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Tips make shopping on eBay better
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(CNN) -- More and more people every year turn to online shopping to avoid the crowds, the hassle, and the time involved in selecting and purchasing gifts. CNN's Renay San Miguel spoke with consumer tech guru Marc Saltzman for tips on finding a gift on eBay, the largest online auction site.
SAN MIGUEL: There's a very good reason why eBay is known as the world's largest garage sale, world's biggest flea market. You can get pretty much anything in there. But we want to make sure, Marc, that eBay itself is not really doing the buying and the selling.
SALTZMAN: That's right. It's really up to the buyers and the sellers. They provide the online marketplace that connects buyers and sellers around the world. In fact, 12 million items are sold through eBay in 18,000 categories. It's overwhelming, but as they say, one man's junk is another man's treasure.
SAN MIGUEL: The thing I find fascinating about eBay is that it's not just an online auction site but it's also a community for buyers and sellers.
SALTZMAN: I think that's what separates eBay from the other online options in cyberspace, in that you can check the user ratings and feedback from people that have already had an experience with that particular seller. And the feedback can be broken down into negative, neutral and positive. Let's scroll through some of these. Here's some praise: "very smooth transaction, prompt service."
SAN MIGUEL: I may want to know that if I'm going to rely on him to get a gift for my friends.
SALTZMAN: Absolutely. And if a seller has less than stellar praise, he has an opportunity to respond.
SAN MIGUEL: Now, there's something called a "power seller," what is that?
SALTZMAN: That's something good to look for as well. If sellers have an icon beside their names that says, "power seller," it means that they have a user feedback that is 98 percent positive or higher. So, the majority of people who bought items from this particular seller were pleased with the process.
SAN MIGUEL: You can feel good about buying something from this person.
SALTZMAN: You can actually tweak your search parameters to only look for power sellers. Speaking of advanced search options, you can actually have the option to buy gift-wrapped items and have them sent directly to the recipient; and sometimes a card can also be included.
SAN MIGUEL: I've heard that if you misspell names it can work to your advantage.
SALTZMAN: That's actually my favorite tip. When you're searching, you may want to type Sony with two Y's or Gatway instead of Gateway. Let's try it. Let's say you type in Gateway correctly, you'll have over 2500 products. Now, take out the 'e' and you actually have seven sellers, who have misspelled Gateway, and in theory there will be fewer bids and you may have a chance to walk away with a product at a much cheaper price.
SAN MIGUEL: And if you don't have the time to go into the bidding process, bidding against thousands of people for the same item, how can you get around that?
SALTZMAN: You can purchase the product outright without having to bid on it. So, if you look for a product with a "buy it now" symbol, where the seller chose to have that option, you can buy the product on the spot -- no bidding is necessary and it should be competitively priced.
SAN MIGUEL: Well, the idea of shopping online is to get away from the crowds and the parking hassles in the mall, but there's also a way to get away from the crowds online as well.
SALTZMAN: Here are a couple of other quick tips. Look for fast payment options. Especially this time of the year, you don't want to wait for a mailed check to clear or a money order to be processed. So credit cards and Paypal are good options. Paypal is of course a popular online currency that eBay now owns. Also look for fast shipping and insurance. Sometimes a couple of dollars will save you the headache if a product gets lost. And also check the refund policy and what the seller's history and refund policy are.
SAN MIGUEL: And for those people who may be concerned about fraud, there are still a lot of people who are suspicious about doing any kind of shopping on the Internet.
SALTZMAN: My advice is to use your common sense. Don't give out your credit card information and don't give out your passwords. You know your user name, of course, but don't give out things that are personal to you. And make sure that if an item tells you to click out to another site, make sure it's still within the eBay family.
