‘Taws the weeks before Christmas… and all over the house Not a creature moved… Just you and your mouse! If you’re one of eBay’s 6 million users, you know that shopping on eBay is easy and fun. It makes fighting over gifts and parking spots at the mall feel like “Christmas Past.” Instead of crowded stores, you can complete your gift list in the comfort of your own home, sipping hot chocolate in front of a roaring fire while perusing eBay. These days the average number of auctions is around 3 million, you can find something for everyone here. But if you want eBay to work for you, you need to take full advantage of eBay’s amazing search engine by fine-tuning what you’re looking for.
Every holiday season has its hot items. Here are two that will be hard to find in stores, but you can pick them up on eBay right now. The new Britney Spears doll hit toy shelves on October 15 and tweens and teens are already snapping up her. To find them on eBay, enter doll of spears in the title search window and you’ll see all current auctions. If you want to limit your search to one of the three dolls in the “video” series, use the keyword in the video title: sometimes spear doll or crazy spear doll or baby spear doll.
Pokémon, which is still a very popular collectible, is a difficult quest because there are so many types available. The Pokemon category (Toys, Bean Bag Plush:Pokemon) alone lists about 30,000 items. Limit your search to include the characters or items you want to find. A search by category for charizard returned 929 auctions, but a site-wide search returned 1,267! (You’ll find more items on a site than in a category search.) Be specific, if you’re looking for the rare Charizard holofoil card, narrow your search down to Charizard holofoil in a site search. Another confusing Pokémon issue is that many vendors misspell pokemon as pokeman. To clear this up, search with both, as in (pokemon, pokeman) Charizard. (Entire site 915 – entire category, 684). Retailers are quick to sell out the really hot gifts, but you can find them in plush robes and slippers on eBay.
If you need to find unique or practical gifts, eBay is the place for you. With Y2K on the wings, what better gift than one of those solar powered hand crank radios and flashlights. They are sold in stores for $80. An eBay search for rope lantern found 57 items; more than 20 were premium versions with a starting bid of less than $55. The solar radio search generated 57 auctions with initial bids from $14 to $54.
A great holiday gift is one that will really appreciate its value. Invest in the future with America’s new quarters. The government quietly began issuing new quarter coins to commemorate our 50 states. In 1999, they began minting the first five states in the series; Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut. The quarters will be issued in a limited edition and only five each year, featuring each of the fifty states in the order they were admitted to the union. They are available on eBay for much less than what you can buy at your local coin shop. Savvy eBayers (buying and selling) should know that it’s not too late to buy uncirculated rolls ($10 face value) to collect and sell as time goes on. You can scroll through the Coins & Stamps, Coins, US, Quarters category or simply search for (quarter, quarters) (roll, rolls) or state (quarter, quarters) for a more concise result. As you research coins, keep in mind that 1999 is the last year for Susan B Anthony dollar coins. You can look for them in anthony 1999 or in the small mint sealed bags, anthony (bag,bags). An important note; eBay’s search engine doesn’t pay attention to capitalization, so proper nouns don’t need to be capitalized.
Holidays are not the same without classic toys. If you have a little girl (or a big one too!), Barbie might be on the list. The Dolls:Figures:Barbie category currently has over 14,500 items. A search of Barbie nets has 12,073 great items. Barbie doll collects 868 items. To further narrow her search, let’s assume she doesn’t want to spend more than $20 per item. Go to the search page, search By Title and fill in the Price Range field to indicate a price range between $1 and $25. We now have 680 Barbie doll items under $20. If the young lady you’re buying has special interests, look up ballet barbie or painting barbie – you get the idea! Find items that are sold in your geographic area. “Go local,” as eBay calls it. Restricting the search to the Los Angeles area, for example, there are currently 15 items up for auction within a few miles of my home. By shopping in your own area, you may be able to pick up the item from the seller in person and save on shipping and time.
Classic toys like Beanie Babies never die. Beanie Baby traffic on eBay continues to be heavy and heavy. Classic retirees are a bit more affordable than in their heyday, and anyone who has collected Beanie Babies may still need a few to round out their collection. The toys: bean bag; The plush category lists a staggering 76,943 auctions, of which 61,605 are produced by Ty. Garcia, the retired Beanie Bear, is still very popular, and a search on toys:bean bag plush: bean bag plush for garcia returned 202 auctions. A search in toys: bean bag plush: ty retired beanies only turned up 128! Sometimes by using subcategories for your search you will miss out on the best deals. In this case, the missing Garcia hats were in the Toys, Bean Bag Plush: Bean Bag Plush: Ty Beanies: Bears or Toys, Bean Bag Plush: Bean Bag Plush: Ty Beanies: General category. As a buyer, you’ll find the lowest bids in “out of category” auctions, so be sure to start your searches from the highest level in the right category.
If you’re doing your Christmas shopping on eBay, be sure to complete your transactions at least a week before you want gifts. That allows your payment to arrive and the seller to make the shipment. If you really must cut it off at the last minute, be sure to offer to pay the seller to ship via Federal Express, because those gifts “absolutely” have to arrive on time! (The US Post Office does not guarantee priority mail 2-3 day delivery during the holiday season.)
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