Isn't eBay mainly for auctions?

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Isn't eBay supposed to be for auctions? Where it's a gamble to buy something?

I've bought a large number of items from Ebay over the last four years. I'd say that more than half of them (maybe around 70%) have been in straightforward sales, not auctions.

I think Buy It Now is more popular than auction listings.

Yeah, it used to be more about auctions and finding items that were hard to find anywhere else. You can still find some of those unique second-hand items, but these days it's mostly "Buy It Now" sales for everyday stuff. There are also quite a lot of shops and big companies selling their products there.

I've been "over" on-line auctions for many years now. I try to find "Buy It Now" (BIN) items whenever possible - if the price is fair, I buy it and go about my day. It has to be pretty important and/or rare for me to fool around with an auction any more.

Not nessisarily, a lot of stuff on ebay is just bought normally.

They do have auctions, but you don't have to partcipate in those to buy from ebay, they have auctions and regular selling.

Maybe they started out as auction only, but as far as I have been aware they have auctions and regular selling.

Yes, mostly buy it now.

Some small time manufacturer's will sell via eBay. 3D print a widget and sell them via eBay.

I'll browse XS women's clothing and sometimes get discount offers off the buy it now price.
It is a buyers market because a lot of women will buy clothes hoping their diet will work but they will never wear clothing that small.

eBay can be useful for buying items at a cheaper price than competitors.

You can often buy items new and as others have mentioned for a 'buy it now' price which is just a regular, straight forward sale without any bidding.

I usually Buy It Now.

I've only had problems with 2 items over the last 10 years where the seller was an a55hole. 99.9% of items arrive quickly and efficiently.

I only use the Buy it Now option in fact recently did a buy it now for a Getac F110 rugged Tablet PC and another one with 2 batteries for it.

Haven't used it for years, but when I did it was a mixture of simple trading and supposed "auctioning," though it was never like a real auction because your best option was to do nothing till it was so close to the deadline time that nobody could outbid you. Bidding before that only encourages others to outbid you and so puts the price up. I suspect some of the sellers would use sock puppets to outbid you in the hope that you'd up your offer.

I guess it depends whether you're more interested in the price or the product. Usually I just want the goodies, but I might occasionally spend a bit of time trying to beat down the price, if the savings are big enough.

I expect ebay is like most places these days - supposed to be about one thing but diversifying outside its original remit. I think I saw a lettuce leaf in McDonalds once.

One word of warning though:

ALWAYS wash items of clothing that you buy from eBay or indeed, the internet. Or dry clean them if you can't wash them.

Because we really don't know where they have been, especially if they've travelled from other countries. I bought a dress for my daughter, it was pretty smelly and a bit crinkly. But after I'd washed it, it was lovely and clean and soft, ready to wear.

Ebay can provide important statistics regarding sales trends. One example is to discover sales trends on vintage collectibles:

-Specify a list of auctions in the 'Collectibles' category receiving a minimum of one bid (auctions with at least one bid technically indicates that the listed auction items have sold).

-Specify terms common with vintage collectibles to narrow-down the list of auctions of 'Collectibles.'

-What specific types of specific collectibles (under the 'Collectibles' category) have received at least one bid?

It's more of an art than a science to interpret Ebay statistical trends.

Or more expensive, especially if it's out of print.



When I look at eBay, I sometimes get both auctions and "Buy It Now" at the same time. I'm particularly looking for a copy of the DVD "Mickey Mouse In Living Color", which has a few auction versions of the item on hand, as well as Buy It Now.