Shopping Eagle

You can buy pretty much anything on eBay, from land, property, cars and businesses to second-hand clothes, doll’s house miniatures and playing cards showing Tony Blair in drag.

If the mood takes you, you can even bid for X-rays of someone else’s teeth, a replica of a shrunken head or a (fake) picture of you with Osama bin Laden.

The auction website is a magnet for bargain hunters and collectors, and a fantastic outlet for offloading all your unwanted clutter.

But despite its allure, eBay can be a daunting place for ‘newbies’. Here are a few tips to smooth the way.

Lurk for a while

If you hang around the eBay online forums you should start to pick up tips on buying and selling, and learn from other people’s mistakes. Register early on: you can’t bid for anything until you have an eBay ID, and you don’t want to be registering with only minutes to go before the end of an auction you’re interested in.

Finding what you want

You can either browse through the hundreds of eBay categories or search using key words. When searching, be specific. ‘Bridesmaid dress’ will bring up thousands of listings, while ‘bridesmaid dress pink 10′ will produce a more manageable number.

Search thoroughly. Lazy buyers ignore listings without a picture on the list page, which means buyers who do click on these are less likely to face competition. It’s also a good idea to search for common misspellings. Sellers who list a ‘bridesmade dress’, for example, are unlikely to attract other buyers, so you could snap up a bargain.

Bid or buy it now

eBay has a number of different listing types, but the most common are auctions and Buy It Now. With auctions, the first bidder must bid at least the start price, and if no one else bids, they win at the start price. Otherwise the highest bidder wins. Some sellers place a reserve price on their item, in which case the highest price above the reserve wins. On Buy It Now listings, you simply click to buy at a set price.

Assumption is the mother of all stuff-ups

Don’t assume anything. Read item descriptions and postage costs carefully, and if you want more information email the seller. If you win a second-hand travel cot and it arrives smelling of smoke, it’s not the seller’s fault you didn’t ask if it was from a ’smoke-free home’.

Check the seller’s feedback rating from other eBay users by clicking on the number in brackets after their user ID, and particularly read any neutral or negative comments. Check the returns policy, and whether the seller has PayPal Buyer Protection.

As with anything else, if the listing seems too good to be true, it probably is. You don’t get new, perfect iPods for £10, even on eBay. Careful reading of some listings, purportedly for electrical goods, will reveal that the seller is actually selling only a specification sheet or a weblink.

Watching and waiting

If you see something you like but want to wait before placing a bid, you can put a watch on it. It will then be listed on your ‘My eBay’ page, along with everything you have bid for in recent weeks.

Placing that winning bid

New eBayers often get carried away with auctions - they bid early and keep on placing new bids every time someone outbids them, which drives prices up.

A more cunning ploy is to decide on the absolute maximum price at which you would still feel that you had a good deal, and then wait until the last minute of the auction to place it. That gives virtually no time for previous bidders to respond. Other buyers may be using the same approach, so you may be outbid in the final seconds, but at least you won’t have overpaid.

When you place your maximum bid, whether there are nine days or nine seconds to go, eBay will automatically bid for you up to that amount. So if you bid a maximum £50, and another bidder has bid £25, eBay will place a bid for you at £26. If a third bidder has placed a maximum bid of £40, eBay will up your bid to £41.

Many buyers bid round pounds, so it can be a good idea to add a couple of pence to your maximum. If someone bids £50 but you have previously bid £50.02, you would win.

Another trick is to check the bid history to find out who the other bidders are and click on their feedback to find their previous winning bids. Sometimes that will tell you if they have a bidding habit, like always bidding £7.77 or £77.77, say, instead of round pounds. If so, you can potentially beat them at their own game by adding 78p to your maximum bid.

How to pay

A few businesses selling on eBay take credit cards, and if they do it’s the best way to pay, offering insurance if the transaction goes wrong. PayPal, an online payment engine owned by eBay, is the next best option, as it offers some protection and dispute resolution. For small transactions most buyers will risk sending a cheque or postal order, as long as the buyer has a good feedback rating.

Never pay by Western Union or other money transfer service.

