Buying on eBay from South Africa

South Africans, by and large, are not massive users of eBay as an online shopping source. This is unfortunate as almost anything can be found and bought on eBay.
A common misconception is that eBay is a place where Americans auction off their second hand goods (i.e. junk). This couldn’t be further from the truth. While this one of the streams of eBay, far more common are companies using eBay as a store front. This is especially prevalent in the Asian regions, and one can buy electronics, jewellery, watches and accessories for next to nothing. On smaller items, shipping is often free (it seems that Asian post offices don’t charge a lot for their services). Thus eBay is a superb alternative to the goods commonly on sale at flea markets and ‘China City’-type stores.


The local equivalent is BidorBuy. However my experience with BidorBuy is that South African sellers haven't really caught on to the fact that the whole attraction to consumers is that items should be cheaper than buying them from a physical store. For the most part the courier/postal charges take the costs of cheaper items way over retail prices for that item.

I mainly use eBay for smaller, cheaper items such as watches, cell phone accessories and the like, but have in occasion bought bigger, heavier items like paintings and laptop stands all at a fraction of the cost of buying the same items locally.

Herewith is a short guide to buying items on eBay.

What you’ll need:
An eBay account
A Paypal account

The buying process:First off, don’t bid on items you don’t intend to buy. By clicking Bid or Buy It Now, you will be entering into an obligation to purchase, as per the eBay user agreement.

Start by finding what you want via the search bar on the main page:

As an example, I searched for a cover for a Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone.

In order to find the cheapest price on an item, go to the dropdown list and select Price + Shipping lowest first:

In order to see how much it will cost to get the item to here, you need to set your location to South Africa:

Once these items are selected, browse through the search results to find the item you wish to purchase. Click on the item of interest, and you will be taken to the item's list page. The list page will display all information regarding the sale, including:

• a full description of the item
• pictures / photos of the item
• inclusions and exclusions of the sale
• extra information regarding shipping costs and timelines
• seller information

There are two types of sales on eBay. The first is an auction whereby various buyers place bids on an item until an auction ends. The buyer who bid the highest price will win the item at that price.

The second is an outright sale at the marked price (Buy It Now in eBay language).
 

The type of sale will be shown on both the search listings and the item listings. Where a seller is selling multiple identical items, often both types of sale are available for a single item.

Before buying, check near the bottom of the item listing that this message isn’t displayed:

If it is, don’t bid on or purchase the item.

The My eBay section of the website displays all necessary info, including current live bids and recent auction and purchase history. You can also make payments to sellers, leave feedback and manage existing bids from this section.

Once you have bought your item and payment is requested, follow the steps as prompted on the website. You will be redirected to Paypal to make the actual payment.

How do you know who to buy from, and how are purchases protected?
The eBay market place is self regulated to an extent. Buyers rate sellers with a star rating in categories such as item quality, effective communication and speed and cost of shipping. Sellers also rate buyers, usually in terms of promptness of payment.
Each eBay member  is allocated a “Star rating”, and a feedback rating which are based on the number of sales made by a seller in conjunction with the amount of positive feedback given by buyers for that seller. This information is given on the item listing page.
 

The number next to the star is the volume of items sold by the seller.
As a general rule of thumb, try not to buy from sellers who have less than a 95% rating, or at least read through the buyer feedback to see why the sellers were rated poorly. If there are any disputes, contact the seller and try resolve amicably. Don’t go straight to Buyer Protection (described below) or give a negative rating Sellers are very averse to receiving negative ratings and will often resend or refund when a dispute arises rather than get a negative rating. If you give a negative rating to a seller, expect that they will no longer try to resolve the dispute.

eBay Buyer Protection is in place on most transactions. This covers the buyer for items not arriving, damaged items received or the incorrect item received. The buyer must lodge a claim (not a very onerous process) via Buyer Protection, and eBay will mediate the dispute and refund your monies (including shipping) once all information has been received from buyer and seller.

