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20 Tips for buying at the lowest price

1 - Check misspelled items

The basic law of eBay is that the more people who want to buy an item, the more bids it attracts and the higher the item's final selling price. So to secure a bargain, find the auctions few other people are bidding on. One way is by finding badly spelled auctions. 'Evlis' CDs and 'Toshbia' laptops go unnoticed by people typing the correct spelling into the Search box, so you face fewer rival bidders driving up the price. The Fat Fingers website (www.fatfingers.com) offers a fast, free way to find misspelled auctions. Type a term into the site's Search box to see a list of related misspellings going for a song on eBay.

2 - Get clever with search terms

Savvy search terms can uncover misspellings and alternative spellings of an item. An asterisk serves as a wild card in eBay's Search box, so if you type 'Can* dig* camera' (without the quote marks) eBay's search engine will return a list of auctions, including Canon digital cameras and misspelled 'Cannon' cameras. The latter attracts fewer bids and stays at a lower price. Brackets and commas are also useful. Type '(toshiba,toshbia)' and the list of results will include both spellings. The words in brackets should be separated by a comma but no space.

3 - Check the wrong category

You can narrow your search by selecting an item category from the drop-down box on eBay's home

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page or on the left of the results page. But items can be listed in the wrong category, where they'll attract less attention and end up selling for less. If you leave the default All Categories option in the drop-down box and spend some time searching, you may find the Wii controller that slipped into the Nintendo DS category.

4 - Look for items that have no photo

Many people won't bid on an auction if it doesn't include a photo, or several photos if it's an expensive item. These auctions can be great places to find bargains. If you're not comfortable buying something you can't see, click on the 'Ask seller a question' link. You'll find it in the right-hand 'Meet the seller' box on the item page. Ask the seller to send you a photo by email.

5 - Try the classifieds

EBay includes classified ads as well as auctions and Buy It Now sales, though at the moment this is an option only in eBay Motors (http://motors.ebay.co.uk). These items are a fixed price. You don't complete the transaction through eBay; instead, you email the seller. To see classifieds, go to a category in eBay Motors and click the orange Classified Ads tab above the list of items. You could also try eBay-owned Gumtree (www.gumtree.com), which has a wider range of classifieds, organised regionally and with prices that frequently undercut eBay.

6 - Bid when it's quiet

To ensure you have fewer rivals for an item, choose an auction that's timed to end during one of eBay's quiet periods, such as a weekday morning or at night. Most bids happen during the final half hour, so if an auction ends when everyone's at work or in bed, the price stays low. Avoid bidding on auctions that end on Sunday evenings or weekday lunchtimes or evenings, when bidders flock on to eBay. Traffic fluctuates with the seasons, too. Warm summer days are quiet and Christmas Day is eBay's slowest day of the year. However, bleak winter weekends bring the bids flooding in, especially in the run-up to Christmas.