How to Search Online Auctions and ebay
Part 1 of 3
Jump 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!
