Chapter 3. Findingand GettingBargains

Smart searching involves more than typing a couple of words into a text box and clicking the Search button. Sure, a simple search gives you a list of resultsbut that's what every other shopper on eBay is getting, too. You're out to find the bargains others miss . Chapter 1 illustrated the basics of searching. This section turbocharges your searches.

eBay has so many itemsmore than 10 million auctions are running on any given daythat searching can quickly become difficult and frustrating. For example, a search that seems straightforward, like NASCAR, can bring up thousands of items you probably never even thought of: not just the tickets you were looking for, but pet bandanas, bracelet charms, cell phone casings, calendars, pillows, and tons more. You can refine your searches to pinpoint items by learning how to work the system.

3.1.1. Speak the Search Engine's Language

Precision-tune your search by telling eBay's search engine exactly what you want. You can use symbols to make searching easier:

• Quotation marks . Put quotation marks around any two or more words to force them to appear as a phrase in the results. For example, typing in boots gets you around 65,000 or so results: cowboy boots, ski boots, rain boots, work bootsthe list goes on and on. Type "ankle boots" and the search engine cuts to the chase, winnowing out 62,000 or so results you don't want, so you can focus on the auctions you do want.

  Tip: Narrow your search even further by clicking the most appropriate link in the Matching Categories menu on the left-hand side of the page. Doing so restricts your results to auctions listed in that category.

• Asterisk . The asterisk is an immensely useful wildcard character, which stands in for a letter or letters . It's great if you don't know the exact spelling of something. Search for "Engelb* Humperdin*" to find that rare Englebert Humperdinck LP for your mother's birthday. eBay doesn't allow wildcard searches with fewer than two letters. But given the six trillion results you'd get from typing, say, m* , that's not usually a disappointing limitation.

  Tip: If you're searching for a keyword that could be either singular or plural, don't bother to use an asterisk. eBay automatically expands your search to include singular and plural versions of common keywords. So if you're in the market for one or more teacups, type in teacup to have eBay show you auctions for just one cup and for those offering a cupboard full. If, however, you don't want eBay to perform this service for youif, for example, you're looking for a single teacup to complete a set, use quotes to get the search the way you want it: "teacup" . Putting quotes around a single word forces eBay to search for that word exactly the way you typed it.

• Minus sign . Put a minus sign in front of a word or phrase you want to exclude from your search. If you're a Francophile rather than a hotel-chain-heiress fan, type Paris -Hilton and see how much junk disappears from your screen.

  Note: Make sure there's a space before that minus sign. Otherwise, the word becomes part of your search, rather than excluded from your search.

• Parentheses . To find possible variations of a word, put them in parentheses to have eBay search for both versions. Separate the terms with a comma but no spaces. A collector of medieval battle axes who searches for ( medieval,mediaeval,midevil ) gets results whether the seller used the American spelling, the British spelling, or a terrible but common misspelling. A recent search for all three terms produced nearly 100 more listings than searching for medieval alone.

3.1.2. Search for Items by Bidder

After you've spent some time on eBay, you're likely to notice another bidder or two with tastes or interests similar to yours. eBay lets you tag along as they hunt for bargains, by searching for items by those bidders' eBay IDs. Searching by bidder is a great way to use others' search skills to find items and see what others are willing to pay for them.

First, find the eBay ID of a bidder you want to shadow. One way to do this is to look on your My eBay page (Section 1.4.9) for an auction you didn't win (in My Summary, scroll down the page until you find Items I Didn't Win, or, from the eBay Views menu, look under All Buying and then click Didn't Win), click the item's title, and notice the ID of the winning bidder. Another way to find the ID of a bidder worth tailing is to spend a little time researching completed auctions for items you want. In the upper-right corner of any page, click the Advanced Search link. Type your item in the Search page's text box, then turn on the "Completed listings only" checkbox before you click the Search button.

As you look through the search results, watch for auctions that ended successfully with one or more bidders. Check out these auctions by clicking the item title. Under the auction's "Start time" is its History: click the number of bids listed there to get a detailed report of who bid how much. (Of course, getting a bid report won't work for private auctions, where bidders' IDs are hidden. See Section 1.4.4 for the scoop on private auctions.) After you've looked at a few items, you're likely to notice a repeat bidder or two. Make a note of their IDs, and you're ready to go shopping right along with them.

