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Savvy precious metals investors are always on the hunt for a great deal when looking to buy silver bullion. Finding a way to buy silver below spot price is a great way to lower the dollar cost average of your precious metals investment.
One way some silver buyers have found to buy silver below spot price is to utilize the eBay Bucks cash back rewards program, combined with a credit card that pays a percentage of each transaction as a cash back reward.
eBay Bucks is eBay’s loyalty rewards program that provides a base cash back reward of 1% on eligible purchases. The reward is credited to your eBay account at the beginning of each financial quarter based on your purchases in the previous quarter. The maximum amount of rewards that can be earned each quarter is $500, or up to $2,000 a year.
Several times per quarter eBay will run Bucks bonus promotions intended to boost sales. In the past the promotions have ranged from 6% to up to 15% bonus on top of the base reward.
eBay Bucks can only be earned on eligible purchases. Normally, items in the silver and gold bullion categories are not eligible. However, some dealers are aware of this and to encourage sales will often list items in alternative categories or list products that are eligible for earning cash back rewards on bullion purchases.
Buying bullion on eBay
All of the major and reputable online bullion dealers sell through an eBay store in addition to their own websites. They will often have the same products listed on eBay that they sell on their own websites but with different pricing. Some of the time the prices are cheaper than on their website, sometimes prices are more expensive.
While it may seem illogical, the reasons are pretty straightforward. eBay charges sellers pretty high fees for both listing items for sale as well as to complete the transaction. Plus, paying with PayPal adds additional fees and costs to the dealers. For these reasons the prices dealers charge on eBay may seem higher than the base prices listed on their websites.
Other times, the prices for items sold through eBay will be lower. This is because eBay provides rebates and incentives to bullion dealers that reduces or eliminates fees on certain products.
Many people avoid buying silver and gold bullion on eBay because they are worried about counterfeit or fake items. That is a valid concern but there are some basic safe guards that you can use to easily identify and avoid buying fake bullion.
eBay Bucks on Bullion
Buying bullion on eBay, especially when eBay Bucks promotions are active is the best way to buy silver below spot price depending on how you look at things.
eBay Bucks is a cash back rebate incentive program that is run by eBay. After you’ve signed up for eBay Bucks, all eligible purchases you make will earn eBay Bucks at the rate of 1% of the final auction price or the Buy It Now! price. eBay Bucks are earned throughout each financial quarter and are available for you to spend during the next financial quarter.
Historically, throughout each quarter eBay has run numerous promotions where they will increase the eBay Bucks earnings to as much as 15% on eligible purchases.
There are at least two ways to look at things when you decide to buy silver or gold bullion on eBay when Bucks promotions are running.
One way to look at how you can leverage eBay Bucks for bullion purchases is to look at the bonus as a discount off the auction price or Buy It Now! price.
For example, A dealer may list a 5 troy ounce Sunshine Mint silver bar in a non-bullion category with a Buy It Now! price of $100. When factoring in the earned eBay Bucks when a promotion may be running, this could reduce the net price of that 5 oz silver bar to $85.
Buy Silver Below Spot with eBay Bucks
Another way to look at how you can leverage eBay Bucks with bullion is to maximize the amount of earnings you can per quarter and use those earnings to then buy bullion at a reduced cost during the next quarter.
For example, historically, Pre-1933 US Gold Bullion coins such as the St-Gaudens Double Eagle have been available for close to gold spot price. Some people will buy with the knowledge that they already a local buyer that they can sell the coin to for a small profit. By using a cash back credit card for the purchase and paying off the credit card with the money from the local sale of the coin.
For a coin that may cost $1250 this would earn as much as $100 eBay Bucks (the maximum amount per transaction), plus the cash back from using the credit card ($25 for a 2% rewards card), for a total earned cash back of $125. eBay allows the earning of up to $500 in eBay Bucks per quarter. Churning St-Gaudens Double Eagle coins could earn up to $625 in cash back rewards when combining eBay Bucks and credit card rewards per quarter.
The earned cash back could then be used for purchasing silver or gold bullion for essentially no net cost. By utilizing the cash back rewards for silver purchases it’s possible to get the silver for free, or use the cash back rewards as a way to offset other silver purchases to reduce your overall dollar cost average.
