Buying better on eBay
Practical, checkable writing about finding and pricing things on eBay. Every claim here is either sourced to eBay's own help pages, or labelled as something we checked ourselves, or labelled as something the community reports and we could not verify.
How to search eBay with a photo when you don't know the name
eBay's search bar has a camera button. We tested photo search on two items: a known camera came back named, a plain bowl came back as a category.
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Why free eBay alert tools stop taking new sign-ups
Item Alert closed registration after eBay declined to raise its API limit. Why fast alert tools hit that ceiling, and what an hourly check trades away.
7 min · OCTOBER 9, 2026
How to find eBay auctions ending soon with no bids
eBay's own Advanced Search has a Number of bids filter. Set it to 0 to 0, add Ending within, and you get zero-bid auctions about to close. No add-on needed.
7 min · OCTOBER 9, 2026
Is it still worth buying from eBay UK if you live in the US?
US buyers pay import fees on every eBay UK order. The duty-free allowance is suspended, and refusing the parcel over fees voids eBay's Money Back Guarantee.
7 min · OCTOBER 9, 2026
How to find underpriced items on eBay to resell
Underpriced eBay listings are the ones buyers missed: typos, zero-bid auctions, pickup-only, lots, stale listings, broken items. Then check sold results.
7 min · OCTOBER 9, 2026
Buying ex-corporate laptops on eBay: the BIOS lock a wipe won't clear
A supervisor password set by a company IT department lives on the motherboard, not the drive. Lenovo's own remedy is replacing the system board.
8 min · AUGUST 30, 2026
Buying graded trading cards on eBay: fake slabs eBay can't catch
eBay's own pages disagree on the price threshold for authenticating trading cards. Here's what the program covers, and how to spot a fake PSA slab.
8 min · AUGUST 29, 2026The full index
- AUG 29
Buying vinyl records on eBay: no authentication, real bootlegs
Vinyl records sit outside eBay's Authenticity Guarantee entirely. Every grade is a seller's claim, and bootleg pressings are a separate, real risk.
7 min read · Collectibles, Authentication, Price research
- JUL 26
Free eBay deal hunting tools in 2026, checked one by one
Nineteen eBay deal-hunting tools older lists still name, checked one by one. Goofbid and BayCrazy are gone, and Terapeak is now Seller Hub's Product research.
12 min read · Tools, Price research, Deal hunting, Reselling, Alerts
- JUL 24
eBay Authenticity Guarantee: 2026 thresholds by category
Where eBay's Authenticity Guarantee starts: sneakers $100, streetwear and single cards $200, handbags, jewelry, coins and other shoes $500, watches $2,000.
11 min read · Buyer protection, Authentication, Collectibles
- JUL 22
"Untested" isn't an eBay condition. Here's what the seller actually picked.
A seller who types untested has still picked Used or For parts off eBay's list. That field, and not the prose around it, is what a claim is measured against.
10 min read · Collectibles, Buyer protection, Authentication, Price research
- JUL 20
Buying video games on eBay: fake cartridges and who grades games now
WATA stopped putting its name on new slabs in October 2025 and is PSA Video Games now. How to spot a fake cartridge, and where eBay's coverage stops.
10 min read · Collectibles, Authentication, Price research
- JUL 16
Buying watches on eBay: what $2,000 authentication misses
eBay authenticates watches free from $2,000 and sells the check for $80 on select watches from $500. It confirms a watch is genuine, not that its parts match.
11 min read · Collectibles, Authentication, Buyer protection, Price research
- JUL 14
Dating vintage clothing on eBay from a photo of the tag
Care labels, fiber percentages and RN numbers each set a floor on a garment's age, never a date. Single stitch is evidence, and reproductions copy it.
11 min read · Collectibles, Authentication, Price research
- JUL 10
Buying Funko Pops on eBay without overpaying for a lot
By collectors' rule of thumb, a mixed Funko Pop lot is worth about half its summed price guide values, since guide values assume mint boxes. What to check.
10 min read · Collectibles, Authentication, Price research
- JUL 8
Retired LEGO sets on eBay: box grades, seals, and fake bricks
What B1, B2 and B3 actually mean, the tells a resealed box gives away, and where to price a retired set. We compare asking prices, never sold prices.
11 min read · Collectibles, Authentication, Price research
- JUL 6
Can you take back an eBay bid? Only for two reasons.
eBay lets you take a bid back for two reasons, inside one hour, and only if the listing ends within 12 hours. On Trading Cards you can't retract at all.
