Sonic collecting topic. Covered: eBay buying.

[Mr Phantom]

eBay buying

With Christmas fast approaching now could never be a better time to get into eBay buying. What’s that you say? My logic sounds like that of a crazy person? Well what you see generally around Christmas time people are so concerned with buying for “loved onesâ€￾ people who they have never met and don’t care about, that the amount of competition on eBay is reduced.

There’s a Sonic community for practically everything to do with Sonic, yet there’s nothing to help would be collectors, this little guide should help you in that department.

eBay is a great place, you register one account and you register to most eBay sites in one sweep. You may be confused as to which site to go, but pretty much all eBay sites, with the exception of eBay.com and eBay.co.uk, are crap for Sonic games. So what makes eBay.com and eBay.co.uk so special? Well due to the United States large size there’s a lot to contribute to eBay.com, while in the United Kingdom the retro revival scene has really been at its strongest, while some even suggest it began here.

Getting started (the basics)

For anybody not familiar with eBay, here is a quick rundown on how to get started.

1) Register and eBay account. You only need to register once and then you should be give access to different eBay region by using this one account.
2) Use the search function to look for the item you want. Once you have found the item you can enter it and make a bid
3) If you do not whish to make a bid at the current time them you can click the “Watch this itemâ€￾ button. The items status will then be watched in your account know as “My eBayâ€￾
4) Click the place a bid button, you will be ported to enter you maximum bid. The computer will then bid for you until it reaches your highest bid amount (should you be challenged by another bidder)
5) If you have won the bid, click the “My eBayâ€￾ link. My eBay is a person profile, your account which can track bids, store information on items you have won etc. In my click the link to the item that you have one. When you arrive in the items display screen you can select a method of pay. Once you have paid a recipe of purchase will be sent to your account
6) “My eBayâ€￾ has many functions. For starters it displays information on items you did or did not win (it stores them for a maximum of 30 days) but also it keeps track of items that you selected to watch. On top of this you can leave “Feedbackâ€￾ on a seller, this is where you rate a seller based on their service. Feedback will be displayed with an item in order for you to judge the reliability and quality of a seller. If you like a seller you can opt to add him to your “Favourite sellerâ€￾ list, in doing so you will have a shortcut to view either the sellers shop (if they have one) or any items they are currently selling. You will also then receive email updates of any new items the seller has to offer.
7) Paypal is a method of payment, an online transfer or money from you account to the sellers. You must register a Paypal account before you can use this method of payment. Paypal comes at no charge to the buyer. When selecting Paypal as a method on eBay you will be taken to the Paypal site where you will be prompted to enter your Paypal password and email address in order to sign in. Once signed in you must verifier your details, you are give the option to leave a message for the seller, and then select to pay. The transaction history is listed in your Paypal account. You can also check your bank statement to checkout any Paypal transactions

Playing the “gameâ€￾

Once you have got to grips with the basic you need to become accustomed to eBay, so that you can use eBay to your best advantage.

When searching on eBay it’s always best to be specific, know what you’re looking for, surprisingly general searches may not reveal the item you seek. I like to think of these items as hidden. These “hiddenâ€￾ items may not respond to single phrases such as “Sonicâ€￾, despite the fact that they carry the phrase within them. A classic example is the codes that people use to represent Japan. Typing in “Sonic Japaneseâ€￾ will bring up a display of items that are different to if you were to type “Sonic Jap. If you don’t know what you’re looking for on eBay then it is best to be generalized. Typing in “Sonicâ€￾ under the heading “Generalâ€￾ is a big no no, this will bring up Sonic, but it will also bring up tooth brushes, power drills, hair dryers etc, anything with the word Sonic in it. Instead type “Sonic the hedgehogâ€￾, you have to be more specific in the “Generalâ€￾ section, but in doing so you will again limit what Sonic items you can find because the search will be for “Sonic the hedgehogâ€￾, whilst there will still be items marked with “Sonicâ€￾. The best thing to do is to go to the “video gameâ€￾ section and just type Sonic, this way will get you the most amounts of Sonic items with the least amount of unwanted crap. Once again though, you are limited to only games, this is another principle of “hiddenâ€￾ items, that’s the reason it’s always best to know what you want.

When you have found that item that you have been looking for you should not rush in and bid. It’s always best to make sure the item can be delivered world wide, or if it will be posted or needs to be collected, trust me I speak from experience. The last thing you want to do is piss a seller off, remember “Feedbackâ€￾. Other reasons for waiting is that you may find other items you also want, in which case you’ll need to prioritize them in order of importance (I’ll explain why later). The best strategies I have used on eBay, and that I have observed other buyers use, is to wait until the last minute to bid. If you bid right away somebody will always counter you. An item is only worth what a seller is willing to pay, when it comes down to it, most collectors on eBay are willing to PAY A LOT. With it appearing that the competition has endless pockets, then money is not the best way to win, but time is. Bidding at the last minute keeps cost down and means you actually stand a chance of winning. Whacking a high bid in at the last 30 seconds means that by the time the bids been processed, nobody else has the time to counter your bid. However another bid could be being placed as you place yours, it may be higher, it may be lower, that’s a risk you’ll have to take. I have only really seen this strategy implemented on the rare gaming items. You may come across one of these “rareâ€￾ items and be fooled into thinking it’s a bargain, but usually the collectors are watching. Sometimes you can feel the tension like a stretched elastic band. Sometimes a collector stretches too much, and snaps, places a bid. It’s a question of waiting, bids can end at 1 O’clock in the morning, only the persistent will stay up that late.

