When you know exactly what you want to bid on

There are two common ways to search eBay that nearly everyone seems to use on a regular basis. The first is keyword searching (sometimes simple, sometimes complex) using the search boxes scattered around the eBay website or the advanced search tool provided by eBay. The second is by browsing through eBay product categories in search of products you might like to bid on or buy.

Many prospective buyers or bidders, however, are less aware of a third way to search for products on eBay'so-called ?product finders.?

What Product Finders Do

Product finders are scattered throughout the category pages on eBay and provide a way for you to specify the product that you'd like to buy in very exact ways. For example, suppose that you were in the market for a new computer?one that needed to meet very specific requirements. This new computer, which you plan to buy on eBay, must have:

?At least a 2.6 gigahertz processor

?At least 256 megabytes of memory

?At least a 20 gigabyte hard drive

?A screen that measures less than 12? diagonally (because it needs to fit easily in your briefcase so that you can carry it to and from work)

Searching for a product this specific by browsing or conventional searches would likely be rather difficult, since there are a number of things that aren't search words per se (like 256MB of memory) but are rather minimum requirements. To conduct this search using either the search box or by browsing through sale categories you'd likely find yourself opening and closing hundreds and hundreds of auction listings in an attempt to locate items that meet your needs.

Product finders, however, give you the ability to explicitly specify each of these ?minimum? requirements so that eBay can show you only listings that might actually interest you.

Finding Product Finders

Unfortunately, there is no direct link through which to find all of the product finders on eBay. Instead, product finders are scattered around throughout eBay's category pages, in large measure because each product finder is specific to the type of product for which it is designed to search?there would be no point in having ?hard drive size? requirements about a digital camera, for example.

To locate a product finder for the type of product you'd like to buy, browse to that product category just as you would if you were going to browse through listings manually. For example, to see a product finder of the kind just described for buying laptop computers, follow these steps:

1.Click on the word ?Categories? at the upper-left of any eBay page to open the browse able categories list.

2.On the categories list page, click on ?Laptops, Notebooks? under the ?Computers & Networking? heading.

3.You will be shown a search or browse results page showing laptop computer listings. On the left side of the page you will see the laptop computer product finder, under the heading ?PC Laptops Finder.?

Let's try another. Suppose you intend to buy a digital camera with very specific requirements about its built-in lens and the number of mega pixels its images deliver. To arrive at the digital cameras product finder, follow these steps:

1.Click on the word ?Categories? at the upper-left of any eBay page to open the browse able categories list.

2.On the categories list page, click on ?Digital Cameras? under the ?Cameras & Photo? heading.

3.You will be shown a search results page showing all digital camera listings. On the left side of the page you will see the digital camera product finder, under the heading ?Digital Cameras Finder.?

Many eBay categories have product finders associated with them; many also do not. If you don't see a product finder after browsing to listings for a given category of items, there is likely no product finder on eBay for the type of item in question.

Making Use of Product Finders

As you can see by looking at these two sample finders, product finders are drop-down lists of common criteria for the type of item in question. By making selections from these lists, you can tell eBay what sort of device you're looking for.

In the case of the digital camera finder, for example, you can select the type, brand, resolution in mega pixels, lens zoom factor, and camera condition (used, new, or refurbished) that you want to buy. Underneath these lists is a ?search keywords? box in which you can enter keywords that you want eBay to use in addition to the criteria you've supplied when returning results to you.

When you've given eBay your criteria and any extra keywords that you want to use in your search, click ?Show Items? to get the narrowed-down list of only those items that meet your specific criteria.

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