| If you know what you're doing, you can quickly find | | | | click 'Browse' and take a look through the whole |
| what you're looking for on eBay. Here are a few | | | | category? You might be surprised by what you find. |
| golden rules. | | | | Few people realise just how powerful eBay's search |
| Be specific: If you're searching for the first edition of | | | | engine is - a few symbols here and there and it'll work |
| the original Harry Potter book, you'll get further | | | | wonders for you. |
| searching for 'harry potter rowling philosopher's stone | | | | Wildcard searches: You can put an asterisk (*) into a |
| first edition' than you will searching for 'harry potter'. | | | | search phrase when you want to say 'anything can go |
| You'll get fewer results, but the ones you do get will be | | | | here'. For example, if you wanted to search for a |
| far more relevant. | | | | 1950s car, you could search for 'car 195*'. 195* will |
| Spell wrongly: It's a sad fact that many of the sellers | | | | show results from any year in the 1950s. |
| on eBay just can't spell. Whatever you're looking for, | | | | In this order: If you put words in quotes ("") then the |
| try thinking of a few common misspellings - the | | | | only results shown will be ones that have all of the |
| chances are that fewer people will find these items, | | | | words between the quote marks. For example, |
| and so they will be cheaper. | | | | searching for "Lord of the Rings" won't give you any |
| Get a thesaurus: You should try to search for all the | | | | results that say, for example "Lord Robert Rings". |
| different words that someone might use to describe | | | | Exclude words: Put a minus, and then put any words in |
| your item, for example searching for both 'TV' and | | | | brackets that you don't want to appear in your search |
| 'television', or for 'phone', 'mobile' and 'cellphone'. Where | | | | results. For example: "Pulp Fiction" -(poster,photo) will |
| you can, though, leave off the type of item altogether | | | | find items related to Pulp Fiction but not posters or |
| and search by things like brand and model. | | | | photos. |
| Use the categories: Whenever you search, you'll notice | | | | Either/or: If you want to search for lots of words at |
| a list of categories at the side of your search results. If | | | | once, just put them in brackets: the TV example from |
| you just searched for the name of a CD because you | | | | earlier could become '(TV,television)', which would find |
| want to buy that CD, you should click the 'CDs' | | | | items with either word. |
| category to just look at results in that category. Why | | | | So once you've found your bargain item, bid for it and |
| bother looking through a load of results that you don't | | | | won it, what if it all goes wrong? Don't worry - eBay |
| care about? | | | | has a thorough dispute resolution procedure, and we'll |
| Don't be afraid to browse: Once you've found the | | | | cover it in some depth in the next article, so you'll be |
| category that items you like seem to be in, why not | | | | prepared if the worst happens. |