[UPGRADE] Ebay For Morons

If you don't know what an RSS feed is, your ass probably needs an Upgrade. Each week (ish), we'll hold your hand through a step-by-step process (ish), in which we teach you how to NOT be a total fucking moron with a variety of rad online tools that will help feed your design obsesh. Pinky swear, this shit will make your life waaaay easier. This week: EBAY.

You might be thinking to yourself right now, "I'm dumb, but I'm not *that* dumb...I mean, I know how to use ebay for chrissakes," but unfortunately people, you may very well be *that* dumb after all. Though its sooo not your fault!

Cause ebay is confusing, and not so easy to use, and about as intuitive as a NYC subway sign.

And the bottom line is: there is a metric ton of cool ass stuff you could be buying for your house/apt on ebay right this VERY SECOND. So, we're gonna get your ass an upgrade:

HERE'S THE SCOOP:

Searching - Ok, yes: we all know how to search on ebay, but did you know that you could *save* searches you do all the time? If you're savvy with RSS, skip to the next tip, but if not: check this shit out: it's kind of a major pain in the ass to rememember all the diff things you like to search for (espesh if you're like me and have an ebay obsession). So start saving your searches! Search for an item such as "vintage electric fan" and then toward the top of the page click on "save this search." Another window will pop up and it will ask you what you'd like to call this saved search. You can even choose to be emailed when new items are listed within your search, but I kind think that would be totally crazy town unless its something super duper specific and you're DYING to get this thing. Otherwise I think your email will be overrun. You'll then be able to access your saved searches from your "my ebay" tab.

RSS Feeds - Most people know that you can search for things on ebay (by keyword, category, seller, etc), and now you know that you can save your searches, get daily emails and mark your favorite shops. But if you use an RSS reader, another easy thing you can do is to get an individual RSS feed for all of your fave searches! This way you don't even have to come to the ebay site to check for all of your favorite things. This option also happens to be completely fucking hidden at the bottom of the page, so unless you are an ebay ninja, you've probably missed it. Start off doing a search for whatever type of item you'd like to get an RSS feed for. Leave categories as "All" if you'd like it to include all results, or if you are unsure, do a general "all categories" search and then narrow things down by clicking the cat you are interested in on the left hand side of the page. In my example, I'm searching "vintage zebra" and then as a secondary choice, I'm choosing "women's accessories" (so this means that I ONLY want results from this category, and this category alone:

Ok, so after your results pop up scroll allllll the way down to the very, very bottom of the page where you'll see this itsy bitsy, teeny, weeny little orange RSS button. You might stare and *still* miss this thing...its totally fucking hidden. Here's where you need to look for that mofo:This will now open up a secondary page where you will be asked to choose your RSS reader:       

Now you just choose whichever RSS reader you use (your main one should be the default on the drop down menu, but a bunch of diff ones are there), and then click on "subscribe." BOOM! You'll now have an RSS feed to whichever search term you entered, in whichever category you want to keep track of items from within. This is the method that I use, and its really awesome to be able to do all of my ebay searching from the comfort of my RSS reader (feedly...which I love, love, LOVE. In fact, if you use firefox too, RUN do not walk to feedly.com right now and get yourself set-up. You will be forever indebted to me, and won't ever have to look at your ugly assed google reader again). I then only need to actually go to ebay whenever I see anything that I want to buy. Otherwise, I look at all items and photos from within feedly (and its way the fuck prettier). It looks a little something like this:

eSnipe - Have you ever put in a bid for an item you were winning on only to have it "swiped" from you at the last second by a higher bidder? Yeah, me too. I always used to think this was done by certifiably insane people who would sit at their computer with big digital clocks up on their walls, waiting until the last few seconds to totally fuck you over. But in fact, its done by using a service called esnipe that does all the dirty work for you (note: there are a couple of other ones out there, but this is the one I've use before). Basically, if you want to try this, you first set up an esnipe account. I then downloaded a little firefox add-on that sits at the top of my browser. When I'm logged into ebay, if I see something I like I open up the item. If I want to bid on it, instead of clicking on the "buy it now" or bid button, I click on the "snipe it" button:

You can choose all your preferences for when you want esnipe to go in, how much you're willing to spend, etc. Now you *do* pay a small fee for using this service, so it might not be worth it for each and every auction. I usually use it if I have the sense that the auction will get a little crazy. And, of course, it doesn't make sense for items that are ONLY buy now (such as in my example pic above..oopsie). You should also know that it doesn't ALWAYS work. Keep in mind that lots of other people now use this shit too, and you could be going up against a more clever sniper. However, having said that, esnipe has made my ebay buying experience way more fun as I tend to win auctions a helluva lot more than I used to.

Try it....you'll like it.

Anyway, you can be an ebay Ninja too!...so get your shit your together and DO IT.

Need an upgrade? Let us know what your problemo is and maybe we'll write one for you!

Comments

[HouseofJules]

I didn't know about the E-bay RSS feed OR the esnipe! You're creating a monster, you know. :) "Click right hurrrrr" made me laugh my ass off. Thanks, E.