Expert: Marvinator - 9/10/2006

Question
OK, I am not sure who else to turn to.  I have some Winnie the Pooh items I am trying to price out and am having trouble surfing ebay to look to see if anyone else has them listed and at what price.  What's the easiest way to do this?

Answer
You don't say what KIND Of problems you're having when you search eBay, so for the moment, I'll put here some great ways to narrow a search on completed items.

To get to the completed items, call up any search and then look down the left hand side of the screen in the Yellow Area.  There you will find a check box for "Complete" items matching your search. Click the checkbox and click SEARCH at the bottom of the area.

Now, as to how to narrow a search:

Ebay searches are not case-sensitive, so whether or not you use capital letters, your results will be the same.
You're looking for: items where two or more keywords are all present.
What to do: Just enter the keywords with a space between them.
Example: red pencil box
You get: Items with all three words in the title in any order

You're looking for: You're looking for items containing certain words in a particular order.
What to do: Place quotation marks around the group of words.
Example: "Wizard of Oz"
You get: Items with titles containing Wizard of Oz, but not those containing just Wizard, Oz, or even just “of wizard”
(A good note when searching is to leave out words which do not help, as in this case "Of"; also words like "And", "The" or "An")

You're looking for: You're looking for items that don't contain a certain word.
What to do: Place a minus sign immediately before the word to be excluded (no space).
Example: bib overalls -baby
You get: Items with titles containing the words bib and overalls but not containing the word baby

You're looking for: You're looking for items that don't contain several words.
What to do: Place a minus sign before the list of words separated by commas (with no spaces) and put in parentheses.
Example: Pencil -(black,green,purple)
You get: Items with titles containing the word Pencil but not containing black, green or purple.

You're looking for: You're looking for items where one word or another is present.
What to do: Enter keywords in parentheses separated by commas. (No space after the commas.)
Example: (Pencil,Marker)
You get: Items whose titles contain either the word Pencil or Marker

You're looking for: You're looking for items that contain words starting with a particular sequence of letters.
What to do: Enter the letter sequence followed by an asterisk.
Example: chin* buddh*
You get: Items whose titles contain words starting with "Chin," such as China, Chinese, Chins, Chinook, and chintz, as well as words starting with "Buddh," including Buddha, Buddhas, Buddhist, Buddhism.

You're looking for:  In some cases, Ebay will expand your search to include a plural and/or an alternate spelling of your search word(s). For example, if you were searching for book, you would receive search results with items containing the keyword book or the keyword books. Searching for grey would bring back items containing the keyword grey or the keyword gray. If you want to only search for a specific spelling of a word, simply enter the keyword or phrase in quotes. For example, if you enter "book", your results would include only items with the exact word book and not items with the word books or other alternatives.
What to do: Enter the keywords or phrases in quotes.
Example: "book"
You get: Only items with the exact word book and not items with the word books.

You're looking for:  In some cases, Ebay will automatically expand your search to include items based on the intent of your search rather than matching the exact keywords provided. If you do not want Ebay to do this, then all you need to do is to put quotation marks around one of your keywords. For example, if you were searching for tickets to a rock concert by the artist Madonna, you might type in the keywords MADONNA TICKETS. This may bring back items that have both keywords MADONNA and TICKETS, as well as items that have the keyword MADONNA and are in the Event Tickets category. If you entered "MADONNA" TICKETS, your results would include only items with the exact keywords MADONNA TICKETS and not the additional items in the Event Tickets category with only the keyword MADONNA. To see which keywords are associated with specific categories, see Keyword Search Category Expansions.
What to do: Enter quotes around any single keyword.
Example: "Madonna" Tickets
You get: Only items with the exact word MADONNA and TICKETS

  Taking the time to refine a search means you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for rather than wading through all those auctions you don’t want to see.