With a bidder's ID in hand, you're ready to find out what else that bidder is shopping for. From the Buy page (or under the Search box at the top of most pages), click the Advanced Search link. On the Search page that opens, look in the menu on the left-hand side for Items by Bidder, and then click that link. Type the bidder's ID in the text box, select your options, and click the Search button. Figure 3-1 shows you how it works.

Figure 3-1. Searching for items by bidder can show you what the competition's up to. If you include completed listings in your search criteria, eBay shows you the auctions that finished within the last 30 dayshelpful if you're researching prices, but not if you want to find bargains you can bid on now. To get the widest range of current results, turn on "Even if not the high bidder" to see all the auctions in which the bidder is an active participant. You can request as few as 5 or as many as 200 results per pageor simply select "All items on one page."

Using this technique, you can find all the yodeling CDs your shadow bidder is currently trying to buy, scoot to the appropriate auction pages, and do your best to outbid him. He all does the legwork, you end up with a great CD collection. What better way to cut down on your own search time?

Of course, other eBayers can search for items using your eBay ID. If your significant other knows your ID, don't bid on an anniversary gift and expect it to be a surprise.

3.1.3. Search for Items by Seller

Whether you're a collector or just always on the lookout for a good deal on tennis shoes, you might find the same seller's name appearing again and again in your search results. Keep track of what that seller is offering by searching for items by seller .

Searching for items by seller lets you spot sales trends and use them to your advantage. Does the seller seem overstocked on a particular item? If the seller has had many auctions for the same item end with few or no bids, you might be able to buy that item for the starting price with a last-minute bid, or the seller might lower the price soon. Has the seller raised or lowered the price recently? Does demand seem higher or lower on certain days of the week? Knowing the answers to such questions tells you when to bid, and how much.

To add this trick to your bag, first find the seller's eBay ID, which is on the right side of any auction page in the Seller Information box. Click Advanced Search, then, in the left-hand Search menu, click Items by Seller. Type the seller's eBay ID into the text box and click Search, as shown in Figure 3-2.

Figure 3-2. Turn on the "Include completed listings" checkbox if you want to see the winning prices for items similar to one you're considering. How much have those ski goggles gone for in the last month or the last week? You can choose from 5 to 200 results per page and sort by time or price. If you're not sure of the seller's ID, leave "Show close and exact User ID matches" checked to get a list of similar IDs in your results. If you know the ID for sure, turn off this checkbox to return only an exact match.

If you're thinking long- term relationship with this seller, save this search as a favorite (described in the next section). Open one of the seller's auction pages, look in the right-hand "Seller information" box, and then click Add to Favorite Sellers.

3.1.4. Have Searches Find You

Wouldn't it be cool if you could send an automatic request to every single eBay seller every single day, saying, "Now does anyone have any size 20, terry cloth, pink poodle skirts for sale? How about now?"

In fact, you can. Here's how it works. You can save almost any search as a favorite, which means that eBay remembers the search terms you typed in and saves them so you can redo the search without all that extra typing. To play favorites with your searches, simply look on any search results listing, on the right side just above the results list, for the Add to Favorites link. Click it to display the Add to My Favorite Searches page and save the current search as a favorite. Saved searches are accessible from your My eBay page (Section 1.4.9) or from the Search page.

After you've saved a favorite search, you can opt for daily email notification of new items that meet your search criteria. On the Add to My Favorite Searches page, turn on the checkbox that gives the OK to email you when pink poodle skirts (or whatever you're searching for) become available. Use the drop-down list to set your preference about how long you'll receive notifications: from one week to one year (Figure 3-3).

Figure 3-3. When you save a search as a favorite, you can receive a daily email for up to a year to let you know whenever new listings appear that meet your search criteria. The email lists new items, with a link to each one. If your search is very general, something like "laptop," expect a very long notification email. Narrow your search terms as much as possible before you save the search, to save yourself time sifting through the results.

Of course, if you change your mind about the daily emailsenough poodle skirts already!you can edit your preferences to cancel them. Go to your My eBay page and click All Favorites. Find the favorite search you want to change, click Edit Preferences, then make the changes you want.

