You can buy and sell almost anything at online auctions from cars to antiques, and memorabilia to advertising space on your forehead. To many, online auctions are synonymous with eBay: it has 233 million users worldwide and in Britain the site dominates the market. But there is no shortage of other options, especially if you are looking for cheaper listing costs and sales commissions, or you want specialist items.

GETTING STARTED

The main site for eBay (www.ebay.co.uk) has several categories, including cars, music and antiques, and each has its own website (click on the sidebar on the left of the homepage and you will be redirected to the relevant site).

If you are new to eBay it is worth exploring the comprehensive help pages (tinyurl.com/3xajed), which explain how to set up buyer and seller accounts, how to search, place bids and pay. EBay uses a subsidiary company, PayPal (www.paypal.co.uk), for payments. It acts as an intermediary between buyer and seller so your payment details are never revealed. This helps reduce – but not prevent – fraud so checking a seller’s feedback rating is essential before making a bid.

MR TRADITIONAL

While eBay has cornered the mass market, the traditional auction houses are a better bet for big-ticket fine art or antique lots. Thanks to broadband connections, online bidding is feasible but only Christie’s (www.christies.com) so far has an impressive online bidding service which it calls Live. You can watch and participate in Christie’s auctions from your own computer, whether they are in London, New York or Paris. Once you have set up an account – which includes giving your bank details – you can access the auction calendar and browse the well illustrated catalogues, from Cartier-Bresson photos (estimate $4,000-$6,000) to modern British paintings by artists such as Mary Fedden (estimate £25,000-£35,000). The site is well organised and thoughtfully laid out.

A more cautious approach is taken at Sotheby’s (www.sothebys.com), which only occasionally offers interactive auctions via its New York office, and even then the process is handled by eBay Live Auctions (www.liveauctions.ebay.com). Bonhams (www.bonhams.com) doesn’t offer live bidding but allows registered users to make absentee bids (where you place a bid prior to the sale) online.

TYRE KICKERS

Car buyers like to examine the bodywork and hear an engine purr before bringing out their wallet, but the lure of a bargain is driving many to bid for cars online. The third most popular auction website in the UK is eBay Motors (motors.ebay.co.uk) and it covers vehicles from classic cars to light aircraft. A Lotus Esprit Turbo sold on the site for just 50p in June 2005.

Seller feedback ratings help to weed out some of the dodgy geezers, but to be sure it is wise to invest in a vehicle status report from HPI (www.hpi.co.uk ). This costs £6.99, can be bought online and will uncover whether a used vehicle is stolen, accident damaged, has had a registration transfer or is the subject of outstanding finance. The RAC (www.rac.co.uk) offers a similar service for £5.

Bargains can also be had when buying a new car. To squeeze a better price from dealers why not get them to compete against each other with www.autoebid.com , a reverse-auction website? You must first agree to buy a specific model of car at Autoebid’s “target price”, then ask dealers to bid the price down to win your business. The final price could be thousands of pounds lower than the target price, although you must add Autoebid’s commission of up to £295 plus Vat. If the target price isn’t reduced, there’s no fee to pay. You can also part-exchange your old car as part of the deal.

THE SPECIALISTS

It is not just cars that have dedicated auctions. There are specialist sites for almost anything. Fancy four nights in Monte Carlo at the Fairmont hotel, a trip worth up to £1,200? Make a one-off “sealed bid” at www.auctionair.co.uk to try your luck. If your bid is the highest (minimum £50), you win the trip.

Holiday bargain hunters can go to mainstream tour operators such as Thomson (www.thomsonauctions.co.uk) and bid for package holidays to the Costas, potentially saving hundreds of pounds.

If you are a wine buff head for www.winebid.com, which, among other tipples, was recently offering a bottle of 1998 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti burgundy for £1,800. If you’re mad about the colour pink, then try PinkAuctions.tv (www.pinkauctions.tv), which sells everything from pink LCD TVs to pink fluffy car dice.

On a more serious note, to find a directory of UK property auctions or sign up for alerts of property auctions visit the Essential Information Group’s website at www.eigroup.co.uk. The company works in partnership with Estates Gazette and its reputable services are comprehensive but not free. The cost of a subscription varies but starts at about £35 a month – enough to deter the casual browser.

BAGGING A RECOVERED ITEM

There are online bargains to be found at police and government auctions of lost and stolen items that have ben recovered. The Thames Valley police auction site Bumblebee Auctions (www.bumblebeeauctions.co.uk) is big on commonly stolen items such as bicycles and you can sometimes pick up a top-notch mountain bike for a tenner. The site also lists power tools, car radios and jewellery.

There are hundreds of auction houses that specialise in the disposal of assets seized by government agencies, the courts and bailiffs listed on Government Auctions UK (www.governmentauctionsuk.co.uk). This is a basic site but of potential use to the avid bargain hunter and you can sign up for e-mail alerts. A subscription costs from £3.50 a week, or £50 for a six-month membership.

Though not strictly speaking an auction site, those scavenging for rare Welsh slate tiles to reroof a Georgian townhouse or eager to pick up Victorian wood flooring will find bargains at www.salvo.co.uk , a directory of websites specialising in architectural salvage.

FINDING A HIDDEN GEM

The sheer number of sites out there means that it can pay to enlist some help in monitoring them all, or searching for your desired item more effectively.

If a seller has spelt an item incorrectly it will more than likely be passed over by buyers searching for it. The site www.auctionlotwatch.co.uk has a useful free program that helps search for and identify misspelt items on online auction sites including eBay. Another useful eBay tool is Munnin, a powerful search program available for £10 at tinyurl.com/397zvn.

In all auctions it is frustrating to think you’ve placed the winning bid for that long sought-after Toby jug only to be gazumped in the dying seconds. This frenzied last-minute bidding warfare is known as “sniping”, but there are tools that will automate the process and help you pick off a bargain. A software-based service such as Auction Sentry (£7.70 at www.auctionsentry.com) will place last-minute bids for you (on preselected items) but your computer must be online as the auction ends.

Alternatively some web-based services such as www.auctionstealer.com (which has nearly 500,000 active users) are more potent because you don’t even need your computer to be switched on to win and there is no software to download.

Once you have registered and chosen an item, Auction Stealer will place bids on your behalf up to your specified maximum amount within 3sec of an auction ending. There is a limited free service but a three-month subscription costs £10. The downside is that you must provide the site with considerable personal data.