It wasn’t long ago that we were so inundated with online shopping sources, advice, and support that we often had trouble: we got ripped off, we got over-charged, or we got no follow-up help with our purchasing activities.  But those who were in the know then were already flocking to a place online that provided a safe, reasonable, and fun shopping experience.  That place is ebay.com

Ebay.com is the premier shopping site.  There you can buy anything from diapers to DVDs, memory sticks to memorabilia, car parts to cooking utensils, food to feathers and beads for arts and crafts.  Not only can you make straight, easy, affordable, and hassle-free purchases, but you can participate in the auction for any particular item.  For that is ebay.com’s claim to fame, really—it is an auction site for normal people (as opposed to utterly loaded people who attend antique auctions, say).

Also redeeming about ebay.com are the features: each seller and each buyer has a rating, accompanied by reviews from all past buyers/sellers to that person.  The buyers and sellers are often individuals selling one item out of the home, and are just as often small businesses trying to excel online.  Because they want to keep their reputation and their customers (as well as gain more customers), these vendors or sellers are top of the line in responding, packaging, shipping, and providing reasonable prices.

Ebay.com provides offshoots as well, specialty sites that are affiliated—such as EBay Motors, EBay Stores, and EBay Business.  And just as handy for those of us who do not wish to buy until we are well-educated on a product, EBay.com provides reviews and guides for 1,000s of items, both new and used.

I don’t usually tout the pluses of a specific store, but since, unlike other online shops that have let me down, EBay has been 100% right on, I have to sing its praises.  In the last couple of years, I have bought a Camaro SS emblem, three plants, six books, an anthology of comedy CDs (Monty Python) and two Saab side view mirrors, and have bid on a number of coveted items such as a Salvadore Dali Tarot Deck (usually 100 bucks brand-new), orchids, and a Compaq laptop computer.  Every single item I won the bid on or bought straight out came within three days of my paying for it from 3,000 miles away from me or from across the world!  Yes, the Monty Python CDs came from England, ironically, but other products did as well…and they arrived in as short a time as three days!!!

The fun of shopping at EBay is of course the bidding.  It is exciting to track your bids, waiting for the end of the bidding cycle, and finding you are the highest bidder.  It is also astonishing to see what some items go for.  I just read that a chambermaid in a hotel retrieved from the bathroom sink of one of the rooms the shavings of one Russell Crowe, and the bidding is at 300 dollars so far.

See what I mean?  Anything you seek…you will find at EBay.