Blog Money Whore

I spend a lot of time on eBay. For those who think it’s just full of scam artists and toenail clippings, look again. Many listings are for brand new items, and tons of trusted stores sell on eBay. Yes, I’ve gotten ripped off once before, but the amount I’ve saved and the ability to buy items I couldn’t have otherwise more than made up for that. I’ve also become smarter about how I bid to prevent something like that happening again, e.g., I only use a credit card now and never ever send money orders or checks. I’ve had more, worse experiences with known, “trusted” retailers than the ~1000 transactions I’ve conducted on eBay, so I don’t really give a second thought to buying from someone on eBay with a good feedback profile and clear listing.

Anyway, here’s my process for saving as much money as possible:

1. I check the price at common stores and at the manufacturer’s price to get a general idea of what street price is. Then, I do a search on PriceGrabber and/or Google Product Search to see what the absolute lowest retail price is. Oftentimes, these prices are actually lower than eBay’s prices, and I’ve seen people overpay dearly when they could’ve dealt with a known, trusted retail store instead of a potentially shady seller.
2. Search like crazy on eBay. Search both titles and descriptions and include multiple version of words, model numbers, etc. including common misspellings using the parentheses search operator. For example, if I wanted to buy the Brother HL-2400 printer, then I’d search for (brother printer, hl-2400, hl2400, brother 2400, borther, brother lasar, brother laser). That would return all results that include both the words brother and printer, hl-2400, hl2400, brother and 2400, borther, brother and lasar, or brother and laser. If I want the item fast, then I sort buy it now listings by price + shipping. Pay special attention to just listed items. Occasionally, items are listed with excellent buy it now prices that must be snapped up immediately. If time isn’t important, then I sort by ending soonest.
3. You can generally skip the featured listings at the top of the search results, as you’ll probably end up paying more for those. However, don’t ignore them completely.
4. If an item seems obscenely cheap, then be a little suspicious but don’t discount it completely. I’ve bought many gray market goods that work perfectly and are genuine products. It’s just that they were originally sold in a non-US market. On the other hand, I would almost certainly avoid buying certain items from foreign locales, as they tend to be fake and will just end up costing you more in the long-run.
5. Once I find all the listings that interest me, I add them to my watch list.
6. Now, the all-important step that I bet most people don’t think of: I quit my web browser and reopen it. I go immediately to BondRewards, click on Shopping, and click on the eBay link. Then, I bid and pay for the item I want. BondRewards gives 85% cash back on the transaction fee (not the end price). Considering fees just went up on eBay, this has become even more attractive. If you’re too impatient for savings bonds, then try out FatWallet, which currently gives 1% cash back on the end price. Many people don’t bother with cash back sites, which I think is a tremendous mistake. It’s not like this is an onerous task like submitting a rebate. You just click on a link! It’s really easy!
   
7. Once you win the item, pay with a credit card that offers rewards via PayPal (or the merchant’s own service if available). I use a card that gives me 2% cash back on all purchases. Just make sure that you switch the payment method from your bank account to a credit card! I frequently make this mistake when I’m not paying close attention.
8. Lastly, be patient. If you don’t win the item for a good price, then try again. Competing bidders don’t always materialize for auctions even for popular items.

Don’t forget that you should also opt-in to receive emails from eBay and PayPal. There are occasional coupons. For example, I just received a coupon last week for $5 off shipping on five items. That was perfect, as I was about to buy some Wii accessories anyway!

One thing that you may notice is I’ve left out eBay sniping services. That’s for three reasons. First, I’m not convinced they actually save you all that much money. I remember doing the math once for a game theory class and found that the optimal price is exactly the market price anyway. Of course, the real world doesn’t necessarily behave the way economists expect, so take from this what you wish. Second, I don’t necessarily trust sniping software to bid successfully, and it certainly doesn’t give you the option of going back and raising your bid. (Just don’t get carried away with bidding more than you’re willing to spend!) And third, sites like BondRewards and FatWallet won’t give you cash back for using sniping software.

Anyway, I hope this gives you insight into how to save more than you ever have on eBay. If you’re not yet a member of BondRewards, then please leave a comment with your email address (don’t worry; your email address will never be made public) so I can send you a referral.

Buying earrings or even rings for women is much more tougher than buying men’s shoes. Items like watches and sunglasses too take forever to be chosen.

It’s that time of the month again!

This past February, Blog Money Whore brought in a total of $26.05 ($25.81 from AdSense and $0.24 from AdBrite). That’s quite an increase from the previous month’s total of $6.71! At the same time, pageviews fell from 1,740 to 1,312. That goes to show that it doesn’t necessarily depend on the number of pageviews but instead on the quality of pageviews. January saw a large spike of traffic from StumbleUpon, which accounted for a large number of pageviews, but those sorts of visitors tend not to be the type who click on advertising.

I’ve also added a new column to the earnings table: the number of posts. This is somewhat correlated with the amount of work I put into this site. In January, I wrote 15 posts, but in February, I wrote only 4. Yet, earnings went up nearly 4X! I’ve had similar experiences with Days That End in Y when I went through posting droughts. My theory is visitors don’t see new content, so they start looking elsewhere and tend to notice the ads. Of course, these sorts of results can’t be sustained, but I think it’s important to note that the amount of work you do isn’t necessarily positively correlated with the amount of money you make.

Anyway, March should see a great deal more posting. February was a very busy month, and I simply didn’t want to deal with writing posts after spending lots of time doing other things. I’ll also try marketing a bit more now that it’s hitting month four. We’ll see what happens!