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With many 40k plans in mind, and recently being able to make online purchases, I decided to get some stuff from ebay. Knowing that I needed some heavy weapons teams and extra tanks/scenery for my new IG army, I went ahead and bought two things:

-10 A4 Sheets of 1mm Plasticard = £9.99
-1x Heavy Weapons Team NIB = £7.99

Totalling £17.98. Saving over £6 on a GW-sale of a HWT, and allowing me to put together a few extra things. Like a Traitor Guard LRBT knock-off.

So, what kind of relationship do you have with Ebay and 40k? Good/Bad purchases/sales? Much savings?

Some savings. I haven't made many purchases via ebay, but I do buy from discount retailers, some of them with ebay pages. The main tradeoff is that GW does tend to ship things quickly, as opposed to the 2 or more weeks from other retailers like ebay. Pretty much, YMMV

BladeSwinga wrote:
Some savings. I haven't made many purchases via ebay, but I do buy from discount retailers, some of them with ebay pages. The main tradeoff is that GW does tend to ship things quickly, as opposed to the 2 or more weeks from other retailers like ebay. Pretty much, YMMV

I'd rather wait 2 weeks for a box of 40k and pay <£10 than only wait for 3 days and pay more than twice that. And if it's a small purchase, have to pay even moar for GW's P&P.

I have got some wonderful deals from ebay. Although my friends win has to take the cake. He got 34 marines, a tonne of bitz, a Predator tank, a tonne of orks and ork bitz all for the price of 24 pounds.


I just end up getting deals on Khorne Bezerkers, I can't help but buy more of them when they are so cheap (and maybe in 15 years they will be useful once more)

 Selym wrote:

BladeSwinga wrote:
Some savings. I haven't made many purchases via ebay, but I do buy from discount retailers, some of them with ebay pages. The main tradeoff is that GW does tend to ship things quickly, as opposed to the 2 or more weeks from other retailers like ebay. Pretty much, YMMV

I'd rather wait 2 weeks for a box of 40k and pay <£10 than only wait for 3 days and pay more than twice that. And if it's a small purchase, have to pay even moar for GW's P&P.

Pretty much my view on it. Heck, I'm in Canada, just shy of Australia in terms of absurdly high prices (Does $60 CAD for a box of terminators appeal to you?)
Discount retailers are my first pick for getting 40k, but I do know there can be some risks with them. I haven't had any troubles, but there are threads full of stories of bad retailers.
Also, small purchases here are nearly impossible with the shipping from GW; the free shipping threshold is $80 here, and orders below that pay $20 shipping. It's really infuriating looking at US prices when we're so close...

I buy pretty much all of my stuff off ebay these days (FLGS is over an hour away :() and I'd say you can really clean up. It all comes down to the following

1) Patience. Look for bulk lots, NIB items, and miscellaneous bits, then bid low and walk away. If you find a good deal on Buy it Now get it, but search thoroughly with all the key words first. As of this writing there are over 36K 40k category auctions on ebay.

2) Again, Patience. Let the bids ride, and avoid them in the last few hours / minutes so you don't get attached and bid yourself out of your price point at the last minute. If you shy at the price upon first seeing it, don't go back and convince yourself you can afford it, just wait for a cheaper item to come down the pipe over the next few days / weeks.

3) You guessed it, Patience. Realize you're going to lose 19/20 auctions this way and just accept it. Bide your time, stick to your guns in terms of price / items / condition you want, and wait for it. You can get things very cheap this way if you just have the moxy to stick it out

Hope that helps

You really have to scour eBay for anything good. Depends on what your bitz box looks like. Most of the stuff on eBay is either too expensive and doesn't come with any extras or is trashed beyond any reasonable amount of time and effort. Plastics are the worst for time so I always try to hit up metal auctions or unassembled stuff for the best paint job I can put on them.

Additionally, while I always see some great deals I never seem to collecting the right army for the deal. Watch out for the newest darling of the tournaments as well. That stuff will always go for more than its worth to people with money to blow and a need to win.

