Value Fees (FVFs), which basically means that for whatever they sell their item for, eBay will take a cut of the profits. And on top of that, PayPal will take a slice as well. On an expensive guitar this can amount to a significant chunk of change.
If both you and the seller have a reputable feedback score you can try and come to a deal outside of eBay. Offer them 5-10% less on the condition that you ditch eBay and complete the deal yourselves. The result is that you have to part with less money, and the seller gets rid of his item for the same money (or better!) than if he were to have solid it through eBay.
You can even go one step further and ditch PayPal to get an even cheaper deal. You can save the seller another 5-10% by paying without PayPal.
Please use some common sense here folks, this is a very situational method and can obviously be risky. Make sure to research the seller beforehand.
That should be enough to keep you going for a while. I’ve no doubt omitted a few techniques, so leave any insider tips you may have in the comments!
If you haven’t already read it, take a look at the previous article on how to uncover the best left handed guitars on eBay with smart search terms.