3.1.5. Search Within a Price Range

If you're on a budget, you can limit your results to a certain price range. Click the Advanced Search link and enter your keywords in the text box. Look down the page for Items Priced, and enter your minimum and maximum amounts. Then click the Search button to have eBay give you results within the price range you specified.

3.1.6. Think Globally, Search Locally

The Advanced Search page lets you do another cool trick: you can limit your search to find only items that are close to home. Finding local auctions is useful when you're shopping for something large or bulky and would rather pick it up yourself than pay exorbitant shipping costs. Sometimes, you can also find a seller with a brick-and-mortar store you can visit in person.

After you've clicked Advanced Search, scroll down to the bottom of the page until you find "Show only." In this section, turn on the checkbox next to "Items within" and type in your Zip code if it's not already there (it should be if you're registered and signed in). Then use the drop-down menu to determine the searching distance, from 10 to 2,000 milesalthough 2,000 miles might be a little far for local pickup. When you click the Search button, your results show a new column, Distance, that indicates how close the seller is to the Zip code you typed in. If you don't get enough results, try increasing the distance by an increment or two.

3.1.7. Find What Other Shoppers Miss

One good way to find items overlooked by other shoppers is to try alternate spellings and misspellings. Even if you think that your search term is such a common word that no one would misspell it, try some variations anyway. Typos happen, and one letter can make the difference between an item with dozens of lofty bids and a bargain. If you're a collector, try searching for "art decco", "art noveau" , or "deppression glass" (all misspellings). Looking for good buys on clothing? Search for Abercombie, sequence (for sequins ), or " Manolo Blanik ". A search for satelite, saphire, karioke, projecter, tredmill, Titliest , or " Harry Poter " might bring up some interesting resultswith little or no competition in the bidding. You get the idea. Play around with spellingdropping, adding, or transposing lettersto find popular items hidden from others' searches.

There's one exception to using typos to find good deals: some sellers of fake designer goods purposely misspell the designer's name in the title to hide auctions from members of VeRO, eBay's verified rights owner program. VeRO allows copyright holders and other intellectual property owners to report and cancel auctions that trample on their rightsdesigner fakes , unauthorized sellers, unlicensed use of copyrighted material, and so on. So searching for Viutton or Burbery might not get you a dealjust a cheap (and illegal) knockoff. For more on designer fakes and VeRO, see Section 4.3.

3.1.8. Going, Going, Gone!

Picture a packed auction house, the tension mounting as the auctioneer prepares to slam down the gavel and declare a winner. On eBay, it's the clock that declares the winner. And it's exciting to find bargains by racing against the clock, looking for deals as auctions are about to end; Figure 3-4 shows you how.

If no one else has bid, you can snap up the goods for a rock-bottom price with no competition. Or, if others have already been bidding, you can snipe the auction (Section 3.3.1.2) in the last few seconds. Either way, finding a last-minute auction and getting in on the action is the closest thing eBay offers to instant gratification.

Figure 3-4. To find auctions that will end soon, do a search for what you're looking for. When the results page appears, click the dropdown arrow in the "Sort by:" box and then choose "Time: ending soonest." At the head of the resorted list, you'll probably find numerous auctions with just a minute or two left to go.

3.1.9. Buy It First, Buy It Now

In a regular auction, getting in the last bid can put you at an advantage; Buy It Now auctions benefit from the opposite strategy. To find BIN items at a good price, you want to get there first and snap them up before anyone else spots the deal.

To do so, from the Buy page (which you find by heading to the eBay navigation bar and clicking Buy), type your search term into the box, and then click Search. On the search results page, click the Buy It Now tab (to show only BIN auctions); then sort the results by "Time: newly listed." Then scan the list for the best prices.

3.1.10. Watch the Clockand the Calendar

eBay never sleeps, but the rest of the world has to. You can often find bargains by looking for auctions that end when most of the U.S. is snug in bed; demand decreases during hours when few people are online. Often, auctions ending between midnight and 5:00 a.m. eBay time (also known as the Pacific time zone) have few or no late bids. You don't have to be a night owl to take advantage of this lull. Either place your bid using proxy bidding (Section 2.2) the night before the auction ends, or use an automated sniping service (Section 3.3.2.2) to place your bid for you.

