Buying Cheap

Frustration with suppliers in China!

garetho — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 10:00:46 +0000

I have had my UK site up now for a few months and by this stage I was hoping to have USB sticks, MP4 players and card readers up for sale. Due to issues with suppliers I have only been able to build on my database for cheap cds and cheap dvds plus write reviews and blogs. It’s catch 22 with some suppliers in China. You get the great cheap prices but the down side is that you have delivery and quality problems with samples. One product I did arrange a sample for was for a pair of ‘mp3 player sun glasses’. Great except for the fact you couldn’t actually see out of the lenses!! So when you’re running you would neither hear the cars nor see them – court case waiting to happen. The kamikaze glasses I ended up calling them and the interest stopped there.

The MP4 player and USB stick samples were excellent, but the order for them was placed 2 months ago and still no word on when I am going to get them. At this stage I’m not even sure if I’ll get them at all! There are definitely some great suppliers in China, but you just have to weave through the crap ones to find them. China is now the hub for all production and I guess when a small company tries to order something they are battling it out with the big companies like Apple, Dell etc to get their products on the boat so chances are… slim to none!

Still I’ll not give up hope and will eventually have consumer electronic products for sale on the site at the best price with quality to match. Watch this space

Gareth O’ Neill

The time for open source CMS

garetho — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:57:45 +0000

I was using a simple editor to create my UK site – namely Google Apps but found that there were limitations with it. I got frustrated with lack of options in templates and limited functionality. So the question was where do I go next. Mambo, Joomla and Drupal were the three options I heard most about. Companies such as IBM done an analysis of them and I posted a question about in on the Marketing Profs web site (which I have to say is a fantastic web site for online material and seminars about developing business online. It also has a great community).

The conclusion was that Drupal was the best. It is easy to create search engine friendly URLs, the layout and template designs are really good and it seems to have more functionality than Joomla and Mambo. It is a big learning curve and when I first started I didn’t know how to do anything! But I done a bit of self training and I like it. Web 2.0 is the way forward and Drupal is definitely a CMS for that.

Building a site for the UK

garetho — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 02:56:01 +0000

Following on from creating the Australian web site www.buyingcheap.com.au I have set up www.buyingcheap.co.uk. With this I have targeted the music and movies markets, so I can concentrate on building more detailed content. My aim is to sort out partnerships with the brands that bring the lowest prices and best service in the UK such as CD-WOW, HMV, Amazon, DVD.co.uk etc.

Further down the line I will be selling GON electronic products such as MP4 players, USB sticks, digital cameras etc plus some cool new gadgets for excellent prices. These guys are an up and coming brand and I will be happy to sell them on Buying Cheap UK so watch this space!

eBay Tips for Beginners in Buying

garetho — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 14:23:04 +0000

eBay dominates the consumer purchasing world for internet savy people but there are still a lot of people who make mistakes and don’t get the bargains they should. Many of my friends and colleagues had still not used eBay (nor did they know how to) until I give them a few tips on how to get the best prices.

For anyone who is an eBay king / queen there’s no need to read on, for anyone who is not… just 3 tips which could make a big difference:

P.S. You’ll have to register (or log in if you have already registered) to have access to some of the functionality I will talk about.

Buying on eBay

1. Never enter your maximum bid at the start

When you enter your maximum bid eBay will initially just show the lowest amount which puts you in a winning position. But the problem with entering your maximum amount so early is that you can get impulse buyers who are prepared to pay quite high to get the item they are bidding on. When they enter their bid and eBay comes back with the message saying that they have been outbid they will keep entering higher figures until they hold the maximum bid. The result of this is that you are quickly out bid and the chance of a bargain is gone.

2. Be patient

Patience is the name of the game, there is excitement in online auctions and a real sense of achievement when you win the auction. But don’t let that excitement get the better of you, and avoid the ego trip in trying to win all the auctions you take part in.

If you know exactly what you’re looking for, use the ’Advanced Search’ option under the search bar. Enter the item description and tick the box for ’Completed listings only’. From this you will see the previous winning bids for the item you want and it will give you a better idea of how much you should be paying. With that in mind (and taking your own financial situation into consideration) set yourself a limit for highest bid.

