If you have never been to eBay before,  I suggest you first take a look around the site and get a little familiar with it.   Type “ebay.ca” into your browser’s address bar.  In order to buy or sell, you need to register.  

For our test purchase, I choose a Microsoft LifeCam VX-5000 which we need for the club.  Current price at a local office supply store is about $60.00 although they were on sale for $30 a few weeks ago.

3 - There were thirty results listed under “All Items”. Notice you can also view items by Auction or by fixed price (Buy It Now only.)

4 - Most companies were asking between $30 & $40.   Sounds like a better price, right? Not necessarily.   First of all, (4a) there is often a shipping cost.  Secondly,  most of these items are for sale in the US, so consider that you have to pay exchange as well.  Thirdly, if shipped by courier, you will get charged a handling fee, GST and/or duty.  If the product is shipped by mail, you might miss these costs since not all parcels get charged.

Add all these costs while considering your purchase.

2 - Type the name of the item you are looking for in the search bar.

I found one on the auction that only had a $5. bid on it, and the shipping was just under $10.  Since my cost at home was as high as $60, this seemed a  possibility.  

eBay Purchase by Auction

1 -  Sign in or Register.

Note:  If you need steps to register, then you are not ready yet to buy or sell on eBay.  I suggest you just look around and get some practice registering with sites that don’t involve buying or selling.

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6 - Once you decide on a product,  click once on it.  A new page opens showing details and a spot to place your bid.   Since the original price was just $5.  I put in the minimum  increase of 50 cents, then clicked “Place Bid”.

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5 - Before placing a bid on the product, I clicked some of the links on the right under “Meet the Seller”, and reviewed the information about PayPal.   Additionally,

I compared the cost of the product locally to the total it might cost using eBay and made the decision that in this case it was worth the risk.  We might get the product for as low as $5.50 plus shipping plus exchange, so about $20 Cndn. 

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7 -  A window opened pointing out you are agreeing to a contract, if ready, click “Confirm Bid”.

8 - Next they try to talk you into setting up a maximum bid amount.   Not a bad idea.  Think about the most you want to pay for a product and still get a deal.   Either that, or you have to continually watch the bids.   I set up a maximum bid of $10.

9 - With  only 1 day and 4 hrs to go, there were only 5 bids, and mine was the highest, so I thought the $5.50 bid might be a shoe-in.   OK, maybe another dollar or so, but likely not more than that, right?

Wrong again!  This is where it gets tricky.  I did not check the bids the last few hours before closing, which in hindsight would have been a good idea.


10 - My last check was at the 9 hours and 14 minute mark. At that time the highest bid was still at $5.50  When bidding closed, the final price was $9.50.  Huh?  What happened in such a short time?  Hmmm.


Makes me wonder how the bid got bumped up another $4 in the last few hours?  Maybe everybody waits until the last few hours to put in a bid.   So a word to the wise.  Don’t bid higher than you really want to pay, and maybe don’t put in a maximum bid after all. 

11 - All that is left is to pay for the purchase and see if it really does  come.  Sign into eBay click on “Won”.

12 - Click on “Pay Now”.  There will be payment choices including Charge Card and PayPal.  

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Later, when the product arrives, please be sure to leave feedback for the seller.  This helps everyone in their buying and selling experience.  Hey, I even got feedback that I am a good customer.  (Paying in a reasonable amount of time.)

Summary:   You can get some good deals on eBay, but not everything on eBay is a deal.   Consider hidden costs, i.e. shipping, duty & taxes,  exchange rates; harder to return an item if it does not work.


One case I heard of, a person buys items at a local store,  and sells them on eBay at a profit.  hmm.