Vintage Auctions

How to score big on Ebay

Our deepest secrets on how to win the auctions without being ruined.

1. Register an Ebay account

The most obvious step. Before you can bid on the auctions you need to register for an account. It’s completely free with no pull back and you do it very easily here.

2. Register a Paypal account

PayPal is a payment service that most sellers offer you to use. The service is smooth, safe and free for you, it’s only the seller who pays a fee on the transaction . If your item doesn’t show up PayPal cancel the  payment and you get your money back.

3. Overview

Before becoming active on Ebay , we recommend you create a glance , a bit like reading the entire recipe before you start to bake. Go through the different categories to get a feel for what they contain. There are hundreds of thousands of garments just within the category of vintage so to save time , it is important not to aimlessly walk through everything.

4. Seller reviews

After each sale , both sellers and buyers have the opportunity to leave a review on each other. Before you place your bids , you can watch your vendors reviews to get an idea if you can feel safe with him or her . Has anyone been displeased it will definitely be there. We think that 95 % positive reviews is a good guideline .

5. Bid

When you place a bid, eBay will automatically place the lowest possible bid in order to lead the auction for you. If you place a bid of $ 100 , it means that it is your maximum bid , and thus the most you ‘re willing to pay. Has anyone added eg $ 49 at the same auction , your bid is added at 50 dollars . Adds ago someone made ​​a bid for $ 101 will stop adding Ebay bids for you.

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6. Tip no. 1 – be patient

One of the best tips is to have patience to bid, unless it is an object with a “Buy It Now” button, then you need opposite of patience . By waiting until the last moment you won’t enter a bidding war and the chance increases that no one else can make an offer before it is too late.

7. Tip no. 2 – sort

A trick is to sort the auctions by last added on top. It increases your ability to be the first to see the auction which is important if it’s a “Buy It Now” object. It also makes it easier for you to keep track of which auctions you already looked at and therefore need not go through lot of auctions several times.

8. Tip no. 3 – keywords

 To simplify your searching, it’s a good idea to learn which keywords are best for you and how to use them. If your for example are looking for a velvet jacket from the 60s you will probably search for ”60s velvet jacket” which admittedly will locate all auctions with the three words in its title , but it also means that at least as many do not show up on your screen. By instead search only “velvet jacket” many more show up when many sellers are not so careful to accurately describe its object in the title.

It takes a while to get the feel for the keywords that works best but pay attention to the type of object you get up with your different search methods , you will get much benefit from this .

9. Tip no. 4 – include description

As we mentioned in paragraph 8 it’s not all sellers that are careful with their title descriptions. In contrast , they tend to be very careful to make a detailed description of the object . By choosing to include the description of your search , the number of hits of what you are looking to increase markedly . Make it a habit to click that field .
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10. Tip no. 5 – Do it “wrong”

Now we are into the more advanced tips that can lead you to the crazy bargains. This tip is to look in the wrong category . Some sellers have little understanding of Ebay and consequently uses his objects in the wrong category . This can be used to great advantage . Looking example, a pair of 70’s pants , it is natural to go into the vintage category and you should of course look there . However , sometimes they end up in the categories of new clothes so go in there too and search under previous tips. In this way , you can find bargains things for a fraction of the usual hint and find rarities like almost no other finds.

11. Tip no. 6 – Snipe it!

There are two very good programs to “snipe” auction, Auction Sniper and Bidnapper . They offer a service whereby an offer is made to you in just a few seconds left in the auction Thus , the risk is very small that someone places a bid higher than you before the auction ends, then you must also use this service and have added a higher maximum bid than you. This is especially for those who are currently bidding a lot on.
Good Luck! Not that you need it anymore 😉