Where-to-Surf.com Presents : uBid.com

I've bought several thousand dollars worth of electronics, housewares and computer equipment from Ubid over the last four years and have been mostly satisfied. Only one piece of equipment ever arrived broken and I had no trouble getting an RMA and getting my money refunded.

On average I pay between 25% - 75% less than the prevalent street price for most items. But in order to do this well you need to do some research and know how much you're willing to pay.

Like most auction sites, Ubid tries to suck you in with the low starting prices. But what good is a $9 starting bid if the ending bid is within $10 of a price you can get elsewhere on line without the hassle of bidding?

Luckily most items that Ubid sells are not one-of-a-kind. What this means is that if they have 5 of an item in an auction that ends today, they'll likely have 5 more tomorrow. This gives you an opportunity to watch an auction for something you'd like to buy and see around where the price ends up going. If it ends up close to the price you can get elsewhere, then it's probably not worth the hassle of going through the whole bidding process.

The other thing to be aware of is that a lot of the stuff Ubid sells is refurbished. All this merchandise is returned stuff that has been looked over and possibly fixed to "like new" condition. This stuff is always more of a chance, since someone thought it wasn't right in the first place. In some cases there is a model that was a lemon right from the start -- you'll see hundreds of this model being sold as "refurbished."

That's a good indication that you want to avoid that one -- it may be that the manufacturer never got it right in the first place. But a refurbed item may be just fine -- most of the refurbs I've bought have worked fine for years.

In short, caveat emptor is the name of the game.

Ubid is not for someone who wants to click buy today and see the item tomorrow. It's for someone looking for a great deal on new or refurbed equipment that may be as old as 1 or 2 model years out of date (but not everything is this old). Bidding works like Ebay, so any Ebay buyer should be familiar, and it's nice that with Ubid you just register your credit card and you don't have worry about using different payment services like Billpoint or Paypal.

Although Ubid now also offers person-to-person auctions like Ebay, most of what they sell is right from their own warehouses, and these auctions are always identified. As a merchant Ubid is about as responsible as your average on-line dealer. Not one of the best, but not a bunch of charlatans either.

Again, if you're smart and do your research, the low, low prices can make up for some of the inconvenience.

Where-to-Surf.com is an Official Affiliate of uBid.com