The online marketplace for marine fish, corals, and invertebrates is a vast one. There are tons of full fledged brick-and-mortar businesses, shops run out of a garage, and online exclusive coral stores that dot the digital landscape. While most of them sell from their own website, there are plenty of them that only sell their products on eBay. While the eBay crowd has died down over recent years, there are still a bunch of coral vendors who use the auction-based site. And there’s one thing to be really careful of when browsing these corals. Auction style sites rely on the frenzy of the sale to boost the price of the items. You can still get a good deal on these types of marketplaces, but once you find a coral you like, make a couple of bids and see that timer ticking down at the last minute, you feel compelled to fight for the coral that you’ve been so focused on.
Another related tip is to stay with a single vendor when playing the auction game. The items all have shipping prices tied to them, but if you win multiple auctions from the same vendor, you can get a better deal on overnight shipping. If you pick and choose one coral here and there, it will get expensive in a hurry.