Some of the items that I have regularly bought via eBay:

• Novelty cufflinks ($3-$7, versus R150 – R200 at South African stores)
• Ties ($1 - $4, versus R60 up locally)
• Cell phone screen protectors ($1 for up to 3)
• Cell phone covers ($1-$3 each)
• HDMI and ethernet cables (around a dollar)

There is one drawback to buying from eBay and that is delivery times. The majority of items are posted, and one is reliant on overseas transit times, and then on South African Post Office timelines. So if you're in a hurry for your purchase, then eBay may not be the solution. On average, the wait time from payment to delivery is around three weeks.

Guest Post: Mlungu Brett on technology and travel comms

About the author: This guest post is that of a now experienced travel blogger. Brett (and his friend Darren) spent nearly a year traveling the world, all the while posting news, tips and photos on each leg of the journey. In his second guest post, he talks about the best ways to go about keeping touch with friends and family while traveling extensively.. You can find the Mlungu Trek blog at www.offexploring.com/mlungutrek.

KEEPING CONNECTED AND ON THE MOVE

You may think that keeping in touch while travelling overseas may sound easy for today’s interconnected and small world. Although there are great tools for this like email, Facebook, Twitter, Skype and cell phone services like sms, WhatsApp, Blackberry messenger or the similar iPhone offerings, there is one place where the world is still pretty slow and far behind: phone calls and roaming.

Roaming, for those who are not sure, is taking your existing cell phone, that you use every day in your home country, with you overseas and using it without changing sim cards. Coming from South Africa, you can either activate roaming for SMSing or texting only or you can activate it for full use, being, SMS/text, calls and data. SMSing, though expensive, is definitely cheaper than phoning. And, data, the medium through which Whatsapp and other cheaper alternatives work, is generally cheaper than SMSing or calling at home but can be much, much more expensive if used overseas.

But, this is the new world, and there are facilities out there to help curb the cost of communicating while travelling. If you’re travelling with a laptop, smart phone or tablet, your best bet is using free wifi (which is available quite widely in America, Europe, Asia and South America, but oddly not really available in South Africa) to make use of the communication apps mentioned above. Skype is the best for calling and is either free if the person you’re talking to also has Skype or is a small cost if calling a phone.

But when wifi fails you, or you don’t have access to Skype, there are some other ways of reducing the cost of communication.

The cheapest way of communicating is to buy a sim card in each country you go to and use this. You can let people know what the number is by email/Facebook/Twitter and you can use it for local communication or SMSing overseas or receiving calls. You’ll be surprised how cheap or free sim cards are around the world but you will need to buy airtime in each country.

Another alternative that is less cumbersome than buying a new sim card and airtime in each country is to get a world sim card. An example here is www.worldsim.com or www.onesimcard.com. The disadvantage here is that costs will be a bit more expensive.

The last and sneakiest option requires a sim card in each country and Skype and works as follows:

• Start by setting up a Skype online number. There is a cost involved here, but the benefit should outweigh this cost if used enough. (At 01 Mar 2012, the cost was about R150 for a number for 3 months).
• This online number allows non-Skype users to call you anytime from their normal phone and as long as you’re online, then they can chat to you direct. You should set this number up as a land line number in your local country.
• Next, set up the call forwarding function on Skype to forward calls to the sim card phone number of your local cell phone.
• This means that when people phone your online number, if you’re not online (either on your smartphone Skype app or on a computer or tablet) then the call will be forwarded to your cell phone.
• There will be a charge here when the call is forwarded to your travel phone, and you will have to foot this bill, but the end to end charge will be a lot less than a direct phone call.
• You can change the number that Skype forwards calls to as you move around the world.

This nifty trick can also be used in reverse by setting up an online number for you to phone in the country that you are in so that when you call it, it forwards calls to a number in the country you want to phone.

So, until the roaming charges are reduced, or multinational cell phone service providers start stringing their international services together to help reduce costs – Vodafone is leading the way in this at the moment –get yourself a smart phone for travelling purposes and make sure it’s one that supports Skype (Android or iPhone).

