Before bidding in Tophatter, click on the item's picture and copy its description into your windows buffer. Don't worry about missing the auction. Everything on Tophatter comes up repeatedly. You'll get another chance.
Note the item's price, including shipping. It rarely matters whether the auction is mature or just beginning.
Go to google and paste in the description. Search. Most of the time, I've found that the item is available via Wal-mart, Amazon, Ebay, or some other site listed near the top of the results.
Including shipping, what I've found is almost always LESS EXPENSIVE than the auction price. It's often less than whatever the shipping charges alone on Tophatter are!
For instance, a moment ago I saw one of these CREE 5-mode flashlights auctioning for $1 + $7 S&H. (See the image, below.) The auction had only just begun. But when I googled for the same thing, I found it on Ebay with a Buy-it-now price of $6.39 and free shipping.
That was just one item. You try it. The savings are often 50 percent or more. Probably a lot more. Consider that this Tophatter item hadn't even sold yet when I observed its prices.
There are probably some items that you just can't find selling elsewhere. And there are a few with free shipping where you win the auction with a bid of just a buck or two. But the rest of the time, you can probably buy anything Tophatter sells cheaper someplace else.
I'm a bit embarrassed to only be figuring this out now. micro told us from the very start that he found his watches selling for less on eBay, after all.
At this point, I think that Tophatter's most useful function may be to draw my attention to cheap merchandise that I'd never before thought about buying. For some reason, gadgets that let me drill at 90 degree angles to the drill, glue that only hardens when it is held under an infrared light, purple toilet lights and 25 seeds from an exotic tomato plant - all of which seem a lot more interesting when they're selling on Tophatter for less than ten bucks and being fought over at ever-increasing prices.
Is that a good thing? Probably not, except when I'm buying for somebody else!
I think I've finally kicked my Tophatter habit.
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