Ebay

[blake_sw]

How exactly does it work..ordering from Ebay? Has anyone tried it or know someone who has? I'm thinking about ordeing my gun from there just because most guns come tricked out which saves alot of money, all I have to do is send it to badlands and get it checked on and service any broken parts. Anywho...say the gun costs $400 canadian w/ $20 shipping charges, will the total cost come to exactly $420 or will I have to pay an extra fee to ebay, pay some taxes or duty taxes (one auction said "Cali residents pay 7% tax) HELP A BROTHA OUT!

[C4pyro]

Talk to theflash...you know the monitor...he is an ebay master.

[axi0n]

I order a lot of stuff off Ebay...

It is for the most part totally excellent...

All purchases are insured against fraud, etc...

But there are a couple of things to remember if you order from the states...

1) Never forget the conversion rate between USD > CDN funds.
2) Don't generally buy new products from the U.S., if it wasn't manufactured in the states the duties will kill you.
3) There are almost always brokerage fees, on most things.
4) Any thing that might even remotely be construed as a firearm, firearm parts, will be held in customs for an undisclosed period of time, just to piss you off.
5) Shipping charges are brutal.
6) When buying from Canada, maybe one in 10 stores has stock on what you are getting, so the timeframe is long.

i.e. - My bruizer I won on Ebay hadn't even arrived at the person / store I won it from (it look over 3 weeks to arrive)
7) Sometimes you have to be careful to ensure you get what you won, I have heard things about people who have for instance won a *MINT* condition used marker, but when he received it, it was scratched all over the side the previous owner used to lay it down on.

Otherwise it is pretty legit.. There are a lot of good deals to be had in many different categories.. But remember to bide your time, and never get impulsive, or you may find yourself paying more than retail for a slightly used and abused item.

Ax.

[blake_sw]

Allrighty, thanks..that answered most of my questions. This gun is gonna be my birthday present. WHOODIE WHOO!

[axi0n]

Keep in mind...

Many of the things I mentioned are sort of the Murphy's Law of Ebay bidding... Not all of those situations or even any will apply to a given auction.

But you should always bid as if these were all factors... You will miss some auctions, but the ones you win will save you money...

It kills me sometimes that some people in Canada are bidding on computer RAM for instance.. in toronto 128Mb PC133 SDRAM is going for about $70... On ebay, much of it is going for over $80 to a Canadian bidder...

So you have to figure.. $80 + shipping costs / delay + Border / Customs delay, potential brokerage costs. Plus it would be a pain in the *** to take care of under the warranty on it of you had to ship it out to Cali or something...

So people are either A) inherently stupid, or B) not very observant of the conversion rates, or the actual retail price from other Canadian retail vendors.

I'm leaning towards - A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.

Ax.

[Sid]

exactly.. ebay can be very good and conversly very bad..

checking the auctioners rating helps too.