Bartertown.com, much better than Feebay

So much of my 40k stuff is purchased through that site, my friends and I refer to my Eldar as "Craftworld Ebay"

It takes patience to find a good deal, but they exist. I picked up a ravenwing army for well under MSRP, and sold off some of the extras to where my net spending was under $100 USD.

Ebay has been very very good to me. I bought a 3000pt WS army for $400. It's retail was around $1300.

I bought my first army, Necrons, from Ebay as well not the same deal I got on the WS but I saves a good 400 bucks.

I tend to stay away from ebay for a couple of reasons.

First, I'd rather support my local FLGS because I use their tables. So if I'm trying to buy anything new, I'll order it through them.

Second, for bits I'd rather go with a well known site rather than some random joe.

Pretty much everyone said the right thing. Look for older models, if you like them. Some metals now go more for than their finecast brethren, other go for less. I picked up 20 classic Swooping Hawks + Baharroth for maybe $50~$60? That's a bit more than the cost of 6 in the Finecast box.

So far pretty much everything I have but my Codex is from eBay. That does have pluses and minuses however.

I find that ebay can provide painted models, that let you get them on the table faster, if not in a very uniform way. However, I have gotten more than a few things that are missing bits. You also rarely get cheap stuff with extra options. I also avoid all the new on sprue stuff, as I think much of it is chinese recasts, which I am just not cool with. If something is on the sprue, it better have a box.

I totally agree with Instinctual about needing patcience. I try hard at that, but sometime fail. My goal is to buy stuff at a low enough price that I can re-ebay it if needed and not lose too much money. (for example if 7th edition totally sucks.)

That all said, there are something that are better from a LFGS. First it is good to support the place you play. Plus, if they are stockists, you should be able to get at least 15% off all the time. In some cases that gets close to ebay. I know I plan to buy my next kit of Tau Pathfinders at the FLGS because I want a NEW kit with all the bits and their price is pretty close to eBay for new stuff.

Still, I will not give up on ebay.
Thanks,
Duncan

I spent the better part of a year scouring ebay for the infantry models for my Sisters army. I had wanted to do that army for years but the cost of getting it from GW was just prohibitively expensive. I still had to get some stuff from GW, but it was mainly some more heavy and special weapons to complete my squads.

I have a Tallarn Guard army. If I want models, and want to pay less than a kidney for them, I have to hit up Ebay. I've had positive results every time. As long as you only shop the "buy it now" sections (winning an auction is nigh impossible thanks to automated bots that outbid you the second you place a bid) and stick to sellers who have positive reviews, you should do allright.

squidhills wrote:
As long as you only shop the "buy it now" sections (winning an auction is nigh impossible thanks to automated bots that outbid you the second you place a bid) and stick to sellers who have positive reviews, you should do allright.

I am not sure I agree with that. Using Buy It Now (BIN) is great for getting items outside of auctions but you don't always get the best price. eBay charges extra for sellers to use BIN, which is often passed on to the buyer, and those BIN prices are usually set at a price that the seller is comfortable with which doesn't always translate to the best price for the buyer.

Regarding the automated bots, eBay has automatic bidding in place, so if you place a bid that isn't high enough to beat the previous bidder eBay automatically places a new bid on the previous bidder's behalf (up to their maximum bid amount). There are bidding services that assist with "sniping" i.e. placing a bid at the last possible moment to prevent counter-bids, but if you get outbid initially it is likely eBay's system that is knocking you out and not a bot.

I have bought lots of well painted models at lower than new price and sold unpainted / unwanted models to pay for them

Very happy with ebay

I have found some really great sellers on ebay that sell things at 18-30% discounts for NIB stuff. I have also picked up a few random pieces and pre-made, pre-primed items for some good deals.

However I still buy things at full retail price from my FLGS just because it's where I go to play, and the store owners are all super cool. So I would feel kind of bad always showing up to use their tables but bringing stuff that I purchased elsewhere.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

squidhills wrote:
As long as you only shop the "buy it now" sections (winning an auction is nigh impossible thanks to automated bots that outbid you the second you place a bid) and stick to sellers who have positive reviews, you should do allright.

