I Bought It On eBay!!!

During GCV, one of the Goddesses had a small digital camera and when I inquired, she told me that she got it on sale here in Toronto at one of the local camera chain stores. So I went in to have a look and was amazed at the variety and price ranges. I knew I didn’t want anything too expensive because I am basically a “point and shoot” girl but the next model one up from hers was on sale for $170 (regularly $250) and the 512MB memory card was another $50. After adding the GST and provincial sales tax, the total would have been closer to $250CDN! I decided to see if I could do better on eBay.

I’ve only used eBay twice before. I bought a copy of Puerto Vallarta Squeeze (lousy book by the way) and a fake tanzanite ring (the stone fell out of it after one day). So I wasn’t all that satisfied with the results and still considered myself to be a novice bidder. I found the camera I wanted for sale direct from Olympus (additional shipping charges from Michigan were only $6US). I bid on 5 cameras before I finally won one, honing my bidding skills and trying to second guess the other people bidding on the same item.

The bidding on the first camera ended at a time when I was actually at home, sitting on my computer, and I was trying to outbid someone one entry at a time. I’ve since learned this doesn’t work; especially if your internet connection is a bit spotty. I did a bit more research on the bidding process on their website and discovered I could place a maximum bid on an item which, if necessary, would be bid on my behalf in order to outbid other bidders. But eBay would only bid $1 more than the last bid so there was a good chance my maximum would never be reached.

On the second try, using this method, I was outbid by one penny. My maximum bid was $90US but the winner bid $90.01. So on my third try at winning a camera, I bid $91.01 but didn’t win. Then I tried $92.02 and didn’t win. My winning bid of $89.00 was less than my maximum bid and LESS than the winners paid in the previous four auctions. My new camera arrived a week later. My bidding on the memory card was also very successful. Excellent exchange rates also worked in my favour. I paid $170CDN (all in) for the camera and memory card so I am quite pleased. Here is a photo of me celebrating, taken (of course) with my new camera. *grin*