eBay bargain spotting

MSE_Martin

Take advantage of spelling errors on eBay with a whole host of sites

For years I've been talking about a great wee site Fatfingers which finds bargains based on people's eBay spelling errors. This site was set up a few years ago by a MoneySaver to help others... the theory is simple, if a product is spelt wrongly, less people bid on it, because they haven't seen it.

A Raft of New Sites

Joining Fatfingers, there are now a whole host of other sites, many with powerful search and filtering tools and other features.

• Goofbay
• Apnretail
• Lowcostbid

These all do the same and some have further functions which allow you to filter your results for example according to payment method and whether they're "Buy It Now" sales.

It's well worth trying them all to see which ones work for you.

I'd love to hear your feedback

Try these out (and if you know of others give the web link) and whether you have positive or negative feedback click reply to let others know.

When you do please use this format:

• Website
• Pros
• Cons

For more read The Six Golden Rules of Using eBay article

Also please feel free to include any more sites you've found

kassy1403

Website: Goofbay
Pros: The Not In Title Search, Great tools (Negative Feedback Checker, View Number of Watchers, Private Feedback Checker, Shill Bidder Checker, Private Bidder Checker, Sellers Sold Items & Turnover), Good Advanced Search Filter, Search from Toolbar.
Cons: Stupid Name, Toolbar updates too often, Doesn't get private feedback for ALL sellers, Private sellers might not like the tools much (it kind of exposes you), sometimes slow at getting information from tools, pointless popular searches.

pixy

Thanks - used today for the first time - fatfingers - no bids - put in a silly bid and won!!!!

peteshone

www.auctionsieve.com - it is a tool written in Java that is download and installs on your PC. It's completely free, the guy that writes it makes his money through a web referral scheme.

It has some pretty powerful features, far too many to list them all, but perhaps of special note is the price history feature which will retrieve and store price hostory data for any of your saved searches.

There is an online community forum for hints and tips op usage and a facility to request extra features in the software.

:j

Scarlet_Fever

i use fat fingers all the time (shouldnt really) somehow managed to get 2 diamond rings - for around £40 the pair - dont tell hubby - going to try some of the other sites as well though.

viccig

Now that the knowledge of spelling mistakes on ebay is becoming widespread then in theory the 'cheap' items will no longer exist as people are searching for them just as much as correctly spelled ones. A very common example is monitor (moniter) which sell for just as much either way.

I believe that due to the popularity of sites such as fat fingers the 'spelling mistake bargain' no longer exists.

Thefunkygibbons

I occasionally find a bargain with a search set up under fat fingers

However it is the simple one that wins most

Dreamtheater does not come up if the search is Dream Theater

kizziedog

I tried a mis-spell test on "Wylex MCB" on all the sites. Only Fat Fingers found 3 mis-spells (Wylex MCD).
I won't ignore the original yet!

Becky2006

I have used http://www.auctionspeller.com in the past and have bought a few nice bargains :j

The advanced search is better as the standard one only searches on one word. A few nice search options and easy enough to use.

now though as I don't have as much free time on the pc I use another of their tools http://www.auctionremind.com which sends me loads of search results via email.

j600

viccig wrote:

Now that the knowledge of spelling mistakes on ebay is becoming widespread then in theory the 'cheap' items will no longer exist as people are searching for them just as much as correctly spelled ones. A very common example is monitor (moniter) which sell for just as much either way.

I believe that due to the popularity of sites such as fat fingers the 'spelling mistake bargain' no longer exists.

I couldnt agree more, i think finding the miss spelt bargains is getting harder and harder due to the success of these sites. Thats where the Goofbay not in title search comes into its own. I find that now the only way to find a bargain is to find items where the seller hasnt miss-spelt the keyword in the title but where he has completely forgot to put it in! Using the not in title you can find psp games etc where the seller hasnt put the word psp in the title, or printers where the seller has just listed the model number. This is the new (and best) way to find bargains on ebay.

kizziedog wrote:

I tried a mis-spell test on "Wylex MCB" on all the sites. Only Fat Fingers found 3 mis-spells (Wylex MCD).
I won't ignore the original yet!

I tried the same search on ALL of the sites too and none of them found any results (not even fatfingers). I tried other searches and found that Fatfingers and Goofbay tended to provide the more results than the others.

philnet

I've tried 'Wylex MCB' on fatfingers and I agree with j600, nothing came up. My favourite site at the moment, for friendly design and its not in title search is goofbay, it seems that fatfingers hasn't moved fast enough in what is (now) a pretty quick moving market. The problem with being in this field is also that once your idea is public, all the others (or at least those that are actively being developed) can adapt it into their sites.
There is also a difference in that some of the search websites seem set up simply as search tools to quickly grab a few customers until the fad dries up, whereas others seem to genuinely want to help improve the eBay experience.

Phil