I am not sure I agree with that. Using Buy It Now (BIN) is great for getting items outside of auctions but you don't always get the best price. eBay charges extra for sellers to use BIN, which is often passed on to the buyer, and those BIN prices are usually set at a price that the seller is comfortable with which doesn't always translate to the best price for the buyer.

Fortunately GW has a web page with their prices listed, so i can compare ebay to GW and see if I'm getting a better price.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Regarding the automated bots, eBay has automatic bidding in place, so if you place a bid that isn't high enough to beat the previous bidder eBay automatically places a new bid on the previous bidder's behalf (up to their maximum bid amount). There are bidding services that assist with "sniping" i.e. placing a bid at the last possible moment to prevent counter-bids, but if you get outbid initially it is likely eBay's system that is knocking you out and not a bot.

Sorry, I don't buy that. If the most recent bid is listed at $4.00 and I bid $5.00, my browser refreshes after I click "submit" and there is already a bid for $6.00? Don't tell me that's ebay bidding because I didn't bid higher than the previous person. $5.00 is higher than $4.00. If the most recent bid is actually $6.00 then the site should display that.

Selym wrote:So, what kind of relationship do you have with Ebay and 40k? Good/Bad purchases/sales? Much savings?

What I've found is that eBay is pretty crummy for those who have some money, and know what they want. If you treat it just like any other online store, you'll get the benefits of an online store (shipped directly to your house at call), but you won't really save that much money.

What ebay is really good for is for "passive buying". That is, you have a chaos army, and you're thinking about adding to it, and so you check ebay twice a day for a few months, filtering through the vast sea of junk you don't want until you come across that one auction that fell through the cracks, and has zero bids and is going to end in just a few minutes.

That's when you strike. That's when you get the actual deals. Last time I did this, I got (after some further trades of the stuff I didn't want with people at my FLGS) 20 assembled chaos space marines, 12 NiB chaos space marines, 8 terminators (converted with combi-meltas), a chaos lord, 16 cultists and nine NiB CSM bikes for $70. Were it all NiB at full retail, that would have cost me ~$380 + the price of melta bitz. That's a roughly 82% discount.

But there's no way I could have found that if I went to eBay looking to add some stuff. The odds that I'd have come across that deal would be astronomically low. It was only the result of weeks and weeks of patient filtering through rough before I found my diamond.

Some of my ebay purchases from the past 3 years

painted 2.5k white scar force (no starter set pieces), $300
full DA 3rd company, painted, with transports etc (no starter stuff) $220
3k Farsight Enclave force, painted $130
2k unpainted Grey knight list with 2 Dread knights $127
2.5k painted Armored Corp with mechanized platoons $200

....price those out from a studio or GW some time... ebay = mega savings

eBay has been excellent for sourcing old models for my sundry retro projects, namely my Valhallans and Ultramarines. Through the occasional misnamed listing, listing with bad pictures, or just something obscure people wouldn't look to search for, I've gotten some crazy good deals. I used to buy new stuff there too, but I haven't bought any modern kits from GW since the Space Marine release; it's strictly been old school stuff.

 Brother SRM wrote:
Through the occasional misnamed listing, listing with bad pictures, or just something obscure people wouldn't look to search for, I've gotten some crazy good deal.

This has been my key to savings too. Though I have had sellers just take the hit, refund, and then resell my "great deal" with a proper listing. Very very frustrating.

squidhills wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

squidhills wrote:
As long as you only shop the "buy it now" sections (winning an auction is nigh impossible thanks to automated bots that outbid you the second you place a bid) and stick to sellers who have positive reviews, you should do allright.

I am not sure I agree with that. Using Buy It Now (BIN) is great for getting items outside of auctions but you don't always get the best price. eBay charges extra for sellers to use BIN, which is often passed on to the buyer, and those BIN prices are usually set at a price that the seller is comfortable with which doesn't always translate to the best price for the buyer.

Fortunately GW has a web page with their prices listed, so i can compare ebay to GW and see if I'm getting a better price.

