Buying tuls on Ebay
Ebay is a strange place. I went looking for planers on ebay, and discovered this Dewalt DW735 planer for $455. What’s strange about that? Well, here’s the same planer on Amazon for $479.99. More expensive? Slightly. But since shipping is free ($39 from the ebay guy) and Amazon is an actual company that’s somewhat less likely to vanish in the middle of the night on a midnight trip to vegas with your benchtop planer, one might have cause to think that the bidders who drove this planer up from $1 to $455 were completely insane.
So what’s a penny-pinching woodworker to do? Simple. Don’t search for planers. Search for planrs, plainers, playners… have a couple of beers and let your mind roam free. It turns out that many ebay sellers are spelling-impaired, and their confusion is your gain. With less competition driving up the price, there’s real deals to be had. For example, a quick search for ‘drils’ yields a bounty of bargains, including an 18v Bosch drill (“one battery is almost new, the other one dont work neither does the charger, carrying case”). This would be going for at least double had he spelled it correctly.
The basic idea here is that efficient markets are the bargain hunter’s enemy. The less bidders, the better. So whether you need a sandr, joyner, resiprikating saw, or just a set of forester bits, don’t forget to commune with your inner dyslexic. You’ll thank me for it.
(The Wall Street Journal had an article on this recently, but I’ve been using this trick for years.)
(Yes, the quote on the Bosch drill was verbatim–ebay item #3803847638.)
(Actually, I find my very best deals in the local classifieds. Ironically, they charge way more than ebay to list items. Be prepared to deal with a lot of people who are not exactly email-savvy, though).
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