Feedback

When you have won your first item, you’ll be looking forward to getting your first feedback rating and, when you have a rating of 10, getting your first star!

Prompt payment and good communication with the seller should ensure you get good feedback.

If you have a problem with your seller, you should leave honest feedback, but always give the seller the chance to sort out any dispute before you leave a negative. Most sellers are only too happy to have the chance to put a problem right.

If things go wrong

If your item fails to arrive or is not as described, and the seller won’t sort the problem out, you can take the dispute to eBay, or to PayPal if you paid that way.

If the listing showed the PayPal Buyer Protection logo, PayPal will refund you up to £500 if it finds in your favour.

If the auction wasn’t covered by Buyer Protection, PayPal can only refund you from any balance in the seller’s PayPal account. If there is no balance, you won’t definitely get a refund.

PayPal can freeze accounts, and eBay can cancel memberships, but neither will force sellers to offer a refund.

Jargon

Sellers often use acronyms in their listings. Here are some of the most common:

BIN = Buy it now
BNIB = New in box
BNWT = Brand new with tag
MIB = Mint in box
NPB = Non-paying bidder
NR or N/R = No reserve
NWOT = New without tags

A final warning

eBay can be mighty addictive. In the words of one forum member: “Get out! Get out! Leave while you still can! We are all trapped in this buying and selling hell they call eBay. Leave while you still have links with the real world. Don’t get sucked into this virtual addiction. Stop before you get hooked!”

What is Additionsdirect.co.uk?
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Additionsdirect.co.uk is the online facility to the Additions Direct Catalogue. It began life as the inspiration of Argos who wanted at the time to branch into the clothing market as well; however, it did not go all that well for them. In January 2004, Argos eventually decided it was time to sell the company so the Littlewoods Home Shopping Company purchased it from Argos and own it to this day. Although another home shopping catalogue it does offer slight variations to the other Littlewoods Catalogues available.

What do they sell?
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As with all home shopping catalogues, Additions Direct offers a huge variety of products, which would be impossible for me to list so I am going to do brief category descriptions.
Women: - They sell all sorts of women’s clothing, footwear, nightwear, sportswear and lingerie. They also stock perfume, accessories, jewellery and watches.
Men’s:- All sorts of men’s clothing, footwear, nightwear, underwear, sportswear, aftershave, accessories and jewellery/watches.
Children’s:- They have a somewhat limited selection of clothing and accessories for children from newborn to 16 years of age, plus accessories for bedrooms and nursery’s.
Sportswear: - This is an addition link and section to all the various products and branded sportswear available.
Home and Garden: - This section covers everything from furniture for the lounge and dining room to the bedrooms plus the entire home furnishing ranges, a limited selection of garden furniture and accessories and DIY products are available.
Electronics:- This section sells everything from mobile phones, sat nav, telephones, sound systems, TV’s, DVD players, VCR’s to PC’s and gaming.
Appliances: - This section is where you can find all your large and small household appliances as well as home wares.

Ordering / Payments
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Ordering from Additions Direct is very straight forward as with most internet shopping facilities, first thing you must do is register an account. This can be done on a credit card basis or you can apply for the Direct Plus Account which is a credit facility offered by Additions Direct. Add the items you wish to purchase from Additions to you shopping basket and then when you have finished placing your order you can view your basket at anytime from the link found at the top of the screen of any page. When you are checking your order from your shopping basket, you are able to edit your order if you need to and delete any unwanted items, before you proceed to the checkout. When you are happy with your order, you then continue checkout by clicking the checkout link, which will take you through the payment process of your order. You will need to have either a Credit Card or Direct Plus account to complete your checkout order and are requested to complete all the details requested as you proceed through the checkout. Once you have finished the checkout procedure you are sent to a printer friendly webpage with an order number for you to print off for your own reference, however you will also be sent a copy of the invoice to the email address you supplied during the checkout procedure. The site offers payment by all major credit cards and for other options of how to pay there are full details in the help section of the website.

