I have had some good success on e-bay. It seems like there are a lot more people trying to retail kits on e-bay which makes you have to weed through a ton of bad deals to find the good ones. I would agree with all the advice that has been given here so far. I also never look at buy it nows for the most part because they tend to be retail +/- a little

I have a question about using e-bay maybe one of the pros will know. Can you filter out certain sellers in your searches. If I could make a list of about 20 sellers who I didn't want to see anything from it would cut most of the weeding out. Anyone know how to do this or have some other searching tips to pass along?

I haven't found a way to directly ignore sellers, but here is what you can do. If you know that these sellers use certain keywords all the time, like a web address or something, you can ignore those. Here's how: Go to 'Advanced Search' and use that to pick price range, key words to look for, and words to use as exclusions. You can then save this search if you want and it will show up on the 'My eBay' page. Just add the known words to the exclude list and search away.

As an example, I collect MR2 memorabilia so I'm often searching for stuff. To make it easier I have a search that finds all items with the word MR2 in the titles or descriptions, less than $100, some of the exclusion words are: indiglo, gauge, autoart, video, plasma, plazma, nozzle, war and tax (apparently there is a war tax stamp that is sold alot on eBay with the word MR2 in it somewhere) It will not show any items that have those words in them. That knocked my search down to under 10 pages. I add new words all the time, stickers and decals were the newest 2. All I do is go to the 'Favorites' page under 'My eBay' and click the link to launch the search.

That should help out, thanks. Have you tested a users name in the exclusion list before? It probably only searches the item description and wouldn't work but I may have to try it out just to see what happens..

I've made an interesting descovery with ebay the last couple of days. This is mainly for all the Australians here but anybody may get something outta this. I've been researching how much of a saving i can get from where. I live in Western Australia and when taking into account currencies and exchange rates have found that it's far better (in general) to use the American ebay as opposed to the Australian one. For a start the majority of kits on the Oz site go so close to the retail that your better off just going to the store. But when something is listed in US currency you tend to get a better deal. To go one step further I have enquired (haven't purchased yet until I research more) about some kits from a dealer offering the purchase now option that many of you seem to be against. What I've found out may not be what the majority of people here do but might save me a bundle. This ebay user is in japan and is offering the following buy nows...
--Tamiya 1/35 German Tiger I Late Version US$19.99
--Tamiya 1/35 German King Tiger Tank Model Kit US$19.99
--Tamiya 1/35 Tiger I PanzerkampfwagenVI (Mid) US$19.99
--Tamiya 1/35 German Sturmtiger Assault Mortar US19.99
-- Tamiya 1/35 Tiger I PanzerkampfwagenVI(Early) US$19.99

Total: US$99.95
Now this will look like a very expensive purchase for anyone (in Aussie dollars I'm looking at around $163) but I got a quote for the same models from a suplier in Australia and the total comes to a staggering $321AU. That means that I'd be getting these models for 1/2 price. Of course I haven't taken into account postage yet but I will still save a bundle.

The only thing that I can possibly think of that could turn this around is the possability of Australian customs slapping some sort of tax on the parcel. And thats something I don't know anything about. Anyone have any clues if this could happen...I'm kinda waiting to see about this because I simply cannot believe the amount of money I could save.

So finishes my longest post ever