If you are bidding on an item and the price goes beyond your target then BE PATIENT and do not make erratic bids. There are millions of items added to eBay each day and unless you are searching for an extremely rare object I can guarantee there will be more of the same items added by other users at a later time. If the item you want is new on the market then the longer you can wait the better. In time the demand will slow down and the supply will increase, as a result the price will come down. A prime example of this is when the nokia 6131 was released. They were selling for over AUD$500 on eBay, I had set myself a target of $250 and added all the listings that I could find to my watch list. The ‘Watch Item’ function is excellent and you should definitely use it. Instead of making bids you can add items to your watch list. eBay will then notify you by email when an auction is coming to the end. You can then check the price and make up your mind if it is cheap enough for you to outbid it.

If you think you’re on to a winner (price wise) then enter your bid when there is only about 20 seconds left. That way you don’t give competitors any time to outbid you and you should win the bid.

I had to wait an extra 2 weeks for my phone, but got it for the price I wanted and did not get involved in bidding wars.

3. Read everything before you commit to buying

This is common sense but it is amazing how many people overlook this – Read before you buy! Read the full item description, read the feedback that the seller has received from previous buyers and read the postage, payment and return policy. At search level some items seem to be cheaper than others but the first thing to look at is the condition column on the actual product page. The chances are that the other ones are ‘new’ and the cheapest one is ‘used’. So check this out before making a bid.

Be aware of the seller’s feedback rating. If the seller has no feedback then don’t buy from them. For low selling price items check out the postage cost. People often make their profit from that if there is very little profit on the sale price. Trust your instincts, if something sounds strange then don’t buy. The same spec item will appear again on eBay.

For extra security I definitely recommend that you use Pay Pal to buy your item.

Good luck and happy bidding.

Regards,

Gareth

If you are still not convinced that eBay is the place to buy then check out www.buyingcheap.com.au where you will see the cheapest prices from the brands that you trust.

The online world continues to grow at an exponential rate

garetho — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 13:51:56 +0000

The internet is fast becoming the place to do everything, whether it is buying products on sites such as eBay, looking for information on online encyclopaedias like Wikipedia, or meeting new people on sites such as My Space . But as more sites are introduced, people have more and more to choose from and their patience gets shorter and shorter. When the world wide web started it was an art to find the information you were looking for. You would spend hours digging through pages on sites trying to find the information you want, but them days are long gone. The back button is now the most used button on browsers because if people see a site that cannot show them straight away what they are looking for then they will go back out to Google , Yahoo or MSN and find a site that will.

The key is to have an appealing landing page that really grabs attention. Keep your content catchy and to the point. People are not interested in reading pages upon pages of detail.The internet is seen by a lot of people as the place to go to get a bargain. There are less overhead costs than buying from a company who have to rent out a department store or pay lots of staff to sit by the phones, process orders etc. So consumers rightly expect these lower costs to transcend down to the sell price of items. Would you now consider booking flights on the phone? The answer for the majority of people is no! Companies such as Ryan Air, Easyjet, Virgin Blue and Jet Star have turned the travel industry on it’s head Established in November 06 and based in Sydney Australia I have developed the site www.buyingcheap.com.au . What I aim to do with this site is to provide consumers with the cheapest deals on CDs, DVDs, iPods, flights, and downloads . Instead of having to search through lots of different sites for the best prices I aim to do all that for you and show you the top two prices on the web. I could show you 400 different prices for the same product, but lets face it – are you interested in seeing all 400 prices? My research has shown that the answer to that question (by the majority of people) is no. A typical response I have had to that question is “No, I just want to see the cheapest price, providing it is from a reputable company”

This is what my site www.buyingcheap.com.au provides for people in
Australia. Regards,

Gareth O’ Neill

Cheap cds

garetho — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 23:20:50 +0000

Dirt Cheap CDsRobbie Williams – Rude Box $15.00 Cd Wow (free delivery)
Robbie Williams – Rude Box $16.95

Cd Wow (free delivery) U2 – Singles $16.95 Big W U2 – Singles $17.82

Big W

Damien Leith – Winners Journey $17.82

Sanity
Damien Leith – Winners Journey $17.99

Big W
Snow Patrol – Eyes Open $17.82

Cd Wow (free delivery)

Snow Patrol – Eyes Open $18.95

Big W
Wolfmother – Wolfmother $17.82

CD Wow
Wolfmother – Wolfmother $18.95

Dirt Cheap CDs
Kylie Minogue – Ultimate Kylie $12.00

Big W

Kylie Minogue – Ultimate Kylie $17.82

For more cheap cds, dvds, ipods, downloads and flights you can visit www.buyingcheap.com.au