Delivery
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Delivery from Additions direct is fast on some items and can be delivered within 48 hours depending on the time of you ordering, but there is a £3.50 delivery charge on all orders no matter how big or small. Certain items can be delivered the next day if order before 1pm and providing the item is in stock, but this service carries a £6.45 delivery charge. You are also given an option to specify a delivery day, but again, be warned this also carries a £6.45 delivery charge.

Credit Facilities.
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As I said earlier there is a credit facility available from Additions Direct called the Direct Plus account. This allows you to have items on credit and pay for them over a selected period of time, however it is very important to know that this service charges a massive 29.8% APR. This can work out to be very expensive. They do offer a facility for you to pay over three equal instalments without any interest on the interest opt out plan but this is also subject to status.

Catalogue requests.
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You can now collect a catalogue from all larger Boots Stores if you prefer, but there is a facility on the website for you to order one to be delivered to your door. This is free of charge and there is no charge for catalogue delivery either.

Returns and Refunds.
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Should you have any problems with your order you are able to contact the customer services to arrange for them to collect the goods to be returned, but it is extremely important to read all there returns guides before even placing an order, as you have to be aware there are guidelines for unacceptable returns. Simply call the FREEPHONE automated customer service number 0800 096 6093 or speak to an advisor on 0870 413 6000 to make arrangements for collection. There are no charges for returning an item. Refunds will either be credited to your Direct Plus account or Credit Card depending on your payment option you used to pay for your goods. All items are on 14 day free home approval, but there are some exceptions.

Help and Advice.
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This site offers an excellent help section that will be able to provide you the answer to any questions you may have with regards to shopping with Additions Direct and this link can be found at the top of every webpage clearly showing the word HELP. It will allow you to find out everything you need to know about returns, privacy policies, accounts, credit and much more. It will also give you all the contact details should you wish to either telephone them, write to them or email them.

Security.
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Additionsdirect.co.uk boasts a 100% secure shopping feature on there online store, they state that this is possible because they use the following features. They use SSL (secure sockets layer) in there ordering and payment facilities and that all transactions are processed by there secure server in an encrypted format for added security. This process will also be securely closed immediately after the transaction payment has been processed for even more added security. Full details of this are available from http://www.additionsdirect.co.uk please see the privacy and security links available from the webpage’s help section. The site security is governed by IMRG Senate, which also governs all Littlewoods Shop Direct Home Shopping Limited companies as well as many other leading internet-shopping organisations.

Other Site Features.
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This site also features a sizing guide to help you work out the size of clothing you wish to order. There is a women’s size guide, a men’s size guide and a children’s size guide. In addition, the site gives you access to a curtain-sizing guide to help you know what size curtains you will need to fit you window requirements. There is a site guide for everyone to be able to use to help them navigate the site easily and this is available in a link from the help section.

No matter what I need to buy, my first port of call is always Kelkoo. This website has saved me so much time and money it’s untrue, it brings together all the prices from different websites onto one easy-to-navigate page. You can pretty much be certain that the prices on offer are the cheapest you will be able to find and it even lets you know if there is going to be a cost for delivery.

Kelkoo also carries reviews of the shops that sell the item you are looking for - I find this especially helpful because even though a shop may be offering the cheapest price, the fact that it only has a 3 out of 10 score would make me think again.

The only thing that I can think of that could be improved is the way there are multiple listings for each item - Dealtime, another ‘Kelkoo-esque’ website, groups items together and says something like ‘available for £9 to £14′ which in my opinion is a slightly better system (the website on the whole is let down by having fewer items than Kelkoo).

Ignoring this one little bad point, the service is pretty much perfect and there is nothing else left for me to say except give it a go and see how much money and time you could save.

Which? does more than just test washing machines. We campaign to get a fairer deal for all consumers and publish expert, unbiased information to help you make the right choice, whatever you’re buying.

Heal’s online department store UK for the best in home accessories, lighting, kitchen appliances, storage, bathroom fittings, bed linen, gifts and much more. Simple and secure online shopping for delivery across mainland UK.

