My name is Dale and I am an eBay addict.

At any given time, I am watching a dozen or so boat-related auctions. I check the site several times each day in hopes of finding new boating bits and pieces. When I can, I even cruise the listings for whole boats, though I am rarely in the market for one.

In my seven years of eBay addiction, I have purchased sails, rigging, safety gear, plumbing and electrical parts, a life raft, an outboard engine – even a small sailboat. I estimate the site has helped me save at least $7,000. It can help you save some cash too.

The reason is simple. There are two kinds of boaters: guys who don’t care what it costs and guys like me. I can basically afford the boat I own, but the cost of insurance, fuel, storage, repairs and upgrades keeps me scratching my head. I am always looking for ways to save money and eBay is one of the best tools I know.eBayFrom entire boats to parts and pieces, almost anything can be found on eBay eventually.

With a little bit of practice and patience, eBay can help cut hundreds of dollars – sometimes even thousands – off the price of boating equipment. How much can you save? I once bought a Winslow 6-person life raft for less than a dollar. But we’ll get to that.

For those who don’t know, eBay is an auction site and perhaps the largest market for used goods in the world, offering 10 million buyers a month the opportunity to bid on and purchase almost anything (firearms and living creatures are the two big exceptions). On any given day there are literally millions of items up for auction on eBay, ranging from “new in the box” condition to those carrying an “I’m Not Really Sure” designation. A search in late March, for example, showed that more than 18,000 boat parts were available.

Unlike traditional auctions, eBay allows you to compete against other bidders in a virtual arena. The site has rules that govern each transaction, a feedback scheme to evaluate buyers and sellers, and a system that allows auctions to be conducted over a period of time ranging from 10 days to mere seconds.

The first step toward understanding eBay is to register on the site. It costs nothing and is no more complicated than selecting a User ID and a password. Your user ID is similar to the bidder number that you would be given at a traditional auction. All of your transactions will be linked to this ID. Once your account is established – it takes only minutes – you can watch auctions, bid on items and list them for sale. EBay even gives you a handy page called “My EBay” that helps you keep track of it all.

FINDING YOUR GEAR

The easiest way to wade in is to simply go shopping. On eBay, that means searching for the gear you want, and there are several ways to approach it. The easiest way is to click on the search box and type in a description. If you are looking for Blue Seas marine electrical components, you will likely find some when you do a search on “Blue Seas.” However, you will also find that there are many other items that fit the “Blue Seas” criteria, from baby clothes to jewelry.

eBayeBay tracks the most popular searches within a category. Here are the top 10 boat searches on June 29.Try and keep your searches specific, and relax the description particulars as necessary to find what you want. My regular queries range from a general look at anything that contains the word “sailboat” to searches focused on specific components, specific manufactures or even specific model numbers.

Like any web-based search, spelling is important on eBay –misspellings can be a way to find bargains. For example, most people know how to spell “Hobie Cat.” If you were looking for parts or accessories, “Hobie” would be your search word. However, a few extra searches might yield items spelled “Hobby Cat,” “Hoby Kat,” and “Hobbie Kat.” The misspellings make these items easy to miss. So, while the average person is bidding on properly-spelled items, items spelled wrong can sometimes be had for much less, because there is less competition.

One nice feature is that eBay allows you to save searches, and will notify you via email when items that match your description arrive on the site. This can be a powerful tool, because it allows you to troll for bargains with very little effort. Say, for example, you were looking for a Raymarine C-80 navigation display. You could setup a search and eBay will notify you when buyers list the item.

You can then track the action on the C-80 by selecting the “Watch This Item” button, which will squirrel away the page in your “My EBay” section for later reference. Watching items has many advantages. It puts you in a position to bid, but it can also be a way to get acquainted with the street price of equipment. If you watch three C-80 units sell for between $900 and $950, you’ll know bargains – and inflated prices – when you see them.

EVERYTHING IS AVAILABLE

Whatever your technique, it won’t take you long to find many things you need and want – perhaps too many. Don’t be surprised if you lose entire nights looking at pages of navigation electronics or night vision binoculars. You’ll quickly notice there are differences between sellers. Some are individuals emptying the garage. Others are businesses using eBay to extend their reach beyond the local store. There are also differences in price. The same items in roughly the same condition can carry substantially different price tags, and just because an item is listed on eBay doesn’t mean it is a bargain.eBayHere’s what a hot auction looks like: 18 bids with 8 hours and 23 minutes left.

