KML's Monoblog

It's been a fairly glorious Easter weekend here in the UK, with the temperature reaching 17°C yesterday afternoon. Easter is still an important event in the British calendar. It's the only official, four-day weekend, and very many people plan extended holidays around it. Apparently, Heathrow airport served 212,000 passengers on Thursday alone (see Easter getaway congestion begins), which is equivalent to evacuating the entire population of Kitchener, Ontario, in a single day (and Heathrow is just one of four airports serving London).

This weekend also happens to be the best time to find a bargain on the UK version of the popular online auction web site eBay. The reason is quite simple. Fewer people are at their computers on the longest non-familial holiday of the year, particularly if the weather is nice, which means fewer bids get placed and prices are correspondingly lower. So this weekend I purchased a new digital camera, and I'm pleased to report that it was indeed a bargain.

I purchased a black Canon EOS 400D digital SLR (single lens reflex) with an 18-55mm zoom lens for £396.51 from the Canon Outlet shop on eBay.co.uk, which was 5.6% less than the cheapest version of this model sold by Canon in the preceeding 16 days (there were 15 such cameras sold during the period).

Of course, it's often difficult to know if price comparisons are valid on eBay because you can't be certain that the purchased items are all equivalent. Are they all in the same condition, for example? In this case, however, the cameras are all sold by a single vendor, the manufacturer Canon, and they all come with a one-year manufacturer's warranty. They are described as "refurbished" which Canon defines as follows:

Refurbished products are 100% OK and therefore we can offer them with a 1 year manufacturer's warranty. There is nothing wrong with these products! All refurbished products are sealed with an authentic Canon seal!

We just can't sell a refurbished item as new because:

- it was used as demo product (at trade fairs etc.), or
- the outside carton box was slightly damaged during transportation (and then replaced by a neutral brown packaging), or
- it was sold and the box was opened. Then the item got returned to Canon.

Upon return to our facility, a product of this type is put through a full set of functional test procedures, cleaned, repaired (if needed), and refreshed with a set of in-box materials (manuals, accessories, cables...) and sealed. The packaging of the product may either be the original Canon packaging or a neutral (brown) packaging. The core product itself may (exceptionally) contain minor cosmetic blemishes.

Given the single vendor and the one-year warranty, I think it's fair to assume that we are comparing as close to "like for like" as it's possible to get on eBay.

In recent weeks, Canon has sold two versions of the EOS 400D, one in black and one in silver, at least six days a week (black-bodied cameras currently demand a premium, see Black vs. Silver for some possible explanations). In the precceding 16 days before I purchased my camera, there was an average of 11 bids placed on each black 400D for an average price of £452.34. The range went from a low of £420 to a high of £500. In my case, there were only 5 bids and my winning bid was £396.51.

So how did I achieve my new minimum price for a black EOS 400D? Here are my tips for buying successfully on eBay:

1. Research the market on eBay by searching for historical prices. Identify the maximum and minimum prices achieved and calculate the average.
2. Establish a budget and stick to it.
3. If you really want a bargain, never bid more than the average price that you calculated in step 1.
4. Don't forget to consider the shipping charges. Many vendors offer items with a lower reserve/starting price in order to encourage you to bid, and then charge you a premium for shipping. They are making money on the shipping, so beware.
5. If possible, bid on items where the auction ends at an unpopular time (in my case it was 7:15 PM on a Sunday night in the middle of a glorious bank holiday long-weekend).
6. Know your competing bidders by viewing their bidding history. Some may be professional retailers using eBay to stock their business inventory. Others may be buying strictly for personal use. It's easier to predict how the professionals will behave. They have fixed costs and margins that will force them to drop out of the bidding sooner rather than later. Avoid bidding against the rogue personal users if possible (pick that unpopular time). They are unpredictable.
7. Bid the maximum amount you are prepared to pay in the last 10 to 5 minutes of the auction. Don't be tempted to make incremental bids repeatedly. If you do, you may not reach your maximum before the auction ends. The professional buyers will all be bidding at the last minute too, and you or your computer may not be able to respond quickly enough.
8. Don't be tempted to increase your maximum bid while you are currently the highest bidder. If you do, eBay will execute another bid at the next bidding increment on your behalf, which effectively means you will be bidding against yourself — a very stupid thing to do.

Hmmm... I guess working for a real, bricks-and-mortar auction house for six years had some benefits after all.