Dabs.com specialises in PC Hardware and Software including peripherals such as printers and scanners as well as accessories like MP3 players. If there’s something you need for your computer, dabs.com will have it without a doubt.
Dabs.com wasn’t the first place I looked when trying to find what I wanted (in this case a Pentium D 950 CPU - I’ll be reviewing that shortly!). I usually tend to check the obvious Ciao, Kelkoo, Pricerunner and similar sites when looking for a place to purchase a product, I also had an account from a family member to go by before choosing to purchase from here. Strangely enough, the verdict I actually got from my father wasn’t particularly positive. He had tried to buy a wireless keyboard and mouse set from here a couple of years ago and to his surprise it didn’t arrive! Apparently the customer support was atrotious and he swore never to purchase from there again. I thought i’d give them another chance, hopefully they’d had a little rethink with their policies since then.

The site itself is very easy to navigate. All the products are split up into categories:
+ Components & Storage
+ Computers
+ Electronics
+ Networking & Communication
+ Peripherals
+ Software & Books
+ Clearance Corner
+ Gaming
+ Mobile Phone

Within these categories there are subcategories to which you can add filters to narrow down the results. The search facility available at the top of the page allows you to not only search through the site but also through the filtered results which is really quite handy!
The site is very quick to load and is very easy on the eyes. The layout is such that it complements the navigation and helps you find some real bargains! The advertising on the page is appropiate and does not add to the loading time much with the whole page loading on my 1mbps connection in just under 1.2 seconds.

The prices particularly interested me as I found that they are incredibly competitive. The product I was looking for in particular was £30 cheaper on dabs.com than anywhere else I could find! There is no trickery involved as the delivery prices and VAT automatically updates in your basket before you get to the checkout so you are aware of exactly how much you will end up paying. You can choose for the items to display with or without VAT.

There is just about anything and everything on this site. The items I have found are usually in stock, if not “due in 1-2 days”. I have found this status to be somewhat unreliable however as when I purchased my Pentium D 950 the status was “due in 1-2 days” for a total of 6 working days! I was quite disappointed about this but when I enquired about it, customer support was able to give me an exact date when stock would be due.

Next day delivery seems to come as standard for any items ordered from dabs.com. dabs.com uses either Parcel Force (www.parcelforce.com) or Amtrak (www.amtrak.co.uk) who both appear to be very reliable couriers and a common choice amongst online shopping sites. My particular order was delivered from Amtrak at around 1pm on a Friday. Both couriers provide tracking and from previous experience, Parcel Force’s seems to be slightly more detailed which is a shame, particularly as Amtrak do not allow you to phone up to get an estimated time of delivery.
Delivery charges aren’t too high with prices ranging from £3.25 (£30 or less at 0.5kg or less) to £9.50 (over £125 at more than 10kg). Outlying areas have a further small charge.

I was very pleased with Customer Services when I had to use it.I chose the option of using their online help-desk which is basically a very small web application that is embedded on their web page. It puts your directly through to a member of their Customer Services avoiding phonelines and unmonitored email addresses. The most time I had to wait for the service was 4 or 5 minutes which I was particularly pleased with as I’m sure this time period would have been much longer had I chosen to use the phoneline as the preferred method of contact. The two representatives I was put through to were Jonathan and Debbie whom were both very helpful and managed to solve my very small problems regarding invoices (turned out that I was just being impatient with my email server!). Debbie did take a while to respond, but this wasn’t a problem for me as I just hid the helpdesk window in the background and continued with work, something that perhaps would have been slightly more difficult had I chosen to use the phone lines. Both representatives spoke perfect English, If only all companies’ customer services were like that!

Dabs.com have got a very good returns and refund policy. I would feel confident in returning a product.
+ If the product is faulty, the customer has the right to return it within 28 days of receipt, 14 days for business customers. The return carriage costs are paid for by dabs.com so there’s no reason to worry about having to pay extra charges
+ Goods damaged in transit should be reported within 7 days of delivery so that they can be returned and a full refund given. The charges will be paid for by dabs.com
+ After the 28 days of receipt, if the goods are damaged and the product is within the warrenty period, the customer is entitled to a warrenty repair however charges for the unit to be sent to dabs.com will have to be paid for by the customer. A refund for these charges will be given under certain circumstances, for example if the manufacturer has another plan for such items.
+ If you change your mind, dabs.com will allow you to return the goods if they are in the same condition as delivered. The shrink-wrapped or blister packed products must not be opened, software must not have been installed and the goods must be in a condition for dabs.com to be able to resell them as new. This can be utilised within 10 days of receipt and the return carriage costs are paid in full by the customer

