EBay is not always the cheapest option - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2017, 12:01:29 pm
content: I have been buying dozens of small items mostly from ebay and I have found a few things are frustratingly expensive. Not to mention the risk of utter tosh which is either barely fit for purpose or just completely unfit for purpose.Then I started to notice a few things. I knew these already, but it was a nice reminder. In particular be prepared to look outside your domain. A item sold in one domain, say "hobby electronics" can have a significantly (orders of magnitude) different price point than the exact same item sold in a different domain.Consider wire. I was looking for some sensible, multi-stranded wire gauge for the 1A-5A range which basic Dupoint jumpers etc. don't really do. When I search on ebay there are dozens and dozens of people selling various gauges of wire in 1 meter length for the likes of £0.99However, while pricing a project (Infinity Mirror table top), I found a link to speaker cable in the gauges I needed. Instead of £1 a meter this stuff was being sold by the REEL for £6. £6 for 150 meters of the stuff.You will see this a lot. Another example I remember seeing was a waterproof sat nav bracket for a motorcycle. In Halfords it was priced at £45. However two shelves over they were selling the EXACT same item for bicycles for £15. This is all to do with PPP Product, Price, Placement. The marketing scum believe/know that someone shopping for a bracket for a motorcycle will expect to pay more than one shopping for a bicycle.So always consider other domains within which the item you are looking for might exist.In the case of wire. A hobby electronics person might only be considering a meter or two length, so paying £1 or £2 seems okay. A person wiring their living room with speakers might be considering 10 or 20 meter lengths and paying £10 or £20 would not seem so good. It's EXACTLY the same cable.Another thing I spotted, which is quite clever on the ebay seller's part and foolish on the buyer is ebay breadboards. Because ebay breadboards are 99% Chinese fakes or no-name boards at least one seller has taken to buying branded breadboards and listing them at a premium price.Consider these - Genuine (I assume) Twin Industries branded breadboard.https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TWIN-INDUSTRIES-TW-E41-1020-BREADBOARD-SOLDERLESS-830-TIE-POINTS/182121558017?epid=1050989681&hash=item2a674a7001:g:B0YAAOSwiYFXLM88Of course these are fully branded premium breadboards you would expect to pay a bit more, right?Well, they are £8+VAT on CPC and £8.50+VAT on Element14.This seller is making a killing buying them no doubt in bulk from CPC and relisting them on ebay for 2 to 3 times the price! Praying on people's fear of cheap breadboards. I have also seen sellers listing the same exact breadboard at 10 different prices, ranging from £3 to £30!Another example would be DC plugs and sockets. Bought individually from a hobby electronics store or ebay seller they can be £1-2 each or higher. However if you look into the LED lighting domain on Amazon they sell them in packs of 10 or 20 for £5-£10. Half the price! The same can be said for various 12V PSUs, wall warts and fittings.Clearly it pays to shop around and think outside your domain.

author: Avacee
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 05, 2017, 12:42:51 pm
content: For genuine componentshttp://cpc.farnell.comis my first port of call because it's free shipping on orders over £5 (ex VAT)It's a subset of whathttp://uk.farnell.comoffers but their threshold is £20 (ex VAT)It's worth checking those bulk buyers you mention as they often do free shipping on orders under the above thresholds.i.e. for items that CPC don't carry but you don't feel like making up the order to £20 ex VAT.I've given up buying from chinese eBay'ers (and their UK resellers) unless it's one of those Adafruit rip-off boards for 99pBut yes, it pays to shop around

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2017, 12:56:58 pm
content: Quote from: Avacee on December 05, 2017, 12:42:51 pmSomethings on there are ridiculously expensive though.Try buying a panel current or volt meter for a project and ... have a bowl of cool water handy to cool the burns on your hands.An automotive supplier will sell you one for £5. A cheap ebay seller, £0.50.The only thing you will get from CPC/Farnell is a guaranteed quality from a branded suppier of "electronics grade test equipment".Power relays is another. £25 for a 12V 20A relay, when Euro-Car-Parts sell them for £1.50

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2017, 01:28:19 pm
content: There are a bunch of ebay sellers that do that - at least half a dozen UK ones last time I looked. There are sufficient suckers (no offence, you've learned) out there to support their business model.The way to spot them is to simply "See other item" - if they have thousands listed then that's what they are doing. Some of them actively copy and paste the product details and/or photos from the RS or Farnell sites.Don't forget to add RS Components to your purchasing list in addition to Farnell and CPC. Free next day delivery on any order. Always do a price comparison between the three - the cheapest offering often differs from part to part.ebay is not (and never claims to be) the cheapest source of items - neither is Amazon for that matter. It's just a bunch of sellers. When it comes to brand new and genuine parts italmost neveris. What it's good for is hard to find obsolete / second hand / impossible to find elsewhere (eg former Soviet parts), lab / production line stock clearouts etc.

