Buying D&D/RPG stuff on eBay

[Glyfair]

I've been thinking about how my habits have changed with buying RPG materials on eBay in the past few years. I think it's changed for the worse, IMO.

I used to browse the auctions and pick up the occasional great deal, and the even more occasional rarity. Once I won an auction for a "strange adventuring party" consisting of a few duck miniatures from Runequest and the almost impossible to find aardvark miniatures for a song (the guy didn't list the figures in the title and misspelled aardvark & Cerebus in the body).

Now, browsing the auctions is a huge headache. For one thing, the D&D miniatures have taken over. I buy more than my fair share of DDM on eBay, but I go to the miniature categories when I want that. When I want books, I want to browse the roleplaying areas and not have to deal with a billion auctions & BIN entries for single figures.

Sure, there have always been inappropriately placed items. Handcuffs seem to be pretty common "roleplaying" items (of course, most of the items in the RPG category at Overstock.com are romance novels). And D&D miniatures aren't totally inappropriate for the D&D RPG category. However, their inclusion just makes eBay so much less useful for me. I just don't find myself browsing the category very often. If I go there then I'm looking for something specific.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

The '-' tag is your friend. I usually do '-minis -miniatures' on my searches and that will exclude most of the entries for minis. Not perfect, but it does weed out most stuff I'm not looking for.

 

[Glyfair]

The '-' tag is your friend. I usually do '-minis -miniatures' on my searches and that will exclude most of the entries for minis. Not perfect, but it does weed out most stuff I'm not looking for.

Been there. Unfortunately, that only cuts out about half as many sellers just list the set name in the title. Adding a half-a-dozen '-' tags for the regular sets is just a pain (in addition to some other common ones I exclude, like dice).

 

[amethal]

The '-' tag is your friend. I usually do '-minis -miniatures' on my searches and that will exclude most of the entries for minis. Not perfect, but it does weed out most stuff I'm not looking for.

I also exclude "minatures" (to get rid of those sellers who can't spell), along with a host of other words such as "lead", "painted", "citadel", "GOL" and anything else that looks helpful, but I still get loads of minis in my search.

From the seller's point of view, I suppose this is a good thing, as I do (occasionally) bid on these auctions on impulse, but from my point of view its a real pain.

 

[Banshee16]

I've been thinking about how my habits have changed with buying RPG materials on eBay in the past few years. I think it's changed for the worse, IMO.

I used to browse the auctions and pick up the occasional great deal, and the even more occasional rarity. Once I won an auction for a "strange adventuring party" consisting of a few duck miniatures from Runequest and the almost impossible to find aardvark miniatures for a song (the guy didn't list the figures in the title and misspelled aardvark & Cerebus in the body).

Now, browsing the auctions is a huge headache. For one thing, the D&D miniatures have taken over. I buy more than my fair share of DDM on eBay, but I go to the miniature categories when I want that. When I want books, I want to browse the roleplaying areas and not have to deal with a billion auctions & BIN entries for single figures.

Sure, there have always been inappropriately placed items. Handcuffs seem to be pretty common "roleplaying" items (of course, most of the items in the RPG category at Overstock.com are romance novels). And D&D miniatures aren't totally inappropriate for the D&D RPG category. However, their inclusion just makes eBay so much less useful for me. I just don't find myself browsing the category very often. If I go there then I'm looking for something specific.

Type in the name of specific products, and then go to "view store", to see what else the sellers have. But I'm usually searching for something specific, so that makes it easier.

Banshee

 

[Allandaros]

It's also a good idea to exclude the standard D&D minis "sets", like War of the Dragon Queen: "-WotDQ", for example

 

[Glyfair]

It's also a good idea to exclude the standard D&D minis "sets", like War of the Dragon Queen: "-WotDQ", for example

Again, too much work just to browse to see what RPG books (or FRPG book, or D&D books) are up for auction. Browsing is supposed to be low maintanence.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Ever thought about using Amazon.com instead?

 

[grodog]

Been there. Unfortunately, that only cuts out about half as many sellers just list the set name in the title. Adding a half-a-dozen '-' tags for the regular sets is just a pain (in addition to some other common ones I exclude, like dice).

Sounds like you're doing all that you can, Glyfair. I'm trying the other side of the coin: cut down on eBay purchases