How to Search Online Auctions and eBay
Part 1 of 3Jump to:
Search by item date
Search Titles & Descriptions Also see:
Part 2: Using eBay search as a Price Guide
Part 3: Bid Shadowing  The secret to finding deals on eBay is mostly having the patience and ability to find the stuff you want, by sifting through all the millions of seemingly endless listings.
Even with eBay's great advanced search, you still must work hard to spot bargains before the competition does- especially with Buy it Now auctions... How? ...You have to be a little bit of a detective. One way for bidders and sellers to find hidden goodies on eBay, is to do searches for Buy it Now deals combined with "newly listed" auction items. This way, you may find rare items before anyone else does! Also, you can try searching for bargains on eBay during off peak hours, like after midnight or early in the morning, when there is far less bidding competition. Of course, there are far few sellers listing items during these hours, so its pretty slim pickings- but you can spot a deal this way occasionally. As for your search term, try and keep it as specific as possible, and think outside the box. Instead of "Old Comic Book," which will yield about a gazillion results, try searching for auctions that contain the words "comic" and descriptive nouns and adjectives like attic, or vintage- one of my personal favorites is the term "estate" (for estate sale). Novice search tip:
Search Titles & Descriptions If you are not getting enough results in your eBay searches, try checking the box labeled "Search in Titles and Descriptions" just below where you enter your Search Term. This will not only search for keywords in the auction titles, but will also search terms within the auction ad copy as well. Getting too many results? Clear the check mark in the "Search in Titles and Descriptions" box. See an Expert Search Tip: Bid Shadowing search by item date You can also use a wildcard asterisk to find a date. For example, building upon our search term for "comic" above, we can try a search for the terms "comic" and "194*" which should yield comics from all the years in the 1940's; leave the quotation marks out on the word comic, unless you are trying to find a specific phrase like "superman comic". Leave the quotes in for the "194*", so the numbers don't get jumbled. Notice the asterisk we used? This was the wildcard, and it will find all items with a "194" in the result, plus a wild card of one alphanumeric character behind that number, which more than likely would result in a year between 1940 to 1949. True, it may not necessarily yield a date- it could find items with 194 as part of a serial number, but you can use other clever methods to narrow down your results, and use other search commands to omit certain results as well. Let's try an example on eBay right now- Suppose you collect postcards, which is also one of the top eBay collectible categories. Try a couple of searches using the eBay search box in the right hand margin of this web page for the term "old postcard". First, try searching auctions "ending now" without the Buy it Now option selected, and then try a search with the Buy it Now and Newly Listed options chosen, and enter the search term "Postcard 188*" which should yield results of postcards from the 1880s. Then, try adding in words like antique, vintage, civil war, or linen. Wow! What a difference in the quality of results- and with Buy it Now option selected, you can snap these babies up immediately! Try these techniques when you search eBay and other auction sites, and you may be amazed what treasures await you! Read more of How to Search Online Auctions
Part 1: Online Auction Search Tips (Main)
Part 2: Using eBay search as a Price Guide
Part 3: Bid Shadowing | 
