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Buying Online


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When buying online, you have the choice of either shopping for antiques on a dealer’s or antiques shop’s website, or bid for objects on auction at general shopping websites such as eBay. For bidding online, here are a few tips to win the auction:

Authenticity

When starting out for the first time, look for auctions where the seller is a registered dealer or a ‘favorite dealer’ with high user ratings. The probability of accidentally buying a fake antique greatly reduces under such conditions.

Look for Seller Mistakes

Chances of errors occurring on sites such as eBay are high. Conduct your searches for both correct and incorrect terms to broaden your results. Other bidders may not look for incorrect information, thus giving you an advantage over others on the bidding competition.

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Consider an Automated Sniping Service

‘Sniping’ refers to jumping in during the last few seconds of an auction to place a bid, without giving the other bidders an opportunity to counter-bid. This bidding strategy has been manually employed by many eager bidders for quite some time now and more and more buyers are using online services to help automate the process these days.

Consider Search Keywords

While searching too broadly can yield numerous results, being too specific can eliminate results you might be interested in. If your first search yields thousands of auction listings, consider adding a word like ‘vintage’ to eliminate newer items. Adding a colour or date to your search query might also help.

Pay Attention to Shipping Charges

Shipping and handling charges can really heighten the cost of your finds if you're not careful. Read auction descriptions before bidding and e-mail the seller if you're not sure how much you'll be charged for delivery on a particular piece. Sometimes it's more cost-effective to find what you're seeking locally.

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