Another thing you may come across is large collections of items known as “lots.” Often, a seller will have many items that are not worth the time to list for sale individually. Instead, they will sell them in a lot, meaning the winning bid gets the entire trove. Hand tools, CDs and DVDs are often sold this way. Lots are usually a mixed bag, with useful items scattered in a sea of broken, worn or outmoded stuff. But they sometimes yield bargains, because buyers are scared off by the junk. The key is to find lots that contain a few gems – gems worth more than the purchase price – and to get comfortable with the idea that the rest of your new purchase will go into the donation bin or the trash.

With all that enticing gear floating around out there, there are a couple of mistakes that new eBayers tend to make. One is buying something you don’t need, just because it is cheap. That’s a quick way to clutter your boat and your garage (trust me when I say I know this first-hand). Another mistake is assuming your particular need is too specialized or too obscure, and will therefore never be found.

Everything is available on eBay sooner or later.

I have a great example to prove it. I bought a Yamaha 4 HP kicker once that was missing a cowl. Because of that, I got a good deal: $125. Yamaha, bless them, wanted roughly $300 for that one-pound piece of plastic, but I was determined to beat that.

I watched eBay for almost three years before I found one. It was listed in Great Britain, and I won the auction for $75, including freight. It was the darndest thing. I could have bought a cowl for every outboard Yamaha ever made many times over – except for that 4 HP. But persistence paid off. Sorry, Yamaha.

BUYING YOUR GEAR

Soon enough, you are going to want to bid on something, and this is where many people get nervous. Money and goods are changing hands. Strangers have to trust each other. Nobody wants to make mistakes.

Doing some homework can increase your confidence. EBay is easy, but it is not effortless. Gathering information on the item you are buying and the seller you are buying from goes a long way. Remember too that eBay has tutorials that walk you through the procedures and are very helpful.

eBay Shopping for parts, whether for the plumbing and electrical systems or up on deck, is a smart strategy to save money.Let’s say you happen to do a search for a Penn fishing reel. One of the 36 listings that you find is brand new in the box, “never been fished,” so to speak. It has a current bid of $5, the auction ends in four days and bidding is set in $1 increments.

You might “sport bid,” which is something I do from time to time. Often an item that I really don’t need will come along at an excellent price. You find your self thinking if I get it for such and so price, I’ll have a spare. Or perhaps you know the value of the item and maybe it can be resold for a stunning profit. Sport bidding involves bidding low – sometimes a buck or two – because you don’t care if you loose the item. If a Penn reel comes up new in the box for $5, I am going to bid the five bucks and take my chances, even if I don’t need one right now.

KNOW YOUR SELLER

But if the item is something you really want, the smart eBayer does a little research first. First, find out what the reel is worth. You look on the Cabela’s site, or perhaps at your local tackle shop. Perhaps it turns out that a new reel costs about $200. You then look at similar eBay listings. Maybe they range from $65 to $230. On its face, the auction looks good. The price looks promising and pictures of the reel in the seller’s listing show an item in pristine condition. If you did have questions about the reel, eBay has a system that allows you to communicate them to the seller.eBayHere is a seller’s feedback score, which is a ratings system that allows eBay users to report on each other. Only do business with buyers and sellers who have solid scores.

The next step is to learn more about that seller. EBay has a ratings system that evaluates all buyers and sellers – you included – based on feedback from those they transact with. Your feedback rating is your report card for the world to see, before they choose to do business with you. A buyer or seller can inspect your feedback rating at any time – and they can add to it.

The people you have done business with via eBay are the ones that rate you, using a designation of positive, negative or neutral. They can also leave comments. If you paid for an item promptly after your last purchase, it will be noted in your feedback. If you answered questions quickly and shipped the item properly after your last sale, that too will be reflected. If you are not conscientious, it will be on the record. Buyers may not buy from you and sellers can refuse to sell to you.

EBay itself does not rate you, but the company does calculate the percentage of positive feedback, which acts as a type of overall score. A seller with a 100 percent would have a perfect record. This is the place to size up your seller. EBay users take these scores seriously, so they tend to be high. Generally speaking, you want to see something 90 percent or higher. You also want to look at the comments, which should also be positive. If you see comments complaining about late deliveries or other problems, move on. If the item escapes you, another will come along.

