Old timers know Ebay isn’t as cheap as it once was for many things. In some instances you can even pay more for items you could source cheaper (and newer online).

My idea is to build a handy tool to address this problem. Its a price comparison engine with a difference, called, Cheapr At Ebay? Basically it searches backwards at Ebay, looking for finished items or Buy It Now items. It searches for the finishing price on the completed items (finds an average), then searches other online comparison sites to see if stuff really is cheaper at ebay.

You can also opt to do it by category, so if you want to find a rare record, it will look at Ebay completed and current, Gemm, Opal, Amazon Sellers, Etc. To see if its worth bidding up for something or going to an alternative online supplier.

It will also allow you to compare Buy It Now auctions for new products with real world prices via searches like Kelkoo, Froogle or Price Runner. Given the affiliate opportunities this could provide, it could be a potentially lucrative scheme - using the Ebay API and some other search APIs under one hood to determine if the item you think you’ll get cheaper at Ebay really will be cheaper. If you turn this into a multimillion earning scheme, please remember where you got it ;)

Contributed by David Lloyd

(this would make a nice Greasemonkey script, like BookBurro).