Similarly, the prices of many items increase or decrease according to the season . When an item is hot in the stores, it's likely to be hot on eBay, too. But shopping for snowshoes in July or for Halloween decorations in April can yield some good buys.

3.1.11. List It Again, Sam

About half of all eBay auctions end without a single bid. When that happens, sellers can relist the unsold item once without paying any new fees. A seller who really wants to move that plaster bust of Beethoven might lower the starting price when he relists it. As a bargain hunter, you can make eBay's relisting policy work for you by being ready to make a bid when a seller relists. Here's how:

1. At the top of any page in the eBay site, click the Advanced Search link .

   The Search: Find Items page appears.

2. Type in your search term .

   "Plaster bust" or whatever.

3. Turn on the "Completed listings only" checkbox to search auctions that are over and done with, and then click Search .

   On the results page that appears, look for items that ended with no bids. (In other words, look for a 0 under the Bids column.) If you see something of interest, click the title to look at the auction page, where you can check to see whether the item has been relisted. Figure 3-5 shows you what to look for.

3.1.12. Have Sellers Search for You

Want It Now is eBay's version of the want ads. The idea is simple: boost your own searches by posting what you want in a special section of the site. Sellers can then scan the ads and notify you if they have what you want. Instead of spending all day chasing down that dogs-playing-poker print, you can sit back and let it come to you. (Great in theorybut in practice, Want It Now still leaves a bit to be desired. Check out the note on Section 3.1.13.)

Figure 3-5. When you click either of the two "relisted" links on the page of an auction that's ended, eBay takes you to the current auction for the same item. Often, you'll find that the item no one bid on before is up for auction again, this time with a lower starting price. If the item hasn't been relisted, look under the seller's ID and click the "View seller's other items" link to see if the seller has anything similar on offer.

Here's how you can post a want ad in Want It Now:

1. Point your Web browser to http://pages.ebay.com/wantitnow.

   Figure 3-6 shows you the Want It Now page that appears.

2. Click Post To Want It Now .

   Doing so takes you to the page where you can compose your ad.

3. Write your want ad .

   Give your ad a title (up to 55 characters) and a description (up to 500 characters ) that spell out in detail what you're looking for: size, color , year, brandwhatever's appropriate and important to you. It's a good idea to give your price range, as well. The more specific your ad, the better your chances of finding exactly what you want. Don't bother to put words and phrases like L@@K or "Please HELP!!!" in your ad; focus on keywords that will help sellers searching Want It Now to match up what you want with what they've got.

4. Select the category that best matches the item you're looking for .

   Use the same top-level category you'd search in to find the item. For that dogs-playing-poker print, for example, you'd probably choose the Art category. eBay will post your ad to this category within Want It Now.

5. Click Post To Want It Now .

   Now sellers can browse or search for your ad. When a seller is running an auction that seems to fit your needs, you'll get an email with a link to the auction. You can also check your ad from time to time to look for sellers' responses that way. To view your Want It Now ad, go to http://pages.ebay.com/wantitnow and under the Post To Want It Now Button, click the "in one place" link (you can see it in Figure 3-6).

Figure 3-6. To write a want ad, click Post To Want It Now. If you want to search ads others have writtenfor example, to help you compose your adtype your search term into the text box and click Search Want It Now. You can also browse all posts in a category. Just click the link to the category you want to look at; the results page lists want ads with the most recent first.

Want It Now posts remain active for 60 days. Sellers can search Want It Now by category or keyword. Sellers who see your ad and are offering what you want can let you know the item number of their auction; eBay sends you a link to the auction in an email. A link also shows up in your Want It Now listing, as you can see in Figure 3-7. The seller doesn't know your eBay ID or email address (the only personal information that appears with your Want It Now ad is your feedback score, location, and length of eBay membership), so you don't have to worry about being plagued with spam just because you invited sellers to contact you.

Figure 3-7. To get to an auction from your Want It Now post, simply click the auction title. If an auction ends (either by running out of time or through Buy It Now), the link to it disappears from your Want It Now post. That's why this example lists three total responses at the top of the page but shows links to only two auctions.

