By now, you can track down bargains like a bloodhound and snipe like a sharp shooter. You can get eBay's proxy bidding engine revving like a race car and shoulder your way into Dutch auctions. This section lets you in on a couple of other money-saving tricks.
eBay forbids sellers from including links to Web pages outside eBay in their auctions. Yet some of these sellers have their own Web stores, often with wider selection and sales worth checking out. How can you find these stores if sellers can't advertise them? By viewing something called an About Me page (Section 6.1).
If the word me appears next to the seller's ID and feedback rating on an auction page, click it. This takes you to the seller's About Me page. About Me pages are personal Web pages hosted by eBay. Any eBayer can create an About Me page to tell the rest of the eBay community about herself, her hobbies and interests, her family, what she collects or sells. Sellers can use their About Me pages to link to sites beyond eBay. If a seller has a Web store or a brick-and-mortar store, you might find it on their About Me pageexpanding your shopping options.
Note: eBay protects only transactions conducted through its site (see Section 2.4.4 for more on eBay's Buyer Protection Plan). If you buy offsite, you're on your own. Shop only in the offsite stores belonging to sellers you trust, after you've bought from them in an eBay auction or two.Airlines have frequent-flyer miles. Hotels and credit cards have rewards programs for loyal customers. eBay has Anything Points. One point isn't worth much all by itselfjust a penny or sobut as they add up, you can use your Anything Points toward purchases you make on eBay.
You can sign up for Anything Points by going to http://anythingpoints.ebay.com, shown in Figure 3-19, and then clicking Join Now. eBay prompts you for your password, then asks for the email address you use for your PayPal account.
Note: You must have a PayPal account to use Anything Points. If you're halfway through the sign-up process and realize that you don't yet have a PayPal account, just sign up for Anything Points with your regular email address, then go to www.paypal.com (or follow the link from the signup page) and open your PayPal account. See Section 2.3.1.1 for more on PayPal.Once you've signed up, you can start earning Anything Points. Here are a few ways you can get started:
Some auctions feature Anything Points for each dollar you bid (as long as you win) . To find these auctions, go to the Anything Points home page (http://anythingpoints.ebay.com), and then click the Earn Points from eBay Sellers link.
Refer a friend . If your friend registers with eBay, you earn 500 points.
Swap points from other rewards programs (like frequent-flyer miles) for Anything Points . From the Anything Points page, click the Exchange Points link to find out if your rewards program is eligible.
Shop offsite with certain eBay partners and earn points for your purchases . Follow the Anything Points page's Earn Points from Partners link.
Sign up for an eBay credit card and earn points when you use it to buy stuff . To get info about the credit card, go to the Anything Points page, and then click Earn Points from Partners.
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Once you've accumulated a nice stack of points in your PayPal account, you can use them to pay for your auctions. It's like getting a new caboose for your Lionel train set for free. To redeem your points, log in to PayPal to pay for something. On the Payment Details page, click Add/Select Redemption Codes or Anything Points. Then continue as usual.
You can even use Anything Points to pay for part of a purchase, creating a do-it-yourself discount. After you've applied your Anything Points, just choose your usual funding source to make up the balance.
There are some conditions for spending your points:
For you to pay for an item using Anything Points, the seller must accept PayPal as a payment method.
You must purchase the item through eBay, and the auction must use U.S. dollars, Canadian dollars, British sterling, or euros as its currency.
You must pay through PayPal within 10 days of the auction's end.
If you have more than one eBay account, you have to make the purchase with the same eBay ID that your Anything Points account is registered to.
ALTERNATIVE REALITY The Best Bargain of All |
The best deal of all, of course, is getting things for free. You won't find free stuff on eBay, but you will on this site: www.freecycle.org. Freecycle is a grassroots network of more than 2,000 regional groups of people who want to give away, not throw away, their excess possessions. You can post a request for something you're looking for or a notice that you have something to get rid of. The one hard-and-fast rule is that everything listed on Freecycle must be free. There are Freecycle groups all over the U.S. and Canada, ranging from a few dozen members to several thousand, and international groups are on the rise. On the off chance there's not already a group in your region, you can start your own. The Freecycle discussion boards work through Yahoo! groups, so you need a Yahoo! ID and password to sign up. You can get these during the sign-up process. To join a Freecycle group, follow these steps:
If you click GoTo instead of Join in step 3, click the blue Join This Group! button on the page that opens and sign in (if you have a Yahoo! ID) or register (if you don't have a Yahoo! ID). |