Dabs.com allow for payment via many different methods. They accept major credit/debit cards excluding American Express, Visa Electron, Diners Club, JCB, and Discover. I can say however that I have managed to pay for an order with a Visa Electron card however I wouldn’t recommend it - just incase! A finance package is available to certain private customers between the ages of 18 and 75 who are current in employment. Credit terms can be offered to businesses provided they furfil a criteria on the dabs.com website. Personal Cheques however are not accepted for a number of reasons.

The quality of products from dabs.com is of a very high standard. The items I have ordered have never arrived damaged and have worked perfectly. Even the packaging has been in very good condition! There seems to be no expenses spared as it was packaged well to avoid damage in transit.

Going back to a point I made right at the beginning of this review (and I appreciate you reading this far), I mentioned about my father who had bad experiences with dabs.com in the past. I can gladly rule off any of those points as the customer services was perfect and my order went through with few problems! I’d happily purchase from here again especially with such competitive prices and a broad range of stock!

This website can be useful even if they don’t have the item in stock that you want, because you could check if they sell it and then go to the shop itself if one is nearby. Good prices. Pretty easy to find item that you want. Lots of sales. Quick and Cheap delivery.

Whatever will Marks & Spencer think of next? Food, Clothes, toys, home, and hot food. Yes, hot food. It might sound like a cheap way to make more money, but when all the restaraunts on Princes Street are full, or you just need a quick snack, then the food is excellent! You can buy sandwiches, pizzas, sausage rolls, anything for a picnic at the Princes Street Gardens! (Providing it’s good weather, of course!) In fact, most stores have an area in the shop for picnic food, complete with plastic knifes and forks.
Clothes. Marks & Spencer do clothes for everyone. School Uniform, (Including Blazers) men, women, babies, chilren, teenagers, you name it! The clothing is good quality, and good value for monay, too.
Food. The food shops are a little small compared to supermarkets like Tesco and Safeway. So, obviously, the amount of products available is considerably less. But that didn’t stop M & S from making high quality cold and hot food, although a little expensive for a full weekly shop.
Toys. There aren’t a lot of toys in the shops, but in the children’s section there are a few shelves of soft toys, and seasonal gifts for all ages. (Eg, Christmas presents, Easter gifts, etc.) Also available are greetings cards for all occasions.
Home. In store, there aren’t a lot of home improvement products, but if you pick up a catalogue, the full range is shown.
So, if you’re looking for a shop in which you can find everything, right in the centre of town, then Marks & Spencers is just what you need.

How I Stumbled Across The Jungle
I have been using Amazon for years. As a forever student, I am always buying my books for school from this website. it saves me having to go into town, search shelves for books that half the country are also searching for, only to find that the last ones of the copies i want was sold 5 minutes previously and the next delivery is not due til next Monday, but they won’t have the books i want because they are currently out of print. Trust me, this is no exaggeration and after suffering the same plight two years in a row, I knew I had to find a new solution, cause I weren’t about to think of book buying earlier than what i was doing already…It would mean I start studying far earlier than planned and lack a social life for 10 instead of 9 months of the year.
The Sign-up Process
The signup process is really easy. As with most sights these days, you give them a whole bunch of info such as name, DOB, address, etc and you register at least one card with them so you can make your purchases as and when you want.

I get a bit suspicious using my card online but feel Amazon is safe because even if you’ve logged on, you will need to re-enter your password at the checkout before your purchase can be finalised.

What’s On Offer
The site sells a range of products. For me I am more interested in the books than anything else but have and would continue to use the site to purchase other goods.