10 min read · Auctions, How eBay works, Buyer protection
- JUL 2
eBay buyer scams in 2026 and the tells that give them away
Five 2026 eBay scam patterns with the tell for each, from off-platform payment to AI-generated photos. Patterns only, since no single tell proves fraud.
11 min read · Buyer protection, Authentication
- JUN 30
eBay's Money Back Guarantee: 30 calendar days, and the one move that voids it
eBay's Money Back Guarantee runs 30 calendar days from delivery, or the seller's window if that's longer. Paying outside eBay checkout removes all of it.
10 min read · Buyer protection, How eBay works
- JUN 26
eBay auction vs Buy It Now: what changes at the first bid
Buy It Now usually disappears when somebody bids, but on a reserve listing it survives until the reserve is met. If it's gone, bid up to what you'd have paid.
8 min read · Auctions, How eBay works
- JUN 24
How to find eBay listings that have been sitting unsold
A listing's start date is the signal, not its price. How to read a listing's age, the categories where it matters, and why sitting usually means overpriced.
10 min read · Deal hunting, Reselling, Price research
- JUN 22
eBay allows sniping. A snipe won't get you a cheaper price.
eBay allows bid sniping, software included. A snipe only lowers your price when the other bidder would have raised theirs. Plus what three sniping tools cost.
8 min read · Auctions, Tools, Deal hunting
- JUN 18
Is there really a best time to buy on eBay? We went looking for proof.
No study backs the Sunday evening rule, and two statistics behind it are fabricated. Automatic bidding is why the ending hour can't lower what you pay.
10 min read · Auctions, Deal hunting, Price research
- JUN 16
eBay listing red flags: 12 checks and what untested means
Twelve checks to run before you buy. Untested isn't an eBay condition. The seller still picked a label from eBay's list, and that field sets your protection.
10 min read · Price research, Buyer protection, Reselling
- JUN 12
eBay has no price history chart. Here's what you can check instead.
eBay has no price history chart, and no tool can show you prices from before tracking started. Here's why that's structural and not an oversight.
10 min read · Price research, How eBay works, Tools
- JUN 10
eBay stopped documenting its search operators. Here's what still works.
eBay documented three search operators until 2018 and documents none today. Buyers disagree on whether they still work, so here's how to test any of them.
9 min read · How eBay works, Deal hunting, Tools, Alerts
- JUN 8
How to calculate eBay sell-through rate from free data
Sell-through rate is sold listings divided by active listings on one eBay search. Both counts are free to read, and there's no price anywhere in the answer.
10 min read · Reselling, Price research, Deal hunting, Tools
- JUN 5
What an eBay watcher count tells you, and what it doesn't
eBay shows a public watcher count on many listings, signed in or not. What a high count tells you depends on whether it's an auction or a fixed price listing.
8 min read · How eBay works, Price research, Alerts
- JUN 4
How eBay Best Offer works, and when to make a lowball offer
A seller gets 24 hours to answer an eBay Best Offer, and a counteroffer lasts 96 hours. What to offer, and why you can't see the accept and decline limits.
10 min read · How eBay works, Deal hunting, Auctions
- JUN 2
eBay says your watchlist holds 1,000. Another eBay page says 300.
eBay's watchlist page says 1,000 items. Another eBay help page says 300. Listings a seller ends and doesn't relist drop off your list after 60 days.
7 min read · How eBay works, Alerts
- MAY 29
Is this a good price on eBay? How to check without sold data
Sold prices tell you what buyers paid. Asking prices tell you what sellers hope for. Here's how to check eBay sold comps free, and where they fall short.
8 min read · Price research, Deal hunting, Reselling
- MAY 27
eBay's own help page tells you to search misspellings
eBay's own auction tips tell buyers to search misspellings. Why a typo can lower an auction price, which typo tools still work, and how to make your own list.
9 min read · Deal hunting, Tools, Buyer protection
- MAY 25
Why eBay saved search alerts stop, and what actually fixes it
eBay's saved search help page gives you one switch per search, an envelope icon, and no schedule. Usually, one of four things is what stops the emails.
7 min read · How eBay works, Alerts
FindersKeepers is a small, independent eBay tracking tool, and the writing here comes from actually using it. Every factual claim about how eBay works is linked to the eBay help page it came from, and anything we checked ourselves carries the date we checked it. Where something is widely repeated but we could not verify it, the post says so instead of repeating it.