3.1.13. The eBay Toolbar

The eBay toolbar is free software you can download and install to add an eBay navigation bar to your Web browser if your Web browser happens to be Internet Explorer. Installing the eBay toolbar lets you search eBay, keep track of auctions, and go to your My eBay page with a single click, wherever on the Web your browser happens to be. The toolbar makes it easy to find bargains and keep an eye on the biddingeven alerting you when an auction nears its endso that great deal on a digital camera doesn't slip away while you're busy downloading tunes for your MP3 player.

Figure 3-8 shows you what the toolbar looks like.

Figure 3-8. To download the eBay toolbar, go to your My eBay page and look in the lefthand menu for Download Tools. Select eBay Toolbar, and then click Download eBay Toolbar Now. Your computer downloads the installation program (called ToolbarSetup.exe); you must run it to actually install the toolbar. (Based on your computer's settings, either a dialog box will open, asking if you want to run the installation program, or you'll have to go to your downloads folder and double-click the program to launch it.)

Once you've installed the toolbar, you can customize the buttons to show the ones you use most and hide the ones you leave alone. Click the drop-down arrow next to the eBay button, and then select Toolbar Preferences and Customization.

The eBay toolbar helps keep you in touch with what's happening on eBay, even when you're busy doing other things. For example, it sends you a bid alert when an auction you're watching is about to end, even if you're not online. Here's a button-by-button overview:

• eBay . Click the eBay button to go to eBay's home page. The small arrow next to the eBay logo opens a drop-down menu that lets you sign in or out and zip to various sites within eBay (Buy, Sell, eBay Announcements, the Community page). Use this menu to set your toolbar preferences or to uninstall the toolbar.

  Tip: To use the toolbar most efficiently , sign in on both eBay and the toolbar itself. Once you've signed into the toolbar, you stay signed in until you sign out. But you have to sign in to eBay separately.

• Account Guard . A new feature of the toolbar, Account Guard is how eBay fights back against spoofed Web sitesfake sites purporting to be eBay or PayPal that scammers set up in an attempt to steal the identities and accounts of law abiding , unsuspecting eBayers (Section 4.3.3) like you. These spoofed sites, often reached through a link in an unsolicited , official-looking email, mimic the real thing but have no connection to eBay or PayPal.

  To protect your account, the Account Guard button turns red when you're on a potential spoofed site. (It's green when you're on an official eBay or PayPal Web page and gray if you're on a page that the toolbar can't identify.) But Account Guard does even more. If you attempt to type your password into an unknown site, a warning pops up, as shown in Figure 3-9.

  Figure 3-9. In the eBay Account Guard Alert, click Yes to submit your account information. Click No to cancel your submission attempt. If you suspect that the site is spoofed, click the Report This Site button to let eBay know about it. If the site is one you know is trustworthy, turn on the checkbox at the bottom of the alert. eBay recommends that you have different passwords for each account you have on the Web; it's a good idea never to use your eBay ID and password as your ID and password for accounts at other sites.

  
  Note: If you change your eBay password, you must also change it on the eBay toolbar.

  Account Guard is a great addition to the eBay toolbar, helping eBayers protect their personal information from scammers. Only type in your eBay or PayPal ID and password when the Account Guard button is greennever when it's red. If it's gray, use your own judgementbut proceed with caution.

  If you have an older version of the toolbar that's missing Account Guard, simply download the new version at http://pages.ebay.com/ebay_toolbar to get Account Guard's protection.

  Note: You must be signed in to the toolbar for Account Guard to do its stuff.

• Search eBay . Clicking this button takes you to eBay's Search page. But you can save a step by typing your search word or phrase into the text box to the left of the search button. Then click the arrow to the right of the search button and select the kind of search you want. You can search for items by title, title and description, eBay stores, completed items, category, subcategory , and more. See Figure 3-10.

  Figure 3-10. The eBay Toolbar's Search menu offers lots of ways to run a search. You can search auction titles, completed items only, Buy It Now auctions only, by seller or bidder, and more. Click Recent Searches to find a previous search, and run it again to check for new listings. To search for a keyword in a specific category, type your keyword (in this case, mandolin) into the search box, select Search Categories from the Search menu, and then choose the category you want.

