Guest Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 As mentioned before I am a fan of eBay, I know that there are risks attached and some doggy people out there but that is also true in life! There are often posts on here asking how much something is worth or people that say that have listed something but didn't get anywhere near what they thought it was worth..... And again posts on here about bargains picked up from the small adds or eBay, not barn finds but the normal day to day things. I think the below is a lesson in making sure that you correctly list things, and just highlights what a BIG difference it can make. Again as posted a couple of weeks ago, I have just brought an Engel fridge, spotted it on eBay with 60 seconds to go a bid of £101.99 secured this beauty. When I spoke to the lady about the fridge she commented that she "had expected it to go for more!", I explained I had had also expected it to go for more!! I went on to explain that I had been searching for an Engel fridge for a while but typing 'Engel' into eBay came up with over 2500 results most of which were German CD's so to narrow it down most people typed 'Engel Fridge' or similar into the search engine or more importantly in the saved automatic searches. The lady had listed the item as Engel Refrigerator so it didn't come up in any of my saved searches and I only spotted it as it was top of the list when I clicked return before putting in the 'fridge' part of 'Engel Fridge'. At the time she made no mention of another fridge, but a couple of days later I noticed that she had listed this one I didn't need another one but thought I would keep my eye on it as this time she had listed it up as an 'Engel Fridge/Freezer' it was in slightly worse condition but has today made £287.35 a whopping £185.36 difference!!!! So that's the difference between a Refrigerator and a Fridge!! Jason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CwazyWabbit Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 She also spelt refrigerator wrong in her first ad. I've noticed over the years that the ebay search engine has been modified to be more tolerant of spelling mistakes and different names for the same things although in this case it was the uncommon name and the mispelling that proved too much for it. Massive price difference though. You got a bargain Jason Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRecklessEngineer Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 I once got a V8 distributor for £3 + postage, back when they were all the rage. It was listed as a "dissy". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballcock Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 I bought a serp v8 water pump for a measly 99p as it was listed collection only but I had emailed the guy and he gave me a postage price before hand if he had listed it with postage he would have made a little more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landy-Novice Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 i got a brand new unopened exmoore trim canvas hood for £138!! the tile was land rover hod. they now corrected that and sell them at £220!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tetsu0san Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 This is where I get to wear my nerdy cap!! With both listing and buying you have to think about how people will see the auction. For example, my current hobby due to my bad back is radio controlled cars. So let’s say that I am searching for a bargain, I have to remember to treat any seller as a 4 year old who can't spell. If I want to search for a remote controlled car, I expect that person to spell controlled incorrectly and so I start the search with remote and end with contr* because they can probably get the first 4 letters in the right order and the * allows the search to allow anything after the *. Also, ebay allows you to be reasonably clever with a search. As well as the * you can do an 'or' search. So if I think that someone may have listed an RC car as either remote controlled car or radio controlled car, I can do the following search - (radio,remote) contr* car. The bracket means whatever is inside can be separated with a comma and this is treated as a 'Radio OR Remote' and whatever is outside is added to this. So basically I am searching for both radio controlled car and remote controlled car. Adding an * behind the car will allow the search to include car and cars. Now (and sorry for going on) you can do multiples of each. So I want to search for anything RC that could be a car, truck or buggy. I can then do a search (radio,remote) cont* (car*,truck*,bug*). Using bug* as it could be buggy, buggie or buggies. So using this method I have saved searches for land Rover stuff, RC cars as well as other bits. But if I am selling, I want as many people to see my item as possible, so I make it as generic as possible. Like stated at the start, most people who want a fridge will search for fridge and not refrigerator. Also, if I have something that could be related to another item, like an RC car that is made by one brand but most people are interested in another brand, I will put the more popular brand into the title, maybe with a NOT in front of it. So if someone searches for the more popular brand they will also get my little not-so-popular brand in their search results. Advertising a fridge as 'BLAH BLAH fridge refrigerator' will mean that people who search for either will find it. However, another observation is that as people get more savvy with searches, the misspelled and poorly advertised auctions can also make the most money as people who know how to search will tend to go into a kind of frenzy if they think they might get a bargain due to a poorly listed item. If you saw an auction for a 99p and no reserve Landroover, you would probably take a punt. But my final note is that I would also like to appologise for adding to this thread. I have had too much time on my hands recently! Feel free to tell me to get out more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin90 Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 I know a few of us must have these... http://fatfingers.com/default.aspx I have used this website a few times and picked up a few bargains as a result. As stated in previous post though, people are now getting savvy to this so not as many bargains to be had. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orgasmic Farmer Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 Cheers Jase I was bidding on the second one! Don'thold out much hope of a bargain on the 3rd one either Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GBMUD Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 Also, if I have something that could be related to another item, like an RC car that is made by one brand but most people are interested in another brand, I will put the more popular brand into the title, maybe with a NOT in front of it. So if someone searches for the more popular brand they will also get my little not-so-popular brand in their search results. Would this be the 'keyword spamming' which is expressly forbidden in eBay rules, and for which they allegedly cancel auctions? I have to say, it annoys the hell out of me when I search for 'Landrover' and get offered loads of 'Mitsubishi Shogun not Landrover' etc. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 She also spelt refrigerator wrong in her first ad. I've noticed over the years that the ebay search engine has been modified to be more tolerant of spelling mistakes and different names for the same things although in this case it was the uncommon name and the mispelling that proved too much for it. Massive price difference though. You got a bargain Jason I haden't even noticed that she had spelt refrigerator incorrectly!!! was just happy with the win!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 Cheers Jase I was bidding on the second one! Don'thold out much hope of a bargain on the 3rd one either Sorry Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 This is where I get to wear my nerdy cap!! Also, ebay allows you to be reasonably clever with a search. As well as the * you can do an 'or' search. So if I think that someone may have listed an RC car as either remote controlled car or radio controlled car, I can do the following search - (radio,remote) contr* car. The bracket means whatever is inside can be separated with a comma and this is treated as a 'Radio OR Remote' and whatever is outside is added to this. So basically I am searching for both radio controlled car and remote controlled car. Adding an * behind the car will allow the search to include car and cars. I too have a nerdy cap.... As you say above the use of * (wildcards) and brackets (and/or) is a great way of narrowing down your search, combined with this I also use minus in my searches to remove Items I am not interested in. e.g. when I was looking for a fridge the search I had saved was in the advanced saved settings to alert me if an item was listed for less than £200 with two days to go. but the search words stream was: (land rover, 4x4, toyota) (fridge, freezer) -magnet which cuts the search into something useful. However to pick up on Chris's point above if the search was being spammed you could also add -NOT to remove the spamming items. Jason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tetsu0san Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 Would this be the 'keyword spamming' which is expressly forbidden in eBay rules, and for which they allegedly cancel auctions? I have to say, it annoys the hell out of me when I search for 'Landrover' and get offered loads of 'Mitsubishi Shogun not Landrover' etc. Quite possbily, but I have never had any auctions pulled because of it. I totally agree that it is annoying but the plan is to make sure that I get as much as I can from a listing. I think that the ebay rule is possibly more interested in the listings that have an entire section at the bottom which lists every alternative under the sun so if you search in title and listing you will get loads of results. Could be wrong though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
missingsid Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 Part of my mates business/hobby is based around buying stuff he knows about off ebay that has been badly listed then selling it immediately for more money! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 Been there done that - best buy so far was a "hydrolic" winch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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