Whenever you are buying or selling online, for example on eBay, and you are trying to determine if a shipping price is fair, keep in mind there is more to shipping than just the cost of postage.

For example, if you are shipping a hard drive that weighs 3 pounds, you still have to:

• pack it in a box
• secure it with popcorn/bubble wrap
• seal the box
• take it to the shipping office
• (possibly) wait in line

All this takes time… and as we know, time is money. Granted some of these steps can be streamlined if you ship multiple packages at once or have doorstep pickup, but for the most part there is still cost involved.

So keep all this in mind when you determining (or paying) shipping.

I’ve written in the past about how user reviews on retailer sites (Amazon, Newegg, etc.) should always be taken with a grain of salt for the simple reason that you don’t know who is posting and what their motivation is. Here is a great example of that (article title: Slide Caught Posting Fake Positive Reviews For Their Own App).

For the most part, user reviews are usually a good thing and often times the only resource available. Much like measuring eBay feedback, I will typically ‘trust’ user reviews and ratings as long as they have at least 10 reviews available. A single glowing review, while probably fine, always looks a bit suspicious to me. Call me a cynic.

I’m curious if my opinion is shared or am I overly paranoid?

From browsing the forums, I can tell a lot of our readers shop at NewEgg. And why not? Their prices are competitive and service is very good. If you frequent NewEgg for your computer needs, then you might be interested in the Daily Deals RSS Feed.

From the RSS description:

An up-to-date headlines on our latest sales, deals, and promotions. Subscribe now and never miss a single Newegg.com deal.

Not too much to add here. Some of the deals are one day only, but for the most part I have found the deals are price reductions (most of the time permanent) on items. Regardless, if you are always on the lookout for upgrade for your computer, this might be a feed you are interested in.

Many of you may already know this, but many probably do not. When you are looking to either buy or sell some used stuff online, eBay isn’t the only game in town. For an equally great location, check out your local classifieds on craigslist.org.

Craigslist, while it’s appearance is overly minimal, is actually quite a valuable resource for buying and selling. There are no adds on the site and no fees to use it. Additionally, the site is used by millions of people every day which makes it an ideal marketplace. While the site’s appearance, again, is minimal the functionality is everything you need as you can search in categories by keywords and price.

The big drawback is you have no buyer protection like eBay and Paypal offer as typically people are going to want cash upfront for whatever you are buying. So just be wary of the scams and Craigslist will be a great resource for you.

If you are doing your shopping online, be vary wary. This time of year is notorious for taking advantage of naive online shoppers as ’scammers’ will throw up junk sites hoping to capture your credit card info or take your money and give you nothing but headaches. If you are going to buy expensive items online, make sure you are purchasing them from a reputable retailers (or eBay sellers).

Here are a few warning signs which might let you know an online site is not on the ‘up and up’:

• Price is significantly lower than anywhere else.
• You cannot find any information about the retailer online (you can try doing a Whois search to see how long the domain has been in existence).
• Thrown together looking site. This is not necessarily a warning sign, but someone looking to take advantage of naive buyers probably will not put together an impressive site.
• No contact phone number or the phone number goes to someone’s answering machine.

Again, these are just a few things to be wary of. Personally, I stick to sites like Amazon and the like as it is worth it to pay a little bit extra to _know_ you are going to get the item… and can return it if needed.