Online Auctions - Searching on eBay

Make Money With eBay Guide

Free eBay Business Kit >> Learn to Sell on eBay

This article is intended to teach about searching on eBay. Please leave us comments, questions, or success stories so that we can improve this guide.

The auction headline has the key words that the search function looks at to bring up a list of auctions on your screen. Only those auction headlines which have that key word(s) in the headline will be listed. If the key word(s) does not match the words displayed in the search field, the item will not be shown in the list.

So, how do you determine the words to put into the headline? For each start up item you plan to auction do the following:

• Take a sheet of paper
• Label the top of the paper the name of the item
• On the sheet of paper put down all the words you can think of that someone on eBay would use to find this item. (This is where your brainstorming skills will come in handy and where you might even want to ask someone else what words occur to them immediately.)
  

Example: Let's say you have a brown bean pot you are willing to auction off on eBay. The key words could be: Pot, Cook pot, Cookpot, Brown pot, Bean pot, Brown bean pot, Brown cook pot, bean cook pot, Clay pot, Clay cook pot, Brown clay cook pot, Bean cook pot…on and on!

As you can see there can be a lot of words someone could use to search for a brown bean cook pot. If the era of when the pot was made is important that could be in the headline too. For example,"nineteenth century" or "1792."

Perhaps the manufacture of the cook pot is unique, or its style, or how it was made. All these things can be important to someone searching for your item and should be considered for keywords.

This list could continue on and it is not the point here to cover all the words and ways to find this kind of item. The point here is to make you aware that the words in the headline are very important and to assist you in what to look for when researching an item. Notice that even the order or spelling of the same keywords can be very important.

Reviewing the past auctions of these eBay members can provide you with a wealth of information as to how to present your own auctions, specifically, your headlines, your sales copy, your pictures and your general auction layout.

One of the quickest ways to view a member’s past auctions is to click on the member’s ID or their feedback number. Both of these can be found on the right side in the blue box of any auction.By clicking on either of these links you will be moved to their history page. At the top of the page will be the member’s public information. Beneath that you will see a table of information with four tabs: "Feedback Received," "From Buyers," "From Sellers," and "Left for Others."

Under those tabs there are four columns: “Comment,” “From,” “Date/Time” and “Item #”

On the far right under Item # is a list of past auctions. Clicking on any one of those numbers will display that past auction on your screen. Locate past auctions of products that are the same or similar to what you are going to auction.

Continue to Searching on eBay 2