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I would guess this subject has been discussed and I have not seen it. However, I have seen some bad opinions about Ebay on this forum and wanted to put in my 2 cents worth. I both sell and buy on ebay and think it is a great way of doing both. Other things can be done with ebay which have nothing to do with either. Such as finding statistics on which railroad is most modeled, or, what scale is most popular, etc. Just now, I went to ebay to use it for statistics and found there are over 25,000 items for sale in HO, 19,000 for O scale and 8,500 for N. I have also determined that Santa Fe is the most popular, as there are the most items offered for sale in this livery. As far as doing business on Ebay, I have made over 100 transactions on Ebay. This is not to say I am any kind of expert. However, I do have some experiance and have found in my own dealings that approximately 1 Ebayer in 25-30 are not trustworthy. So, due diligance is a must! This also means that most Ebayers are honest. Of the over 100 people I have delt with, I have only lost my money one time. The other bad occurances were mostly products being miss-represented. Like I have seen people say, the buyer needs to educate himself on what it is he is buying. Basically you need to be able to buy the item with it's shipping costs, for what you would pay in a hobby shop. You can add some value if, you don't live near a hobby shop, but, remember if you where to buy it mail order or off the net, you would likely have several items to amortize the shipping costs over. I see may times where the buyer is paying more for an item than he would, if he'd done due diligance. As a seller, I love these guys!! However, I try not to do this when buying. When selling, I attempt to price my items low enough to attract attention and hope they will get bid-up. However, I never set a price lower than I am willing to take for the item! I will sometimes set a "Buy It Now" price, when it is a real good item to sell. However, I don't use "Reserve Price" as I find it frustrates me, when I am buying, so I don't do this to my customers. My reserve price is my listing price. There are unique and wonderful things out there for sale. Model trains is a very large catagory and you can find some deals and great buys, if you use due diligance and are patient. Also, I have eliminated a lot of stuff I simply do not need or want anymore. Ebay is an electronic Garage Sale!
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