Buying Formula
Buying Baby Formula
You can save a lot of money buying formula on ebay, especially when you buy baby formula in bulk. Here are some of my tips for successfully buying baby food formula on ebay.
In my experience, the best savings or on purchasing baby formula, rather than formula coupons. For whatever reason, the competition for coupons is greater and it is just harder to win one of those auctions.
1. Do not try and go for a home run and bid 10 cents on the dollar, your wasting your time because you will get out bid. Buying formula in bulk is a great way for parents to save money and you are not the only one learning through this website. As a consequence, you will not be the only one bidding.
When bidding, aim for a 30% savings. So if you are currently paying $15 per can, then your highest bid should be no more than $10.50 per can. ($15 X .7 = $10.5). DO NOT FORGET TO INCLUDE SHIPPING IN YOUR FINAL COST CALCULATION.
Here is how to make sure you include shipping and everything else. Determine your highest bid per can (see above). Multiply your highest bid per can by the number of cans in the auction. This number will be your target final cost. Now, subtract the cost of shipping from your target final cost, this is the maximum amount you should bid.
So, assume 5 cans are up for bid and I normally pay $15 per can. And, assume the seller is charging 11.95 for shipping.
-($15 x .7 = $10.5) my highest bid per can
-($10.5 x 5 = $52.5) my target final cost
-($52.5 - $11.95 = $40.55) my maximum bid
2. Be prepared to lose an auction or two. This is because the savings on formula is so good, you have competition. Watch your auctions and be prepared to bid on the next auction.
3. After you have found your brand of formula and specific formulation, ebay lets you choose to see all auctions or auctions with a "buy it now" option. Before you bid, see if there are any buy it now auctions were you can save at least 30% (use test above). If so, grab it.
4. If you cannot get a "buy it now," then what can I do to increase chances of winning? There are 2 tricks.
a. Trick 1- add 97 cents to your maximum bid. This makes it harder for another bidder to beat. I have lost a lot of good deals when the other guy's winning bid is .20 cents or a quarter more than mine.
b. Trick 2 - Enter your maximum bid, as calculated above, as your first and only bid. I don't care if you use trick 1, but you should always do this. In other words, if your maximum bid is $40.55 (from the example above) bid this amount in the very beginning. The worst case scenario is you win the auction and save 30% on formula.
Here is the beauty. You don't have to continually watch the auction to see if you need to raise your bid. Just because you bid $40.55 does not mean that is what you will pay, if you win. Remember how ebay bidding works - only the next bid necessary to win (up to your maximum bid) is entered. So if you bid $40.55 and the next highest bidders maximum bid is $30, your bid will only be bumped to $31.00. So, even though you bid $40.55, you would only have to pay $31.
5. Generally shipping takes 5 days on average, so you need to win an auction so that you do not run out of formula.
Good luck, I hope the information helps.