  
  

• My eBay . Click this button to jump to your My eBay page.

• Bid Alert . When you've made a bid in an active auction, use the Bid Alert button to remind you when the auction is about to end; it will pop open a window on your screen, even if you're offline. Even better, if you're online, you can click a link in the window to head directly to your auction.

  To set a bid alert, click the arrow next to the eBay button and then select Toolbar Preferences and Customization. Here you can set your reminder time (10, 15, 30, 60, or 75 minutes before the auction's end), turn audio notification off or on, and set how long the pop-up alert will stay open. The really cool thing about bid alerts is that you don't have to have a browser window openor even be onlinefor your reminder to appear. Even if you're immersed in work and have forgotten all about the auction, Bid Alert will remind you.

• Watch Alert . Similar to Bid Alert, the Watch Alert button lets you know when auctions you're watching are going to end soon. You don't have to be a bidder to get watch alerts. Figure 3-11 shows you what a watch alert looks like. You don't need to do a thing to turn on Watch Alertit automatically monitors what's on your Watch list (Section 1.5.1) and pops up to remind you when it's time to move in and make your bid.

  Figure 3-11. Watch alerts and bid alerts appear in the lower right-hand corner of your screen, whether you're on eBay, another Web site, or offline. Click the link to open a new window with the auction page and place your bid or keep an eye on the closing minutes. To make sure the list of items you're watching is up to date, click the arrow on the Watch Alert button and then choose Refresh Watch List.

  
  

• Items Won . This button takes you to the auction page of any item you've won, the Feedback Forum, or the PayPal home page.

3.1.14. Go Wireless

Even the most avid eBayer doesn't spend her life in front of her computer. Sometimes you've got to coach the kids ' Little League games , or take the dog for a run on the beach , or watch a dozen TiVO'd episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer . But auctions keep going, even when you're on the go. What if, as Fido splashes through the waves after his Frisbee, some bidder in Dubuque is preparing to outbid you on that complete antique silver service for eight? You don't have to rush home and check to make sure you're still winning. You can just pull out your cell phone.

eBay's Anywhere Wireless service lets you search eBay and keep track of auctions you're involved in, no matter where you are. You can search by keyword, seller, or category/subcategory; browse categories and featured items; view your My eBay page; even bidall from your cell phone or PDA, wherever you happen to be. If you've got service, you've got eBay.

You can get to eBay from your wireless device two ways: either navigate there using your device's Internet menu or open its minibrowser , which lets you look at cut-down versions of Web pages, and point it to http://wap.ebay.com (most devices let you leave off the "http://" part). Log in and you're ready to search, browse, and buy. Now, when you're waiting in line at the bank or the post office, you can search eBay for bargains instead of fretting about the ones you're missing out on.

Unfortunately, you can't put an item on your watch list while using your phone to search, although you can go to your My eBay page and view or bid on items already on that list. Another thing you can't do with your cell phone is read sellers' feedback. On the item page, you can see the feedback score but not the percentage of positives, and you can't read feedback comments. For this reason, it's best to use your cell phone to manage active auctions, where you've already done your research and feel confident dealing with the seller.

3.1.14.1 Searching with Anywhere Wireless

To search for items using Anywhere Wireless:

1. From wap.ebay.com , select Search .

   You can search by item number, keyword, or seller ID. Type in the number or word you want, and then select Continue. If you type in a keyword, eBay prompts you to choose a category (or you can select all categories).

2. Choose an item .

   The search results page displays item titles. If you select an item to view, you get a stripped-down version of an eBay auction page. There's no photograph on this screen, and you can't look at the bid history or seller feedback.

3. At the bottom of the auction page, select Description .

   This page shows you more details: a photo (if the listing has one) and the item description text. No fancy graphics, of course, but you still get most of the important info.

3.1.14.2 Receiving email notifications from Anywhere Wireless

Anywhere Wireless can email outbid notices, feedback notifications, and win notifications to your wireless device. To sign up, go to My eBay eBay Preferences. At the top of the page that opens is "Notification preferences; click the View/Change link. eBay asks you to verify your password. After you've done so, find eBay Wireless Email, and then click Subscribe. Turn on the button by "Send wireless email to the address below" and then type your wireless email address in the text box. Click Save Changes, and you're good to go.

