Over the past year, I’ve shared how selling on eBay can benefit you and your family, provided tips for getting started selling on eBay, and even told you about my personal lessons learned from selling on eBay for the first time. However, eBay is not just for selling – many people use eBay for purchasing rare, hard-to-find items, or perhaps for finding a perfect gift from the comfort of their home. I know that before I started selling on eBay, I was a frequent eBay shopper, buying anything from cute, collectible items to rare DVDs for the kids. Last year, I even did a little holiday shopping on eBay.

Today I want to introduce you to our newest contributor, Silvia Martinez of Mamá Latina Tips, who will be telling us all about her eBay experiences! Silvia had a great introduction to eBay and shares her favorite eBay memory with us. Read on to hear what Silvia has to say about her first eBay purchase!

My first eBay purchase was a positive experience and sold me on eBay. One January, a few years back, we found low-price airline tickets online to England. For years, we had wanted to visit friends in England and suddenly we had both the means and the opportunity. The only catch was that the departure date was just three weeks away.

We lived in California and instantly we realized we didn’t have the appropriate clothing for winter in the United Kingdom. Without a significant amount of effort, we managed to pull everything together for our family, except for one thing – we needed snow boots for our 2 year-old son, since all he had were tennis shoes and sandals! I visited every store I could think of, but none had snow boots for a 2 year-old in a town that rarely dips below a balmy 60 degrees Fahrenheit in late January.

So, feeling a little anxious, I had the idea to check eBay.  And there they were (cue the heavenly choir), the exact pair of boots I was looking for. I was so excited to get them and they arrived just in time to pack in our suitcase. His new boots were the right size, the right material, and the right fit – exactly as they were described by the eBay seller.

I still remember how smug I felt as my son happily puddle-jumped through the freezing rain on the Oxford Commons, feet warm and cozy, never knowing how close he’d come to having miserable, soaking-wet, frost-bitten feet!

Thank you eBay!

Silvia is founder of the award winning bilingual blog, mamalatinatips.com, where she covers topics of interest to moms including food, entertainment, kids, health, fashion, and beauty, among others.  Silvia is also partner and editor-in-chief of disneylandiaaldia.com, the popular Spanish blog about the Disneyland Resort in California.  You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and Pinterest. Come and say, “Hola!”

Disclosure: ModernMami.com is a member of the eBay Parent Panel, a compensated program.

Photo: saebaryo/Flickr

Yesterday was Cyber Monday and many people were shopping online and searching for great deals. For my family, though, shopping online is something we’ve been doing for many years. While we don’t purchase everything online – I am still hesitant to buy clothes online – we do often buy books, electronics, and household items online. We love the convenience of it, especially since we have small children; it eases the process of taking the whole family to the store. Of course, sometimes you can also find items you can’t normally find in stores.

eBay is known to be a place you can look when you are having issues finding items, either locally or on other sites. Many times you can find a gently used version of that item you can’t find or perhaps you’ll be able to find it at a better price.

I’ve actually been scouring the eBay site these past few days in search of a Fijit friend. Apparently this is a hot toy item this Christmas season and it’s one that’s on my daughter’s Santa list. Lucky me, right?! Unfortunately, since it is a hot item, we’re likely to pay a higher price than if we had bought it a few weeks back. But, as parents, we’re willing to do that rather than explain why Santa didn’t find all the items on her wish list. At least, we’re willing to do that since our baby girl is still on the young side. In a few years, we’ll be able to talk frankly with her should we run into a similar situation.

Aside from purchasing hard-to-find items on eBay, you can also find some really good deals. In fact, eBay is currently having 25 days of deals through December 15 and is hosting Cyber Monday deals all week long. They’ve also teamed up with Toys R Us and have a section on the eBay site with this year’s holiday hot toys.

Have fun shopping online this holiday season and enjoy those deals! What hot toy items are on your children’s wish lists this year?

Disclosure: ModernMami.com is a member of the eBay Parent Panel, a compensated program.

Photo by William Hook