In the last article we covered sniping and using an eBay sniping service (Hidbid.com is recommended) to place bids for you.
Once again, we’ll go back to a technique/tool to use when searching eBay - searching for items that have misspellings in the title.
It would be impossible to get an exact number, but I have read that there are hundreds of auctions listed every day with misspellings in the title. If the main keyword is misspelled, most of the potential bidders looking for such an item will never see the auction listing. If you can find these items, you have a big advantage and the opportunity to get some great deals.
It would take too long for you to think of and then type in each misspelling of a keyword that you wanted to search for. Luckily, there are tools available that automatically generate misspellings from a keyword that you enter, TypoJoe.com being a website with one.
Using TypoJoe’s eBay misspelling tool is simple. Select which eBay you would like to search from the drop-down menu, and type in keyword that you want to search for into the “Enter search term or phrase here” field.
Next, re-enter the keyword into the “Exclude these words” field (make sure that the box is checked next to it), and click on the “Search” button located in the lower left-hand part of the search table.
The rest of the advanced search features aren’t really needed in my opinion. With most if not all searches, there won’t be enough resulting misspelled listings to make narrowing down your search necessary.
Once you click the “Search” button, you’ll be taken to eBay and shown the resulting item listings with possible misspellings.
If you get a lot of resulting listings that are not related to what you are looking for, you can go back to TypoJoe and add a word or words to the “Exclude these words” field and do another search to eliminate these listings from the results.
If you don’t have any luck with the generic term, “computer”, for example, try using the brand name - “Compaq”, or the model - “Presario”.
The longer and harder to spell that the keyword (search term) is that you’re searching for, the more likely it is that you’ll get some good results, unless it is a rare item.
Some sellers might not do a good job of describing their item in the auction title so always start broadly with your search. For example, search for “PlayStation” rather than “PlayStation 3″. You can always come back to Typojoe and narrow down your search if necessary.
It may be worth trying synonyms for your keyword also, “blouse” instead of “shirt”, “slacks” instead of “pants”, etc.
When you find an item that looks good, follow the guidelines mentioned in the previous articles in this series as far as evaluating the auction listing and asking questions.
If it is an auction listing not a “Buy it Now” listing, I recommend that you go against my earlier advice and place a bid on the item immediately, not scheduling a snipe for the item, unless the item already has at least one bid on it.
If an auction listing, a specially one for a popular item, has no bids placed on it, the seller may get anxious and eventually end the auction early or analyze their listing and discover the misspelling(s) in the title. The opportunity for the potentially great deal would then be gone.
When you have created a search that gives you good results, you can save that search and have notifications automatically send to when an item is listed that matches your search criteria.
This post is long enough, I’ll explain how to do that in the next one.
Tags: eBay buying strategy, eBay Buying Tips, eBay Deals, eBay Misspellings, eBay search techniques