You also need to look at the cost of shipping. On eBay, shipping an item is the responsibility of the seller, but it is the buyer who pays for it. Check the shipping fees before you place a bid because they will increase your overall cost. But remember too that shipping is a fact of life. You have probably paid for shipping and handling on every item you have ever purchased. The difference is that on eBay you know exactly what it costs.

PROXY BIDDING

Let’s say you are going to bid. The $5 opening bid is a no brainer – you know the reel is worth $200 – so you bid $5. One of two things will happen. You may get a notice on your screen that you are the current high bidder. Or, you may be notified that you were instantly outbid by another eBay shopper. How can that be?

Enter proxy bidding.

Most people can’t sit at their computer all day long monitoring auctions. Instead, eBay allows you to bid your maximum right up front in the form of a proxy bid. Here’s how it works. Let’s say you are willing to pay $80 for the reel and you do so with a proxy bid. If you are the successful high bidder at $5, a $5 bid will be placed on that item in your name. The remaining $75 – think of it as a bank roll – will be used by eBay to automatically bid higher on that item if needed. The seller does not know what your maximum amount is and neither do competing bidders. Only you and eBay know. If the auction ends and you are the winner at $5, nobody knows $75 was left on the table.

eBayHere is what a bid looks like. You put in your maximum amount and eBay does the work.If, on the other hand, another buyer takes liking to the reel and bids $8, your proxy bid will automatically re-bid for you using the increment associated with your auction, which in this case is $1. It will keep doing so until you reach your maximum offering price. This is a great feature when you are out of town, don’t want to stay up late or if you are on the boat and up to your elbows in bottom paint. It also keeps you from getting carried away and bidding on pure emotion.

EBay can mean long days of waiting, but this can be a good thing for a buyer and a seller both. The long auction time allows sellers enough time for their items to gain attention. For buyers, the long format allows you to scoot down to the boat to measure, make sure an item will fit, check the pricing on the item and do your homework. Meanwhile, if you are lucky, another paycheck has dropped into your pocket.

“BUY IT NOW”

There is another way to buy, commonly known as the “buy it now” auction. This is exactly what it sounds like. Sellers have the option to list their items for a set price in addition to the auction, which gives buyers the option to grab the item and close the auction instantly. Sometimes, these prices are inflated. But they can sometimes be real bargains. Many a great deal can be had using “buy it now” auctions, because sellers are sometimes unaware of the real value of the item or just want quick cash. The catch is that these are first come, first served situation. I bought a great set of Bennett trim taps on a “buy it now” at 6:30 a.m. EST on a Saturday morning, before the majority of the country even got out of bed. I have also lost some real deals when I hesitated, thought twice, logged back in and the item was gone.eBayThis sailboat, a Contessa 26, is listed as a “Buy it Now” item. For $5,500, in can be yours – with no bidding involved.

Some of my best deals were obtained late at night, when an auction ends during a football game or on a holiday. Remember that timing on auctions is precise. For example, say the Penn reel was listed by a night owl on the west coast, a gift two years ago from his brother-in-law that he never used. He places a starting bid of $5.00 on the item, selects a seven-day auction, and hits the ENTER key at 11:15 p.m. PST. That auction will end 7 days from then, right to the second.

This is important for buyer and seller alike. If you are an east coaster, you may have a tough time staying up to 2:15 a.m. EST to enter your final bid on the last day of the auction. The same holds true an item is listed at 8 p.m. EST. The average west coaster is going to be stuck in rush hour traffic at about then and unable to bid.

However you buy – auction or immediate – let’s say you got your reel. How you pay for an item is up to the seller. Most sellers don’t like personal checks. They are a hassle because shipping gets delayed while the check clears the bank. Money orders are great, especially those from the U.S. Postal Service, which are one of only a few that are accepted in Canada. There is also Paypal, a service that, for a small commission, allows buyers to pay online. By establishing a Paypal account that is connected to your bank or credit card, you can pay immediately with a minimum of effort.

SELLING OUT

I started out as a buyer. But eventually, I decided that I needed to sell some stuff to support my boat and eBay habits. Selling is a bit different, and you need to take a business approach. To start, you must make a listing that describes your item. If you have been a buyer for any length of time, you know some listings are better than others. The key to a good listing is to include everything that is pertinent to that item and to be honest about it. Think like a buyer, and answer the questions that a buyer would logically ask (before you receive a ton of email asking those very same questions). A good listing will contain how an item was used, its age, model numbers, manufacturer, dimensions, weight and anything else important. It will also include several quality pictures. If the item has some wear or damage, show that in the pictures. That scratch may bring back the bad memory of a bungled docking maneuver, but it means absolutely nothing to someone else if the price is right. My attitude is good used parts for a good used boat.eBayThe bidding history on this item shows how it went from $20 to $200. But it doesn’t name the bidders.