3.1.15. Offsite Searching

Thanks to eBay, a cottage industry now exists, offering a whole platoon of services to improve your online auction experience. Try these offsite search engines and tools to streamline your eBay shopping and make bargain-hunting easier and less time-consuming :

• Finds-It . A subscription site located at www.finds-it.com, Finds-It lets you run searches and store the results in your own database located on the Finds-It site. When you log in, Finds-It automatically retrieves your stored searches so you can see what's new. This site has two subscription levels: at the basic level, you can save and store up to 250 searches; at the professional level, that limit increases to 1,000. Finds-It charges a monthly fee for its service.

• ItemScout.com . This site lets you create a highly detailed search agent that will scour eBay for search terms you specify and report back to you via email; it's more specialized than eBay's own email notifications.

  Searches take place at intervals you determine, from every few minutes to once a day. One of the nice features of this site is that you can specify certain notification parameters, such as if the price exceeds a certain amount, if a new bid comes in, or if the price is still below a certain amount with only so much time left before the auction ends. If you're bidding on a motorcycle helmet, for instance, and you want ItemScout to notify you if the price is still below $50.00 with only half an hour to go, it will. You can also have alerts sent to a wireless device, like your cell phone or PDA. ItemScout.com is a subscription serviceyou can pay by the month, the quarter, or the yearbut offers a weeklong free trial.

• Clusty . This is an Internet search engine that clusters its results, putting similar items into folders that let you quickly sort through what it finds. Clusty has customizable tabs that let you narrow your search to a specific area of the Web: one of those tabs is eBay. If you search in Clusty's eBay tab for weasel , as in Figure 3-12, Clusty organizes the results into folders, such as various book titles, Matchbox cars , ferrets, and so on. Click any folder to restrict your results to what's inside that folder. You can further sort the results by price or the amount of time left in the auction.

  Clusty's folders go beyond eBay's categories. If, for example, all you can remember about a book is that it has weasel in the title, the best you can do on eBay is to search for weasel in the Books category, then go through the results. Clusty drills down deeper in just one step, creating folders based on the titles of books. If you click the "more" link, you get Pop Goes the Weasel, Never Tease a Weasel, Axis of Weasels, Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel . Find the title you want and open its folder to compare auctions for that book.

  Figure 3-12. To use Clusty to search eBay, go to www.clusty.com, and then click the Customize! tab. Check eBay, and then click Save. Click the eBay tab to select it, then type your search term into the text box, and then click the Cluster button. If you want to confine your search to a particular eBay category, use the drop-down list to select it. Click the Cluster button to perform your search. Clusty sorts the results into the folders at the left-hand side of the page. If you see a plus sign, click it to expand the folder into subfolders .

  
  

• Pluck . Pluck is a plug-in you can download (for free from www.pluck.com) and install in your browser. Pluck lets you sort your search results by number of bidssomething eBay won't let you do. Sorting by bids lets you see what's hot (perhaps the subject of a bidding war) and what hasn't yet shown up on other shoppers' radar.

  Note: The Pluck plug-in is available only for Internet Explorer version 6.0 or higher on computers running Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

  Take a look at Figure 3-13 to get an idea of what Pluck can do. If you click an auction in the top pane's results list, the bottom pane opens the actual auction on the eBay site, so you can watch an item or bid on it without opening a new browser window, going to eBay, and finding the auction that interests you.

**pg97**Pluck also offers a Web component, Pluck Web Access (PWA), that lets you keep an eye on your searches from any computer connected to the Internet.

Figure 3-13. Pluck's dual panes let you view your search results and look at individual auctions without having to switch back and forth between browser windows. You can choose to limit your results to BIN items and auctions accepting PayPal. (Pluck displays prices in U.S. dollars, no matter the currency used in the auction.) Sort results by price, time remaining, or number of bids. To turn your search into a power search, or "perch," click the Create Perch button. Pluck will keep performing the search in the background, updating your results periodicallyor you can right-click a particular perch and select Refresh to update it right now.