Expert: Marvinator - 9/2/2004

Question
-------------------------
Followup
-------------------------

Hello & Thank you for the quick answer!

Your hints are VERY interesting - I really didn´t know that ebay-searches could be that sophisticated!

But my true problem is still unsolved.
Perhaps I should be a bit more specific:

I intend to replace my video-tape-movies with DVDs.
So I have a list of DVD-films I´d like to purchase via ebay:

(Shortened list as example)
- Braveheart
- Unbreakable
- The Sixth Sense
- Indiana Jones I - III
- Terminator I - II
- ...

All these films ARE available. No problem so far.
But as I intend to purchase a lot of DVDs I´d very much prefer to buy from sellers only that have two, three or more films of my list for sale so I can spare much money in comparison to paying shipping costs for every single DVD.
So when it comes to it I´d rather bid 8 Euro for "Braveheart" at seller X than 7 Euro at seller Y because seller X also sells "Unbreakable" and I can combine the two shippings.

The search-patterns you describe give very nice results - but ebay does not  show the seller´s name in result-lists. So I usually act like this:
I search for e. g. "Braveheart", open MANY of the resulting auctions, click on "Other auctions from this seller" in any of these windows and THEN search those lists for other films from my list.
(some sort of "recursive search")

If I could search for SELLERS-and-their-portfolio instead of ARTICLES-and-their-sellers, I could search only for sellers that have all three films mentioned above for sale at once.

So I am in search of a way of searching ebay not for
auctions-with-specific-words-in-it
but for
auctions-from-sellers-that-have-specific-other-auctions.

Something like that should work excellently with DVDs because you have little trouble finding keywords for them (for the next-step-depth-search).

I am afraid something like that does not exist - but still I have hope :-)

Best regards from Germany!
Harald Dehner

Answer
I have to agree that something of that nature does not exist.  Seller's lists are created by scripting, not by the search engine, so there is no way to incorporate the two.  

However, there may be a way to work around such a problem.  With the searches we discussed before you're able to find sellers who sell a LOT of DVD's.

At this point, I would simply write to the seller by using the "Ask Seller a Question" and send them your list and ask how many they could provide and at what price.  (Or you could even offer to purchase 10 or more at $X.00 each.)

If you find a seller who will deal in such a way, ask them to place this 'wish list' on auction, make it a private auction and to notify you when the auction is listed and you can purchase it with a BUY IT NOW immediately after listing.  IN this way you can work ON Ebay and have all the protections that ebay offers, and at the same time find EXACTLY what you want.