Consumer Expert Shares Secret eBay Sites Offering 75% Off Groceries
- Consumer Expert Tom Church has discovered a secret treasure trove of discounted groceries
- By shopping for expired products on eBay, he has saved 75% on various products
- He reveals the best items to buy online and special search terms to get the best results
- Shares additional hacks to save even more money when shopping on eBay
Buying groceries can be a headache these days with prices constantly rising, but Consumer Expert Tom Church has come up with a genius way of finding cheap reduced-to-clear food online.
Tom, Co-Founder of money-saving community LatestDeals.co.uk, said: ‘Not many people know about this, but food, toiletries, health and beauty products are commonly sold for bargain prices on eBay if you know where to look.
‘I have been using a small retailer called Discount Dragon for a while - this store provides food which is close to or after its best before date. However, you have to spend £20 or more to qualify for free delivery.
‘This was an obstacle, as I wouldn’t always meet the minimum spend. So I began wondering if other shops on eBay might sell similar items without needing to spend a certain amount. I got a colleague to help me and we ended up making some surprisingly good discoveries.
‘There are actually dozens of eBay stores in the UK which sell food that’s reduced to clear. It’s been reduced because it’s either near its best before date, or is past it. Many of us may think we need to strictly follow best before dates, but this is just a guideline. Eating non-perishable food close to or just after their best before is usually fine.
‘So what kind of food can you buy? Just a few examples are - chocolate, crisps, cereal, coffee, tea, soft drinks and pet food. You will also see supplements and beauty products, but I would advise not to buy these if they are expired. You would be doing so at your own risk.
‘When you’re looking for food to buy on eBay, there are some special search terms you can use to get the best results. I discovered that the best words to use are - best before, BBE, BB, out of date, OOD, short date, short dated, expired and clearance. You put the name of the product you want before one of these words. For example, you would search for Pringles out of date or Cadburys expired.
‘Sellers will typically list their items with the best before date on them. You will see titles such as Best Before 09/08/22 or BBE 08/22, and these mean the best before date is 9th August 2022 or August 2022.
‘I have compiled a list of eBay stores which have sold reduced to clear items before. They will generally offer free delivery on products, so it makes it easier to compare which store is offering the best prices for the items you want.
‘When you’re buying items like this on eBay, you are typically buying in bulk - it’s like doing a Costco shop, but for cheap and expired products. I compared prices with the individual, in-date item prices and realised you can save a lot of money using this method.
‘I do recommend exercising caution and not going overboard. It can be very tempting to purchase a pack of 100 chocolate bars for yourself! Useful items I have bought include coffee pods. I have now made a habit of buying pods in bulk on eBay stores like this, as personally I cannot tell the difference between pods which are in-date and those which are a year old.
‘In the supermarket, you will spend quite a bit on Starbucks or Nespresso pods, whereas I’ve found that you are only paying a quarter of the price when you’re buying expired pods on eBay. Other items I’ve been picking up include salt and pepper, crisps, chocolate, honey and limescale remover. Everything I’ve bought has been perfectly usable or edible.
‘What’s more, you can save additional money by making use of eBay voucher codes. You can sign up for vouchers and discounts via email by going to the Customer Service page. Similarly, sellers will sometimes offer multi-buy savings. For example, if you buy two or more of an item you will get an extra discount. I’ve also found that adding an item to your watch list can result in getting a special offer sent to your inbox.
‘This method is great for finding good deals, but don’t lose sight of what actually counts as a decent offer. You may think a price is good, only to find that you could have saved more elsewhere. So do your homework and compare prices with other sellers, as well as how much the item would cost to buy new.
'You can use the Latest Deals supermarket price comparison tool to find the best supermarket prices, and there are also platforms such as Amazon Warehouse which can feature sellers with similar items. Shop around before making a final decision - there are a lot of options out there!’
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