“Bidâ€￾ or “Buy it nowâ€￾? Deciding when to “Bidâ€￾ or “Buy it nowâ€￾ Is very important because it can save you a lot of money. When looking at an item with both these options you really need to consider the potential bidding price and the buy it now price, if the potential bidding price exceeds the “Buy it now priceâ€￾ then you should “Buy it nowâ€￾. For example a full copy of the Japanese Sonic & Knuckles may have a buy it now price of £13, but a starting bid of only £2.99, in this case it is best to buy it for £13 because the starting bid of £2.99 has a potential to reach £40. I know this from experience because I paid about that for my Japanese Sonic & Knuckles (I have never seen a Japanese Sonic & Knuckles with a “Buy it nowâ€￾ option). It’s best to only consider this method on hard to find or sealed Sonic games, a European or North American versions of Sonic 1 MD would never go for much.

Making an offer is a circumstance you should consider if no “Buy it nowâ€￾ price exists. Once again this should be reserved for rare items. With your offer you should be conservative, remember you can’t lowered it, but you can raise it should your previous offer be rejected. Making an offer is not just restricted to payment. Should you find an item that you want, but is restricted to posting within the USA, you can always enquire if the seller would consider posting to an area outside that country.

You should always be aware of the prices of postage and packing. Postage and packing may be viewed as hidden costs, but this can also have other hidden cost within. Postage and packing from another country is quite expensive, the price will normally exceed that of the item being shipped. In some cases sellers add an extra amount to postage and packing expenses so that they can make a PROFIT FROM POSTAGE AND PACKING. Once an item has then been shipped, it may then be subjected to postage expenses that even the seller was unaware of. Customs are bastards’ period. If your item is stopped by customs then they will probably charge you VAT, despite the item being second-hand (second-hand items will already have had VAT paid. Interception be customs means they’ll have tampered with it, also it will have to be passed on to a new delivery service which you will be charged for when the item arrives.

Earlier I spoke of prioritization. Prioritizing your eBay items is important. What you need to consider firstly is which item you want the most, and then consider all the other factors that have been mention, and how they interact with one another. For example there may be a Japanese Sonic game on eBay that’s located in Japan and one located in your local country, in which case you would go for the item located in your local area where the postage is cheaper, but then the item in your local area may be more expensive. You see where I’m going with this.

Japanese Sonic games

As I said before the best places to go for Sonic games are eBay.com and eBay.co.uk. eBay.com is the best place to go if you’re looking to buy Japanese Sonic games. Most Japanese sellers don’t display their items on the Asian eBay sites. To understand why this happens is quite simple. People who register their items on their native eBay are usually consumers looking to sell off their items from a clear out in their house, but the really unique items are sold by sellers, people who own business for the sale of retro games. It’s because of this that most of these retro gaming businesses will often go to an area with the greatest sphere of influence, in this case eBay.com. These businesses tend to sell world wide, after all they only registered on eBay.com to reach a larger amount of people, and it is not so they did so just to ship to the USA. To look up Sonic Japanese games type either of the following:
• Sonic jp
• Sonic Japanese
• Sonic jap
• Sonic jpn
One frequently occurring Japanese Sonic seller is called palet_th. Palet_th always seem to be dealing on eBay.com. Check out their stores Sonic games here:

Japanese Sonic game shop

Brazilian Sonic games

Brazilian Sonic games are not very common on eBay, or anywhere for that matter. Two recurring Brazilian Sonic games found on eBay are Sonic Blast and Sonic Spinball, both for the Master system. However there is a seller currently on eBay that is selling the largest selection of Sonic Brazilian games I have ever seen, new and sealed. The seller claims to have bought out one of Tec Toys Brazilian warehouses, which is why the stock is new. You won’t find Brazilian Sonic games like this anywhere, not even on the Brazilian eBay site (which only has a few unboxed versions of sonic 2). Unfortunately his stock of Brazilian Sonic games is now depleted. Still I will let you know in the future if he should acquire more.

Sonic game price list

This is just a generalized price list.

Sonic European and North American MegaDrive game £3.99-£4.99

Sonic Brazil Tec Toy Master System and MegaDrive game £25

Sonic Japanese Mega Drive game £5-£13

Sonic CD North American £6

Sonic CD European £10

Sonic Saturn European £7-£10

Sonic Master system multi region (except in Brazil) £2.99-£3.99

[Spazz]

<a href="http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d ... e=off">But I know all this already.</a> =Þ
<a href="http://www.thepowerofallofus.com/"><img src="upload/files/powerofallofus.jpg"></a>

[Popcorn]

Useful!

[Double-S-]

What is this, an eBay advertisement board?

[Delphine]

Official, huh? I don't see it sanctioned by GG. Or Holic. Or hell, not even Pop. Or me, even. I mean, even I hold more water in these things than you do, whoever you are.