There are 11 main sections as follows:
WELCOME - This is the homepage, regardless of whether you have logged on or not. The advantage of signing up is that everytim,e you rate an item or purchase an item, similar examples are recommended and shown on the welcome page (up to 3 examples from each of the main categories)

X’s STORE - This is a little similar to the welcome page but contains more info. It is basically a page of items which Amazon feel may interest you, based on recent searches, purchases, and ratings. It’s really useful because it gives you a reason as to why it has been recommended inthe first place and allows you to state whether you are interested or own it, in which case you can tick the relevant boxes, refresh your recommedations and instantly, new items are added based yet again on your responses. Admitedly, I do try to avoid this area when i haven’t got money to burnm because the recommendations are so spot on that you end up being tempted to buy, buy, buy…

The remaining categories are self explanatory:
BOOKS
ELECTRONICS AND PHOTOS
MUSIC
DVD
VIDEO
SOFTWARE
PC AND VIDEO GAMES
HOME AND GARDEN
TOYS AND GAMES.

Purchasing
The site is extremely up to date and has the latest products in stock most of the time. If the item isn’t available then Amazon usually state why and give an expected availability date.

On purchasing items, there are a range of options available. Most cards are accepted eg Visa, Amex, Mastercard, Solo, literally everything…

You can choose where to have items delivered to and whether to have them gift wrapped and a personalised message sent - I can’t remember how much extra this cost but it was basically a typed message with no care paid to the formatting and so it looked quite tacky. The gift wrapping is decent enough though.

Each time you select an item to purchase you are offered the choice of buying a brand new, unused product or you can be directed to the market place where there are 2nd hand copies available.

I have experienced buying both new and used products. As you would expect with new products they are usually in mint condition. Although on one occasion one of my ‘new’ books had already had the first two chapters worth of exercises completed in pencil, I wouldn’t have minded but when I went to mark them, they were mainly wrong… I would normally have sent this back but had waited so long for it to come in stock in the first place (remember my luck had run out at the shops) that i kept it, made a complaint and received a slight discount, although hardly worthwhile, on my next order.

I would say that it isn’t really worth going for the express delivery as even when it states that items will be delivered in 3-4 days you normally get them sooner than expected. The only time you really need to concern yourself with delivery options is when you have ordered a whole range of products. Amazon will ask if you want to save on postage by waiting for all your items to be available and dispatched together. I tried this once and because one of my books was out of print and not expected for another month, you can imagine how long I was waiting.

Advantages of the Site
The best features of this site are numerous.

The layout is easy to navigate even though there is a lot going on, on each page. The site is extremely fast for the information it is required to generate and there are tabs for everything, everywhere and so you can navigate around with ease.

I love the security feature which means you have to enter your passwords if you want to make any changes, or to complete your transactions, or even to look up the tracking of your items.

There is a superb range of goods, products and services, with many up-to-date items in stocjk and available at RRP prices. Also the community that uses Amazon are very quick to discard of items and so you can often find up to date items in the market place at cut prices (just be sure to look at P&P costs as the seller sets there own prices and can sometimes work out to be more expensive).

The search facility is excellent. I don’t think it has let me down once and there has been many an occasion when i don’t have the full product title or have entered an incorrect spelling and yet the correct suggestions are still proposed. (In fact this would be a perfect phone a friend on millionnaire it’s so fast and so clever).

Lastly I have to clarify a few points about the market place…If you are making one off purchases, then the market place could give you a generoud discount. You can choose how used the product is from the list provided. The ‘Used scale’ uses a great classification scale that includes: new, like new, very good, acceptable and so you can weigh up the state your product is likely to be in. I have only ever bought used books and have gathered that if it says acceptable it has jottings in the margin or creases down the spine, but any other condition is almost as good as new, so you can’t really go wrong.

All in all, this is a site for those of you that don’t have time or are just too lazy to go to the shops. It’s great for buying in bulk cause at least you don’t have to obtain a car or pay out on taxis to get the goods back home and you can track your products every step of the way. You can list a number of different cards on the sight and so you have a range of payment option available to you.

So happy shopping all, I hope you find the site as brilliant as I did!

HotProductOutlet provides various stuff like Chillow, Turbo Twister, CompuSooth, Forever Flashlight, Hover Craft, Finger Mouse.