Great! I am glad you can use the internet to comparison shop. However I was responding to what you actually wrote in this thread which was: "As long as you only shop the 'buy it now' sections...and stick to seller who have positive reviews, you should do alright."
That isn't necessarily good or accurate advice.

squidhills wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Regarding the automated bots, eBay has automatic bidding in place, so if you place a bid that isn't high enough to beat the previous bidder eBay automatically places a new bid on the previous bidder's behalf (up to their maximum bid amount). There are bidding services that assist with "sniping" i.e. placing a bid at the last possible moment to prevent counter-bids, but if you get outbid initially it is likely eBay's system that is knocking you out and not a bot.

Sorry, I don't buy that. If the most recent bid is listed at $4.00 and I bid $5.00, my browser refreshes after I click "submit" and there is already a bid for $6.00? Don't tell me that's ebay bidding because I didn't bid higher than the previous person. $5.00 is higher than $4.00. If the most recent bid is actually $6.00 then the site should display that.

You are right. My bad. You discovered a conspiracy of evil bidding bots out to ruin your day. Prepare for your lobotomy, the eBay drones are being dispatched now.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
eBay charges extra for sellers to use BIN, which is often passed on to the buyer, and those BIN prices are usually set at a price that the seller is comfortable with which doesn't always translate to the best price for the buyer.

No, BIN is a free option when you post an auction.

Speaking to this thread from the other side, I have been actively eBaying tons of stuff (about $3000 worth) over the course of the past year as I was moving and wanted to get rid of some of my excess armies. I consider myself a pretty good seller in that I pretty much always have stuff in the mail within 24 hours, and I've only ever had one thing break during shipping -- a Finecast Huron Blackheart that was one of my first sales and I packed too tightly. I gave the guy a full refund.

Generally speaking, if I put up a 5 or 7 day auction with a BIN on it, if it doesn't sell in the first day, it seems little to no activity until the last 20 minutes. Therefore, I have to make sure my minimum price really is acceptable, because there's always a chance that's all I'll get. I usually have BIN set fairly high, like 75%-90% of MSRP.

As far as what sells: pewter > retro > vehicles > books > infantry > characters > fantasy

I'm a big fan of old models and have a fair few armies that I've bought entirely off eBay. I also use it for modelling supplies.

For new stuff, it's not that great - I'd rather go to the local discount FLGS

Nearly everything 40k I own is from ebay, (I have no FLGS don't judge me) Never had a problem. I just by things labeled NIB or With a picture of the box on. I got some Tankbustas once that looked shifty in the picture but turned out fine. Just be careful and get NIB items. AA-wargames, and Foostickens are both good sellers.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:


Great! I am glad you can use the internet to comparison shop. However I was responding to what you actually wrote in this thread which was: "As long as you only shop the 'buy it now' sections...and stick to seller who have positive reviews, you should do alright."
That isn't necessarily good or accurate advice.

Failing to see how my statement isn't good or accurate. If you're on ebay looking for deals, you are probably smart enough to know how to comparison shop, so you would be smart enough to avoid 'buy it now' posts that charge more than you would pay getting it from a retailer. If you aren't smart enough to comparison shop, why are you on ebay looking for deals? If you buy from sellers who have negative reviews, you might get cheated or burned. How is it bad advice to advise people to deal only with sellers with good reviews? Sure, if you get in a bidding war with someone on a post from a seller with negative reviews, you might still score a big win and make out like a bandit. But it's not as likely as playing it safe and smart.

I have had a few good deals on eBay. It's also where I get any FW stuff I buy. Granted, I have to be a little cautious when buying FW items because of recasts(never buy FW items from China or Russia). Actually I've found that the majority of my amazing purchases has come from dakka's swap shop.

Love it. I got many really good deals and saved a lot of money.

You just need patience. Have a list of stuff you may like and do some searches every few days. You will eventually find really cheap&cool stuff, both in auctions and "buy it now" modes. It doesn´t work well if you want ONE single thing, it works better if you are open to many possibilities and search which offer is the best.

Be aware that auction bidding can be addictive, you may suddenly find yourself expending a lot of money. This should be obvious, but be sure you are really willing to pay that much. When I find one I write down how much I will pay for that, and never get over that price. Also add delivery costs to anything.

Good luck!