Author Topic: Ebay search -don't (just) use www.ebay.com!  (Read 755 times)

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Offline splinTopic starter

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Ebay search -don't (just) use www.ebay.com!
« on: May 06, 2020, 02:57:52 am »
Ebay's website design is a mystery to me - in particular the differences between the different country websites and especially that some items can only be found if you search on a specific country's ebay site. Searching on ebay.com will usually, but not always, find most items.

It may originally have been the intent to restrict search results to only display items that the sellor will ship to that same country, but that often isn't the case; for example, quite often items can be found on ebay.com, but not on ebay.co.uk, that can be shipped worldwide.

But searching on ebay.com won't always find you everything. So here's a tip: search on ebay.co.uk (other country ebay sites probably work just as well), but select the 'worldwide' filter which isn't available on ebay.com. That will likely find most, but not all such items available worldwide; now edit the URL to change ebay.co.uk to ebay.com to find more items than would be shown by searching on either domain.

For example I just tried searching for 'lpkf mill'. www.ebay.com found 14 items; ebay.co.uk only found 3 items, but selecting the 'worldwide' filter gave 7 results. Editing the URL from ebay.co.uk to ebay.com gave 15 results. The extra result was from Latvia. Okay it's only one item but it may be just what you wanted - and possibly a great price because no-one in the US could find it!

Another advantage of using the .co.uk -> .com trick is that on the UK site you can order results by price, as well as 'price + shipping'. The former isn't offered on the US site but it can be very useful for stuff that you might want to buy in quantity allowing you to amortise the shipping cost over many items.

I'm sure there are many other ebay search idiosyncrasies that eevblog members have discovered so it would be great if you would share them here.

What is going on with your websites Ebay? Why make it so dificult?
« Last Edit: May 06, 2020, 02:59:58 am by splin »
 

Online bdunham7

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Re: Ebay search -don't (just) use www.ebay.com!
« Reply #1 on: May 06, 2020, 03:32:53 am »
If you are really searching for something you should also type "thingI'mlookingfor ebay" into the Chrome search bar.  I've located at least 5 things in the past few years that I just could not find any other way.
A 3.5 digit 4.5 digit 5 digit 5.5 digit 6.5 digit 7.5 digit DMM is good enough for most people.
 

Offline ChristofferB

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Re: Ebay search -don't (just) use www.ebay.com!
« Reply #2 on: May 06, 2020, 06:59:10 am »
Ive found quite a few hidden gems by using ebay.co.uk and ebay.de.

I think if the item is set as not shipped internationally, it filters it out if you don't use the proper country's ebay, but usually, if they ship within their own country (in EU) they'll also ship to the rest of EU.

Guessing what name equipment could be sold under in German is always fun :)

 
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Online floobydust

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Re: Ebay search -don't (just) use www.ebay.com!
« Reply #3 on: May 06, 2020, 07:07:09 am »
This is also good for searching eBay:
UK https://picclick.co.uk
Canada https://picclick.ca
USA https://picclick.com
 


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