Access Ebay's hidden auctions

Paul Michael — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 17:25:36 +0000

As an ebay shopper, this is a heavenly find for me (and I thank my wife for introducing me to it). Basically, it all revolves around taking advantage of typos, misspellings and other human errors in ebay listings. And I'm all about taking advantage.

Here's the deal
Occasionally, I've accidentally stumbled upon great deals because the listing had a spelling error. For example, ADIADS instead of ADIDAS. Or APLE instead of APPLE. People are not searching for that term as they generally spell it correctly themselves in the search engine.

So, some clever folks have devised a few websites to get you straight to the hidden deals. I personally liked Hidden Auction and Missing Auctions and they both give you the power to search ebay for the brands and items you're looking for that may actually be misspelled. A great example is the amount of GYMBOREE clothes that are about to go away without a single bid because they have been listed as GMYBOREE, or GYYMBORIE.

Now, you can swoop in and buy the item for almost nothing, or at the very least the lowest reserve price. It's a great innovation to take advantage of a known problem, plus the seller gets rid of the item without having to pay a relisting fee. Sweet. And just one more way to be a great frugal shopper.

Written by Paul Michael and published on Wise Bread. Read more articles from Wise Bread.