author: saike
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2017, 01:33:35 pm
content: One of those Ebay sellers has had 60,000+ more sales since I noticed them relisting Farnell items at a huge mark up a few years ago. Also listing under another name as well so probably more than that. A nice living if you can sucker enough people into buying the stuff.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2017, 01:44:05 pm
content: I rarely hit ebay these days. For me the first port of call is:RS: single/bulk items due to free next day delivery. Will always hit RS first because they are pretty excellent. 34p of resistors? Free next day parcel force!CPC: bulk cheap stuff. Oh and branded electrolytic capacitors which seem to be much cheaper.Farnell: obscure quality items. Say I want a particular low leakage film capacitor, they will sell me one of them, not 10 like RS will.Aliexpress: lowest bidder crap to play withTayda: Bulk items. If I can afford to wait because (a) it's universally the cheapest, (b) quality and service is pretty damn excellent and (c) they put "$7 commercial sample" on the packet even if you spent $50 so it flies through customs with no duty or RM handling fee every timeebay only gets used for local buy/sell where I tend to buy used or broken test gear.

author: Old Printer
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2017, 03:06:45 pm
content: In recently buying an Analog Discovery I had a couple miss-steps on eBay, but that got resolved ok. I did however notice some sellers asking ridiculous prices, like 150% over new from factory pricing on an in-stock item. I saw one buyer pay over $500 for an AD2 that sells from new Diligent for $279. He had the nerve to give the seller negative feedback for overcharging, while freely admitting to never checking the price of the unit through normal channels. I agree the seller is a thief, but only if you are stupid enough to give him your money. Buyer beware, do your homework.

author: nanofrog
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2017, 03:30:39 pm
content: Buying with PayPal Credit may also play into this. Sites such as Amazon*, Newark/CPC/Farnell, Digikey, Mouser, and a number of others don't take PayPal and the buyer may not have another form of credit (and insufficient funds to just buy whatever they're after).* In this case, it seems there may be a work-around by purchasing an Amazon gift card in the exact amount from a 3rd party with PayPal.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2017, 08:58:58 pm
content: As with anything, it pays to do your research. There are some deals to be found on ebay, but there is also a lot of overpriced stuff. Suckers buy it, so sellers sell it.

author: ez24
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2017, 09:25:07 pm
content: I have heard (I think here) that there are sellers on eBay who order the item from Amazon and the item is shipped from Amazon.I bought a case of jars from Amazon and they came from Walmart. I paid $12 for them and checked Walmart and they were $8. So I check out Walmart from now on and sometimes they are a lot cheaper than Amazon. It pays to shop around because sellers are getting tricky.Ebay is always my last place to go to.

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2017, 09:36:54 pm
content: Right, we just got an appliance repair part from WalMart (just did a broad Google search on the part #) and WalMart was WAY cheaper than any other source.I think it was $27 on Amazon, and more than that on eBay. Something like $7 at WalMart, but we did have to go pick it up at a store, after waiting for their internal system to get it delivered there.Jon

author: TomS_
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2017, 10:15:05 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on December 05, 2017, 01:44:05 pmPretty much the same for me. The last things I bought off ebay were some nickel plated spacers, and before that some prototype boards for a recent project.A more recent project I designed my own prototype boards and had them fab'ed in China.Pretty much always buy from RS for much the same reason - they'll ship almost anything next day for free. Sometimes I feel bad because they must be losing out on some of my purchases (as you say, a few p worth of resistors next day for free....)Digi-Key has, in my experience, always been a bit cheaper than RS, but because you need to order at least a certain minimum before you get free shipping to the UK, I typically only buy there if I need to buy a lot, and I can plan in advance for it (in other words, not very often)

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2017, 10:20:20 pm
content: Speaking of not paying attention when shopping on ebay. I did my own personal mail bag this evening.A PCF8591T surface mount chip showed up. WTF? What am I going to do with that?But I checked my purchase history. I did indeed order it. It's an I2C AD/DA chip. The only thing is, I didn't check if it was DIP or SO. I have nothing I can solder it to even if I was brave enough to attempt my first surface mount solder on such a narrow pitch chip. I'm a long way off that.Don't browse ebay on Saturday night after a bottle of wine is the lesson there.I'm tempted to give it away free to a good home, any takers?

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2017, 10:23:10 pm
content: Quote from: TomS_ on December 05, 2017, 10:15:05 pmI started to feel bad for "bits box" as I was order handfuls of things every day for a week. I'd always forget something and put another order in, but couldn't resist some gizmos or bits and bobs. I wondered how annoy it is when an order is 2 of those, 5 of those, 1 of them, 10 screws, 10 bolts, etc. etc.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2017, 10:41:15 pm
content: Bitsbox are pretty good. Forgot them earlier. They’re my “oh shit it’s Friday morning and I forgot to order something for the weekend” supplier. Usually turns up next day RM

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2017, 12:27:51 am
content: Quote from: paulca on December 05, 2017, 10:20:20 pmI frequently hand solder SO packages on perfboard, deadbug on copper clad or occasionally on prototyping carrier boards, it's really not that hard. The only time I've used DIP parts in years has been retro projects or using up stock I already had. Funny thing is that DIP packages and even stuff like 1206 SMT chip passives look huge and clunky to me now.

author: ez24
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2017, 01:53:43 am
content: Quote from: paulca on December 05, 2017, 10:20:20 pmMy problem also

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2017, 06:50:58 am
content: Definitely worth adding Rapidonline to your list if you've got a decent size order to soak up the delivery they have some very good prices indeed and delivery is excellent, I often order 6:30-7PM and it arrives next day, they also run a shop in Colchester where they often have a bunch of too good to miss offers (I always over spend if I visit the shop).As someone else mentioned, RSWWW is free delivery for any order and you don't need an account.