I used to be a big fan of eBay, but do not like shopping this site as much as I used to. I have found that many of the sellers charge an arm and a leg for shipping, which drives the costs of the products up significantly. I mainly bid on auctions and there is some fierce competition out there for some products. What are your thoughts about shopping Ebay?
I agree that shipping rates have gone up a lot on eBay, @Rosyrain. I usually look for items that are labeled with the "Fast and Free" shipping on them now, or at least ones with free shipping. For the last couple of years, I have ordered most of my gardening seeds from ebay sellers, and you can often get a shipping discount if you order from the same seller for a quantity of seeds. I used to order from the seed catalogs; but since their costs and shipping have also gone up a lot more also, it is usually a much better deal when I find the seeds on ebay. Plus, you can find almost any kind of seed on there, and I do not have to go through all of the different catalogs ordering a bit here and a bit there. Another thing that I am really starting to like on ebay is the "make offer" items. If the item has been listed for a while, the seller will often accept a lot cheaper offer, and when it is cheap or free shippping, I sometimes get really great deals this way. When I am browsing on ebay, this is one of the parameters that I set to find good bargains.
I'm an infrequent shopper at ebay, but have found hard to find things on ebay. Ebay only accepts payment through paypal too, which I found very surprising, but the product I needed was very difficult to find elsewhere. The company had very reasonable shipping at the time of my purchase. Amazon already upped their free shipping from $35 to $49 last year so I'm looking for a good place to shop for items too since now I've learned here that shipping has gone up too at bay.
This site was a great reference for my online shopping, but I haven't used it much these days. Although some "flaws" the site is still good, but I think it's me who is losing the interest in shopping through the screen of my notebook. Going to the store to buy anything have been the right choice for me (and I think I'll stay like this for a long time ).
I was also using eBay for most of my online purchases. But nowadays I use Amazon as I can buy products at a very cheaper rate. For example I recently purchased a new 4G Huawei Wingle which is 25% cheaper than eBay. I already got it and it was a brand new product. Moreover, Amazon has already setup their own local stores in our country. So transportation costs are usually reasonable in Amazon. It also ensures delivery of products before expected dates. They are fast and prompt.