Words by guest writer: Brett Sacks (brettsontour@gmail.com; www.offexploring.com/mlungutrek)

Gadget review: Uniross Power Pod

Uniross, known widely in South Africa for their rechargeable batteries, has designed and is selling a multiple-device charger, allowing one to charge several gadgets simultaneously.
The Power Pod has four ports into which ten interchangeable bits (included with the device) can be inserted and removed. It also has two USB ports into which devices that are too big for the Power Pod, like tablets, could be plugged. The circular design and bit-port placement ensure that gadgets of various shapes,sizes and charging-port locations are easily fitted and don't obstruct each other on the Power Pod.

This device is great for bedside or desktop cable clutter where charging cables for various gadgets twist and tangle constantly. The reduction in plug ports is also pretty handy - one two-pin plug for charging up to six devices at at time.

The Power Pod is well constructed and very sturdy. The bits fit properly into all the devices that I tried out (iPhone, Blackberry, Nokia and HTC phones).  Power to the Pod is provided by a 2-pin radio-type cable that plugs into the base and there is a power toggle-switch placed next to the power cable port. The bits insert and remove easily from the Power Pod and fit well - there isn't any device wobble when they are mounted on the Power Pod. The bits can be removed by tugging them from the top, or pushing the bit release buttons found underneath the Pod.

When the device is powered on, the ring on the centre of the Power Pod lights up in a bright blue hue. While devices are receiving charge, a light in front of the respective charging port also lights up. This is fine during daylight hours and looks slick. However, at night these super bright LEDs cast a great disco-show on the ceiling. This is easily rectified by putting a cell phone pouch over the centre of the Power Pod, however it would probably be better for future models to come with less intense LEDs.

There is only one glitch that I found with the Power Pod. When charging an iOS device, the touch screen functionality can go a little crazy during charging. When one place on the screen is touched, another place on the screen is actually activated. This makes it nearly impossible to type or browse when plugged in. A quick gander on some Apple forums revealed that this glitch can result when using a non-Apple generic charger touch-screen Apple devices. This is obviously a problem when one cannot use a device for the couple hours that it is charging.

All in all, the Power Pod is okay (not great; not terrible). In practice the Power Pod has been very useful and I will most likely continue to make use of it. As stated earlier, the Pod is well designed and constructed but I would still prefer a device on which all my devices can be used while charging.

Uniross Power Pods are available at Makro and Dion Wired at approximately R399.00.

Guest Post: Mlungu Brett on travel blogging

About the author: The guest post is that of a now experienced travel blogger. Brett (and his friend Darren) spent nearly a year travelling the world, all the while posting news, tips and photos on each leg of the jorney. In his first guest post, he talks about the best ways to go about blogging one's travels. You can find the Mlungu Trek blog, and see for yourself how it's done, at www.offexploring.com/mlungutrek.

Travel Blogging

The first step in any working class hero’s multi-month travel plans is to get off your behind and have that awkward conversation with your boss that you’re thinking of taking leave...for 9 months! You may not be so lucky as to be awarded this leave request and if it goes this way, and if you’re taking this seriously, then you’ll most likely follow this conversation with a less awkward one that is started and concluded very quickly with a crisp white envelope and contained letter that is slipped onto your boss's desk informing your boss of the start of your notice period and due resignation.

Once that’s out the way, you’re in for an exciting ride of excessive money spending on plane tickets, travel equipment, travel accessories, visas, accommodation and lots of farewell drinks. While you’re sipping on these drinks with all your envious family and friends many of them will most likely ask how they can keep in touch. In today’s connected world of email, Facebook and Twitter, the medium that is farthest reaching, most informative and very simple to use is a travel blog (take into account the less-technology-geared-with-no-Facebook-account people in your lives that you’ll want to update on your travels...generally parents and grandparents).

The travel blog exceeds the simple use of telling people where you are and what you’re doing. It’s a memory bank that you can look back on to remind yourself of your travels, to document any little travel tips that you have for specific places and to look back on when people inevitably come and ask you for help about specific places that they’re travelling to. It also gives you a place to post pictures, videos and thoughts.

