Finding Ebay Bargains Near You

If you’re a long term user of the online auction website eBay, then you probably already know all the tricks. Using sniping add ons to bid at the last second, amending the search filters so you only see the 99p no reserve free delivery items, searching for the phrase “from my grandads attic”, you know them all, but one thing you can’t do on eBay that would be very useful for finding those bargains down the road from you is search specifically for items that are collection only.

You can search for keywords like Pickup or Collection, but you can’t specify Collection only as a search parameter. With collection only auctions, it’s only really a bargain if you live nearby, and because items that don’t offer delivery get fewer bids than ones that do, these are where you can get some incredible deals. Well now you can search for those elusive pick up only bargains by using an Android App.

The Moneysaving expert website has developed an Android App that does most of the work for you. It’s in the Play store as “Local eBay Deals Finder”. Simply download the app and open up the one page user, choose the “Find Local eBay Deals” search option and specify your location (you can just use GPS to do it), how far you are willing to travel, category, price and any keywords. Then the app will scour eBay for you and return the results in seconds.

It’s small and simple, it doesn’t require any more info from you like your eBay login or any security details, although it will organise a watch list of items within the app, if you click on any items it just takes you straight to eBay itself and allows you to bid from there, so there’s never any danger of your password or details being compromised.

Within the app is a handy tips section and few setting you can tweak to get the app to notify you when watched items are ending. The interface is clean and user friendly and returns results in a moment using a nice expandable list with thumbnails and the ability to tag watch or show a pop up description of each item.

Also consider if you can physically pick the item up yourself before bidding, That Grand Piano for £1.89 might seem like a great idea, but try getting on the roof rack of a Mini. Make sure you have the means to collect it before you agree to collect it and get bargain hunting.

[image via Russ Payne]