Buying Disposable Diapers on eBay

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Buying Disposable Diapers on eBay

Everyone knows that eBay is good for two things, finding a great deal, and thinking you have a good deal, but subsequently finding out you overpaid tremendously.  A recent search of eBay showed that they have almost 20,000 listings for baby diapers.   It would take you an unthinkably long time to go through all of these results.   Even worse, when you find something, how do you know if that price is really a good deal or not?  

Introduction to buying diapers on eBay:

The first thing to do is to simply search for diapers, but to get the right results, normally type in the brand name, type and size you are looking for.  Sometimes you can find good deals by just typing in words like “diapers” or other search terms, in case someone misspelled Huggies, Pampers, Luvs, Etc.  This is impractical though as we previously mentioned there were almost 20,000 listings on eBay, but you might get lucky.  In addition though, most sales on eBay use the “buy it now” feature, meaning that diapers are not listed in auction format, and finding a mislabeled package of diapers where you can “snipe” it is probably not going to happen. 

Buying diapers on eBay, and their search and sort functions:

Initially, you can type “diapers” in the search box on eBay.  This will give you a list of roughly 20,000 (or so, depending on the number of active listings, etc.).   After searching “diapers”, there is a link on the left-hand side of your screen under the bolded heading of “Categories”, which says “disposable diapers”.   Click this link, and your results will drop several thousand (a recent search diminished this by roughly 18,000 results).  One word of caution is that this will only show those results in this category.  Sometimes people list their items in the wrong or different category and if you restrict the category here, you may miss some good deals.   To avoid this, you can search by brand name and size in the search bar, which we detail later.  

The first thing you can do is to specify the sort functions.  One of the first methods is to sort by newly posted listings.  Sometimes people post a “buy it now” listing with a price that is really low.  By searching these newly posted listings, sometimes you can take advantage of these very low prices first.  Normally though, these listings get picked over pretty quickly, and you will want to stop looking after listings have been on eBay for several hours (usually about 5 hours is where the author stops).  

If this does not work, then select the “auctions only” button, and sort for “items ending soonest”.  This will give you a list of all of the auctions that are ending in the next few minutes.  Many times you can find packages of diapers that no one has bid on.  Make sure you check the price per diaper before you bid though.   Also, make sure you include any shipping charges (many sellers no longer charge shipping, but sometimes, the shipping charges can be , or , so be very careful about this).  

Another search method is to sort by price + shipping lowest first.  Normally, you should select the “buy it now” only tab in the center of the eBay screen, because many people list auctions at .99 or some other small amount.  Therefore, by looking at the “buy it now” only links, you will be able to find the least expensive deals.  

A final note is that you can always do the aforementioned searches and filters with a search of “diapers”, but you can further specify, for example, “Pampers Cruisers size 3″ to get a list of more accurate searches.  The problem with this level of detail in your search is that not every seller will list a size or the type (i.e. Cruisers in the above example).   Therefore, broader searches should yield better savings, but unfortunately, they take more time.  Keep in mind though, that many sellers sell similar items, coupons, or other things aside from diapers.   In the “Categories” heading on the left side, you should always select “diapering”, “diapers” or “disposable diapers”.   This will depend where you are, but this is the easiest way to narrow down items that are otherwise irrelevant to your searches.

Finding a good deal:

Finding sellers on eBay claiming to have the “best price”, “lowest deal”, etc. is usually marketing puffery.   You have to be very careful about what you purchase, and again, a seller may have the lowest price on Huggies size 2, but might have an extraordinarily high price on Huggies size 3.   The key is to make sure you do an apples-to-apples comparison between eBay, other websites, and even your local store.   Sometimes, you can find diapers at your local store for much cheaper than you can on eBay, but generally eBay will at least be as competitive as your local store, and will often times, depending on how hard you look, have better deals than other online stores.  

An example of this, is one eBay seller’s website who claims to have the “bestselling diaper” and they have the “lowest price on eBay”.   This seller offered a box of Huggies diapers, which were available in five sizes.   Size 1-2 offers 192 diapers for .99 at a cost of .21 per diaper.   Buying at a warehouse club saves you .45 on a similar-sized package, and even purchasing at WalMart.com saves almost .00 over this package.  These savings mean that you are paying almost .00 more buying this package on eBay. However, size 6 Huggies Sung and Dry from this seller offers a better deal than anyone else, at .01 less  than anything in the <A rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link']);” href=” http://www.intelligentmommy.com/ebay_diaper_calculator.asp”>Intelligent Mommy database</a> (or a savings of .00).  

Rather than do all the work yourself, Intelligent Mommy has a free disposable diaper calculator that lets you automatically check the price on eBay diapers, and compares it to both local and other online pricing.  Tools like this ensure that you are getting the best price on diapers before you buy. 

Tips and tricks:

One of the tricks the author used in the past was to find damaged boxes of diapers.  Bags of diapers are different from boxes.  When a bag is punctured, the diapers are exposed, and subsequently whatever the bag is exposed to, the diapers inside are exposed to.  Boxes are different, usually they have several individually wrapped packages.  Therefore, if the box is smashed, cracked, cut, broken, etc. the packages inside often may be perfectly preserved.   Although this is a risk, finding “ugly” boxes of diapers has proved to be a very big cost saver for the author’s family.   

Another tip is to use calculators, or to do your own research.   Intelligent Mommy offers a series of online calculators that make identifying whether a deal on eBay is good or not, but there are other resources out there to help you out.  

Finally, be aware that just because someone says “best”, “cheapest”, etc. on eBay, does not mean it is necessarily true.  There are exceptional deals on eBay, but they are far and few between.  

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