Hamish, me old hairy fruit bat.
Sign up to eBay as detailed.
The way to find the bargains is to search all the alternate spellings, so search Aprilia, Aprilla, Aprillia etc. And Ackro, Akra, Ackropovic, etc. etc. people mistype or mis spell items all the time, I have had some real bargains this way. (£700 worth of Makita 18V powertools for £90
)
If you want a really serious punt at something, use an auction sniper website.
I use
Auction Stealer sit and decide your absolute MAXIMUM price for the item, stick that in the sniper system - it links to ebay. It will post your bid about 10 seconds before the end, which doesn't give people much chance to out bid you. If you are outbid it doesn't add another tenner etc, so you can't get carried away. It is automatic, so you don't have to be online, or even in the house. Your bid will be the incremental amount above the previous highest bid.
Always bid odd ending numbers - $100.26 - if you don't you can lose out by a earlier max bid at $100.
Don't bid early - it just puts the price up, and beware shill bidders - if you bid early, some sellers log on with a mates/wife's account and push the bidding up (which is actually illegal in the UK.)
Try a message to the seller and ask for a BIN (Buy it now) price if it's something you really want need - most people have a figure in their head.
I sold some bike boots I had bought (too small) and only worn once, I put a BIN at £80 and they sold on auction for £110 - so it can work both ways.