[Grant]

It's one of those renegade official threads.

[Neo Yi]

Renegade offical thread or not, I'm not playing this...er...game. Can't shop online...not yet anyways.
~Neo

[j-man]

[Adam Adamant]

I don't get it, j-man, what has this got to do with an Official Sonic eBay thread?

And, plus+++: Why do we need this big guide to ebay? If you want to buy a game or something, dont you just go on and buy it, and be sensible about it?

[j-man]

I don't get it, j-man, what has this got to do with an Official Sonic eBay thread?

And, plus+++: Why do we need this big guide to ebay?

We don't. Cue forumpix.

[Spazz]

n/m. BALEET

[Adam Adamant]

Ahhh, I see.

[Adam Adamant]

Would this sell?
<img src="http://tinypic.com/p7gpi">

[Spazz]

That looks like GHZ for Dummies. It would need Nekkid Boobies though.

9th Edition?

[Adam Adamant]

We dropped the nekkid bobbies in the seventh edition, we felt the average dummy was more in tune with Wang and Gay!!!.

[Rlan]

To add another addition to the Japanese Sonic games, it's best to look up:

Sonic jp
Sonic jpn
Sonic jap
Sonic Japan
Sonic Japanese
Sonic import

Usually gets everything.

[Mr Phantom]

Official, huh? I don't see it sanctioned by GG. Or Holic. Or hell, not even Pop. Or me, even. I mean, even I hold more water in these things than you do, whoever you are.

I’m not familiar with Board stigmata’s, nor do I care about them. I put “Officialâ€￾ there because it made the topic seem more finalized, it’s an expression to exaggerate, just like one time where I made a topic on a board and put “Stop the pressâ€￾, this was meant to stress the information like an exclamation mark, to show I was excited by the news. I was never aware there were codes and Stigmatas on boards that you need to be approved by moderators, if you ask me they are just a stupid way to take the piss out of people. Why is it that on most message boards all I find is immature twats who take the piss over trivial things? What I find really sad is that they’ll then try to make them seem like a bigger, better, mature person by responding with more insults or play mind games with the person they insulted. I’ve had this before, silly minds games. Quite frankly I couldn’t care, these people know nothing about me yet their quick to whip out the moron banners over the fact I used “Officialâ€￾ when I’m, what? Suppose to ask permission?

Any how this topic was here to offer advice. Yes there was a basic covered, but I also put down my experiences on eBay and the best strategies. Yes they may have seemed obvious once I pointed them out, but I dare say that when your buying on eBay all these points would not coming flooding back into you memory.

Why did I post that here, well actually it was an afterthought. I’m really using this information as the start of a web page. I thought it could do no harm to post it on a forum as a guide for people. But, oh silly me, I forgot how my disregard of the use “Officialâ€￾ could be offensive to people, or how a topic on buying at eBay could be considered insulting. Silly, Silly me.

EDIT: Here's another thing I noticed. My use of the word “Officialâ€￾ had no hidden agenda. You assumed that because only admins can bestow such a title (which I now know) that I was trying to exceed my rank, and because of that you assumed that I was trying to say I was better than you and insult you. Well you’re wrong; don’t presume to tell me what I mean, ask me. I’m telling you now that I never even considered using the world “Officialâ€￾ to make myself seem important.

[hello.jpg]

You guys can shut the fuck up. This is good and useful, so don't whine and post unfunny photoshops and internet images from 1998 or whatever.

Phantom, I'd also include searching for "ufo sega sonic" in that search terms bit. It usually digs up a lot of Sonic plushies from as early as 1991.

[Double-S-]

Why is it that on most message boards all I find is immature twats who take the piss over trivial things?... (blah blah whine blah blah)... But, oh silly me, I forgot how my disregard of the use “Officialâ€￾ could be offensive to people, or how a topic on buying at eBay could be considered insulting

I think people were nitpicking your choice of words because they just didn't care about the topic in general, not because they cared about the word "official".

And, plus+++: Why do we need this big guide to ebay?

We don't. Cue forumpix.

If you wanted to talk about Sonic eBay collecting, you could have just posted a topic asking about it... like asking if anybody else was doing it, or whatever.

[Delphine]

Oh my god, can you whine any more? Why do people come here and take this place seriously? If the shit that gets flung around here was meant to be taken seriously I'd have been offended a long time ago. Holy hell, kids.

[Dache]

INTERNET







SERIOUS BUSINESS

[hello.jpg]

Dache: gb2gbs good fag itt we are lollerskates

[Grant]

I just noticed this is no longer the "official" Sonic eBay topic.

What's funnier? The fact it was used in the first place or that someone cared enough to remove it?

[Dache]

Dache: gb2gbs good fag itt we are lollerskates

[img-fiestacat]

[Adam Adamant]

If you're going to post extended guides which are mostly common sense, on a board you don't appear to know, then you have to be ready to take some flack.

And just because they're unfunny and from 1998 or something dosen't mean they can't be funny. I mean , God!, get a sense of humour. Wake up and smell the nineties, we're livin' in the now and it's here to stay.