Pay careful attention to how you price your stuff. I post an el-cheapo opening bid, for several reasons. Again, think like a buyer. If a $50 item has an opening bid of $35, I typically figure why bother. If that same item had an opening bid of $1, I am automatically interested. It may eventually reach $35, which may or may not be a deal, but it held my interest from the start. The more people you have bidding and watching your item, the more it will sell for.

Many sellers get nervous listing a $200 item for $1, thinking they would rather keep it. But eBay has solved this problem by incorporating a “reserve” feature that allows a seller to set a minimum price. For example, you might list your item for $1 but elect to place a reserve of $50. If the bidding does not reach the $50 reserve price, the auction ends and you keep your item. The reserve amount is not available to potential buyers, but it is common to see a “reserve not met” posting on auctions.

As a seller, it is important to post honest and reasonable shipping costs. Few things tick off eBayers more than inflated shipping fees. Weigh the item, select your preferred shipping method, add a couple of bucks for packaging. EBay has a great shipping calculator that uses zip codes to determine costs to the nickel. Do not try to make money on shipping. It’s bad form.

DISPUTE RESOLUTION

With all of this buying and selling going on, sooner or latter there will be misunderstandings. We have all read stories about people getting taken on eBay, whether because the seller was misleading or the buyer was naive. But the experience I have had, no doubt shared by millions of others, has been overwhelmingly positive. In the seven years I have been buying and selling on eBay, I have never been stiffed.

eBayKnowing the seller is important. eBay gives you feedback scores, what the seller has listed and how long they have sold. This seller is a relative newcomer.But the company does have a support system to help to resolve disputes, and in my limited experience that works pretty well too. About three years ago, I was the successful high bidder on a Sunfish sailboat. The listing indicated the item was located in Detroit, Michigan, and was a “pick-up only” item. This meant that I had to go get it because the buyer was not willing to arrange shipping for something so large. I live only about four hours from Detroit, so I emailed the seller after the auction to coordinate the pickup. When I inquired about an address, so that I could use MapQuest to get a route, they indicated the boat was actually more than 3 hours north of Detroit.

To me, a listing in Detroit meant somewhere within a half hour of downtown. I had planned on four hours to get there, an hour to load and four hours to get home, all in a Saturday drive. An additional six hours was out of the question. I told the seller that I would not purchase the boat because of the misleading location listing, unless they got the boat closer to Detroit. The seller went ballistic and gave me some nasty negative feedback on eBay’s system. I contacted eBay and they put us into virtual arbitration with a third-party arbitrator. When the dust settled, eBay removed the negative feedback from my record, providing I never buy anything from that seller again, and the seller was out of luck.

THE 99 CENT RAFT

If you spend any time on eBay, you will quickly learn that most people just want smooth transactions. My experience is that they will go out of their way to do things right – and to do the right thing. I try to do the same, which brings me to the story of that six-person Winslow life raft.

eBayAn auction listing gives a fair amount of information: the current bid, the high bidder, the bidding history and the amount of time left. There is also a description of the item and multiple photos (not shown).The raft was five years old and came with a soft valise – and it was listed for 99 cents. I figured it was either the deal of a lifetime or some sort of a scam, but it turned out to be neither. Apparently the seller meant to list the life raft with a 99-cent opening bid, but instead created a “buy it now” auction for 99 cents. It was a keyboard mistake – a costly one.

When they received the announcement that I had just purchased the life raft for 99 cents, they realized the problem. The life raft was legally mine, but when the seller emailed me and explained the mistake – and said they would honor the auction contract anyway – I folded. I thought about what it would be like to botch something like that. I told the seller that I knew it was too good to be true, that I would not be completing the purchase and to have a nice day. They emailed me back in disbelief, thanked me profusely and posted glowing feedback. Naturally, I watched the re-listed raft for the next 10 days. I had to smile when it sold for more than $800.

Dale Tanski has spent four decades on the water and has restored several boats. His work has appeared in Good Old Boat magazine