A Bit of Ebay Auditing

This is probably a bit of a contradictory post considering a recent post was concerned with being frugal, but whilst poking around on eBay the other day, after having purchased yet more items (a couple of used books this time), I decided to have a look back over this year and audit how much I'd actually spent on the site. I was just curious, as I use the site a lot and buy lots of different things, from clothes and accessories to DIY bits and pieces, craft bits, furniture, a bike and accessories, etc., etc.

I decided to focus my efforts on what I'd spent in the last year on three categories - Clothes and accessories, Home/Garden/DIY and the final category was what I'd spent on Covid related purchases for my own personal use. 

Here's what I found:

Clothing and Accessories - I spent a whopping £368.05 on clothing and accessories this year on eBay. That's quite a lot.  This included 4 pairs of footwear, 19 items of clothing and 16 items which I'd class as accessories, ranging from socks or tights, scarves to jewellery, mostly brooches and some of these purchases were for multiples bought as one item, which I haven't included in the figure. Interesting.

I have to admit that some of the purchases didn't actually turn out to be what I expected, which is always a risk when buying things online and some I've even subsequently donated, as I'll never wear them. I am, however, trying to be more careful about buying clothing, as it is very difficult to know if you'll like it when it arrives.  Many things I've bought this year I really love though and am very happy with, I'd say probably 80%.

Home/DIY/Garden - I spent an even larger sum on items for our home and garden and to assist me in DIY projects over lockdown this year. The total came to £383.92. I'd say that the proportion of things I was happy with, was far higher in this category, although I did purchase the odd thing that was totally unsuitable or not as described - less than 10% I'd say. Quite a lot of money spent though. Most of it was spent on things to accessorise our rooms after redecoration, for storage or for DIY projects. 

Broken down this included three items of furniture or parts for furniture, 17 items used to accessorise or for home decor, including anything from photo frames, ornaments, candlesticks, plant pots, front door furniture, etc., 11 items used for DIY projects including mounts for framing photos or prints, ribbons, cords, paint, polish, a clock mechanism, staples for my staple gun, plus a few others. In addition, a couple of items were bought for storage and the same for the garden. A very eclectic mix of things.

Covid 19 - I thought it would be interesting to see what things I bought on eBay that were Covid related too. This total came to £87.33, mostly spent on PPE, but this did also include a 5 litre bottle of hand sanitiser that I bought for work, but wasn't suitable, as it couldn't be used by asthmatics, so I had to keep it for us to use. It will last us for the forseeable and way beyond, but was an expensive mistake at £20, all because I didn't read the label in the photograph properly and it wasn't mentioned in the listing, which was annoying.

This figure, however, did not include the bike I bought to get to work post-lockdown. Adding this in and the various bits of cycling clothing and paraphanalia I bought elsewhere, it would come to nearly £250. Super interesting to work out these additional costs this year. Initially, I bought very expensive masks on eBay, just as the crisis was building up and when it was difficult to get hold of them. I subsequently bought less expensive masks on Amazon and elsewhere. 

(There were a few other things I've purchased on eBay over the year, which didn't fall into the above categories, so the final figure will be maybe £100 or so more than the totals added together, but the majority were included)

A bit of an eye opener, but one I thought might be interesting to post about. It does make you question your online buying habits when you are confronted with the evidence of your shopping history. 

Overall, though, I am pretty happy with what I spent, save for a few things that I really wish I hadn't purchased. My experiences this year, have taught me to be much more careful buying clothing, especially vintage clothing and I have seriously curbed that urge online as a consequence. I think going forward, I'm going to be a lot more careful though and try to spend a lot less. 

I think being at home and unable to get to shops for much of the year, has led me to shop on eBay much more than I ordinarily would. At least, with eBay, small companies and individuals benefit from your purchases, and it is nice to know that you are giving extra life to something that someone else no longer wants.  

Do you ever audit your online spending?