Searching ebay like a pro: Wildcard Searches(Buying DVDs in Online Auctions: Part 2 of 2)Here's how it works... This time, put the following in the search results: 195* science fiction DVD Make sure and check the box that says "Search Title and Description" and if you want to be the first to snag deals on stuff that people just listed, click the "Buy it Now" tab and sort your auctions by NEWLY LISTED. Hmmm... we only got three results. "The Invisible Boy" from 1957, "Killers from Space" from 1956 and "Flight to Mars from 1951". That's odd. Oh yeah! We forgot to click the "Search Title and Description" box under the search box. Let's try again... Ah ha! Now, we get 302 results. Plus, we can use the links to the left side of the browser to further narrow our results, and search for DVDs by Genre, Format, etc. Now for another little trick- let's say you want to find a bunch of DVDs in one collection. Try searching for "DVD collection". WHOA. Like 36,000 choices. Plus, a lot of them are for collected sets and editions... we were thinking of trying to grab a great deal on say 100 or so cool new releases. OK- Let's try a different term, that means almost the same thing- try inputting "DVD lot" or even better, "Huge DVD lot"... and uncheck that "search title and description box." Why? Our search is more geared towards the auction title now. Better- now we get like 1320 results. We could even narrow it in with terms like "Huge DVD lot" and "Personal DVD Collection", etc. These two searches gave us 40 and 20 results of highly targeted results. Finally, let's say you are getting too many returns of unwanted results, that pop up on the results list. These are time consuming and annoying, especially when it's the same exact auction description over and over in the list. For instance, if an auction such as "2001 Money Making Secrets DVD" keeps popping up, and you are really trying to buy the DVD movie "2001: A Space Odyssey", then try using a minus sign in your search, like this: 2001 Space Odyssey DVD -Money The results will then come back, but without any auctions with the term "money". You can also specify several words to ignore, using this search string: 2001 Space Odyssey DVD -(money, secrets, job, income) Now, none of the terms in the parentheses will cloud your results. Hope this helps... Good luck with your movie shopping! Back to Part 1: How to Buy DVDs in Online Auctions For more auction search tips, check out our in-depth articles at:
How to Search Online Auctions and eBay For more tips, check out the great book eBay hacks, which we have reviewed on our site here. | 
