by Buddha7305
After reading all the wonderful articles provided I decided to be less of a leach and more of a contributor. After thinking and analyzing my skills I decided that I could only provide some help in one area. How to buy minis online. People might think wip de doo how hard is it to buy online. Well after many a purchase I came up with some simple rules that I always follow when purchasing online.
1. Always ask for more pictures at different angles if you are buying painted minis. Simple reason why is the seller is only ever going to show you its best side, or the best mini overall.
2. It's always better to buy a mini for the mini and not the paint job. Reason being there are very few people online that can produce above quality painting jobs that should be paid for.
3. When buying from Ebay, always ask for shipping/handling quotes. No need to buy a block of minis cheap then get nailed on a huge shipping/handling cost. Realize in your continent shipping will be reasonable but once you cross an ocean it gets expensive.
4. NEVER SHIP CASH!!!!! I learned this the hard way shipped cash for an EC griffon and beast wizard and low and behold never got the minis and the seller never claimed to receive it.
5. Pay for your purchases in a way that the payment can be tracked. Money Orders, checks, paypal, credit cards. This way if the deal goes sour you have proof when you file a claim with the police(it is called a mail fraud and police do follow up on complaints). On the information line/memo line put a description of what it is paying for. I.E. For empire minis yet to be delivered.
6. Realize when paying through both paypal and credit cards you can file a claim with the company if the deal goes sour. (People mysteriously will the ship the minis when paypal threatens takes the money out there accounts.)
7. If the deal is large get personal information besides address and name. Ask for their telephone number also. Then go to the internet and double check it in the appropriate white pages. If the name/address don't match, ask some more questions (and proceed with caution.)
8. Unlike real life where we usually pay upfront in full for products, don't be afraid to pay partially first and then wait to finish payment till the products arrived.
9. READ THEIR REFERENCES!! Spend a few minutes when shopping on ebay/bartertown and read the references. Just because someone has a positive rating on Bartertown doesn't mean that the person didn't fake it.
10. On to the good parts, when you find something you want to bid on ebay DON'T BID right then. Use the Watch It function. Reason why is if you bid on it early and force other people to out bid you before it is close to ending you are jacking up the price your going to have to pay.
11. When the auction you want to bid on is close to ending (say 1-2 minutes) get ready to bid. MAKE SURE YOU ARE LOGGED IN. (Yes I've lost a bid to getting the stupid login page). As the auction is about to end don't be a cheap sob and enter the highest price your willing to pay right away rather then just doing a little bit above the current price. This is because someone like me might have put in a high price. People try to nickel and dime it by only entering a higher bid by a few dollars. While they are doing this, your top price might survive and you will win the bid.
12. Search in weird sections in ebay for the minis/warhammer. Many people that don't play the game might not classify it in the right section. I have found many a bargain in the general toys section and the collectibles section due to this.
13. When you have won the auction. There is a few ways to have your item shipped usually. Ask for price quotes on them all (which you should have already done if you followed #3) Then realize if you ask for insurance your friendly government will nail you for import tariffs. So be prepared to pay 10-15% more once the product arrives. I always factor this into my bidding as I usually like products to be insured if they are large.
There are also the various online shoppers that offer anywhere between 10-30% off of regular GW prices. If you decide to purchase from them go to that areas Better Business Bureau and do a name search for their business. It might pop up if they have had problems in the past. Also do realize if the store is in the same province/state/country you will have to pay various taxes.
My last piece of advice for people shopping online. DON'T DO ALL YOUR PURCHASES ONLINE. Support your local playing area by picking up some minis from them cause if you don't and they go out of business you will have no where to play :bonk:
Feel free to post any of your tips that I might have missed.