As a travel blog enthusiast, you have three options for getting your blog up and running:

1. Use an existing free travel blog provider (sites like: www.offexploring.com; www.travelblog.org; www.travelpod.com)
2. Use an existing free blog provider (sites like: www.blogger.com; www.wordpress.com; www.weebly.com)
3. Create your own website

Using a travel blog provider is the easiest route as they provide a format for your blog and it usually has the quickest and simplest interface for both uploading and viewing. The other advantages are that you become part of a travel community where you can probably interact with other bloggers using the site, quickly see what other bloggers that are in/have been to the same places as you have to say, upload as many photos and videos as you want, get a nice interactive map showing where you’ve been and where you’re going and you can possibly even book accommodation or other things for your trip. Remember they have a captive audience of like minded people to advertise to and offer services to, so they’re probably going to be relevant and helpful to your trip. And at the end of your trip, they’ll probably offer you an opportunity (for a fee of course) to print your blog and pictures and messages into a nice journal. The disadvantages of the travel blog provider is that there is probably little room for customisation and uniqueness as all the blogs follow the same pattern, format and layout. Our particular blog provider had no tracker to show how many people had been visiting the site and had no way of adding Google Analytics to perform this function. Connectivity to Facebook and Twitter were available but not great.

The general blog provider will swap the travel specific attention to the blog for a more customisable user interface that allows the blogger to create something unique and specific to their needs. Another nice thing here is that you can probably add entries that either have nothing to do with your travels or nothing to do with any place in particular – something that we found lacking in our travel blog and that would have been useful. One of the downsides is that you may not have the ability to create photo/video albums on the blog site and might have to link to another provider, say www.picasa.com or www.flickr.com, for this.

The website route provides the most space for customisation and you can literally create whatever you want here. This is your domain and you are in full control of how it looks and works. The biggest downsides here are: cost of hosting the site; cost of how much you can place on the site if you want to store your pictures and videos on the site; and you need to know how to build the website.

Just remember, the main reason for your travel blog is most likely to let people know and see what you’re doing, where you’ve been and where you’re going. It is also your memory bank that you’ll look back on when you need to remind yourself of what you’ve accomplished or you’re asked to help others that are going to places that you visited. The balance of customisation and features you need while keeping this in mind is probably what’s going to determine which of the above routes you will take.

So, get out there, experience the world and let everyone you know and meet travel vicariously through you by following your travel blog.

Words by guest writer: Brett Sacks (brettsontour@gmail.com; www.offexploring.com/mlungutrek)

 

Gadget review: Golla G-bag

 I have been looking for a good way to transport my iPad since I got it last year. Up to this point I was using a laptop bag, however it kind of defeated the portability objective of having a tablet if I needed a massive bag with which to carry it around in. 

After a little bit (actually a lot) of research (Google) I came across Golla, manufacturers of some great gadget-carrying bags. I was particularly drawn to the G-bag (Golla G-bag 11.6” G1022). It is an upright messenger bag which I like as the main length of the bag is along the body and not across the body like a normal laptop bag.

I ended up buying the bag from BagItUp.co.za (part of the Shop and Ship group). Customer service was great; the purchase process seamless; and the bag arrived very quickly. It was my first purchase from Shop and Ship, but a good experience and I’ll definitely be purchasing from them again. But I diverge. 

 The G-bag is honestly awesome. It is much smaller than my laptop bag, yet it is big enough to carry my iPad and day-to-day accessories (cables, headphones, Leatherman, pens, stylus etc.) and has plenty space to spare. The ‘gadget compartment’ is designed for a netbook (11.6 inches) so it will hold tablets, most netbooks and even the Macbook Air. 

The main compartment is closed magnetically, and doesn’t come loose even with vigorous shaking. It is divided into two parts – one to hold your device and the other to hold other stuff. There are also two smaller side compartments that close with zips. It’s very well padded meaning that your electronic devices will be well protected. The shoulder strap is adjustable so you can tailor the hang length for your height. It feels comfortable being carried cross-shoulder or handbag style.

If you are looking for a good way to carry your netbook / tablet – this is it.