Help With Ebay Search

I try to search on ebay to find only a specific stamp, and I get a random result showing every other stamp but the one I am looking for.

I am accepting that the problem is me. Would someone please tell me step by step how to get an ebay search result that only shows images of the stamp I searched for?




-IBFS

There are a few search tricks you can use. For what stamp are you searching?

I type in "US Scott 345" for example

For one thing: don't use USA or Scott. ebay will allow you to drill down using the side bar menu to USA and then refine it even farther. When I used "Scott USA 345" I got 16 results. When I used "US 345" I got 67 results. But when I used "345" I got 1386 results from all over the world. Then I drilled down using the USA side bar and got 188 only from the USA.

Glenn Estus

Just to add to what Glenn is saying, in effect you have to first narrow the scope of your search using the "sidebar." ebay's global search isn't very effective. If you want to search for a specific US stamp, you can start at the top globally, and enter "stamps in the United States" and it will take you the page with the "sidebar" (a menu structure that you can "drill down" with to refine the scope of your search. For instance, on that page, I see the link for "19th Century Unused." When I search it for "345" I get three hits:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odk...5&_sacat=676

But only two of them are actually for 345. The other was for 184, but the string "345" appears elsewhere in the description. ebay cannot help that. They are at the mercy of how the sellers describe things.

But using the menu/sidebar to narrow the scope can help reduce the number of "false positives."

IBFS... the way to search for a specific
stamp, (and to be sure you're searching for
it categorically) is to first click on US Stamps
(for example, if it's US), then (for example) if
you're looking for 19th century unused, click on
19th century unused, then just type the Scott
number in the search box above. You cannot filter
beyond that point...

Specifically, let's say you're looking for a #250...
you're going to get the 250's PLUS all of the listings
where the seller is showing $250 as the Scott price,
as well as those which will have (let's say) 250 as
their private lot numbers...

IBFS, you could try using a minus sign together with a word or number to reduce the instances of irrelevant results. When I typed "US Scott #345 -xsu345" in the search box, I had ten results - only one, a #U345 cut square, was irrelevant. The "xsu..." was the beginning of a dealer's ID for other stamps. If you add "-#U345" you will also eliminate the cut square from your search results.

Perhaps?
AndrewG

Unfortunately, ebay Cassini search is a poorly designed knock off of text-oriented search engines like Bing or Google. To compound the problem, some special characters like dollar sign, comma or period are converted to space delimiters creating even more false matches than would otherwise occur. To compound the problem some sellers spam their titles with "inventory" numbers or catalog values to increase the number of false hits. Worst case, try searching in the Stamps > United States category for Scott number 500 using. Adding words like "Scott" to the search will remove most serious listings from the result.

Item specifics were designed by ebay to improve search results, but as far as I can tell, they are not used in search, but may help elevate hits in the search rankings. Unfortunately, to find a stamp like a 10 cent US bank note series, it is necessary to create a search string like (139, 150, 161, 187, 188, 209). I left out the special printings. Of course, many sellers cannot tell the difference between the original design, without or with secret mark, and the re-engraved design. So the results are essentially random. Sellers of unused stamps seem to have a better track record on identification, unless the stamp is described as "mint no gum" or "mint no glue".

If ebay included item specifics for catalog and catalog number and if search used the information effectively, the scope of the problem would be greatly reduced. Then the major issue would be seller error or sloppiness.

Clark

Hi,
I search for stamps on ebay all the time. IMO, the best way is to start with the Scott number in the "stamp" category.

When those results pop up, you may want to add the country name to the search, and/or denomination.

You will still get extras.......... In example, in looking for "Scott 500" under USA, Stamps, up pops a lot of other stamps that pertain to this that and the other - even the Indianapolis 500. So sometimes you just have to go thru the extra stuff...... which is part of the fun.

For stamps that I don't know the Scott number, I use the country, denomination, and perhaps the pic description (i.e. Austria 5 mountain). That may take some doing to get it, but again, that's part of the "fun".

Because ebay is an international site and not everyone uses Scott, I find it best to also add a description of the stamp (topics, perf size and other details) for the reasons mobilman44 posted above.

If you are a seller and only use the Scott number in your description you are doing yourself great disservice.

ebay item specifics, if used appropriately provide an effective means of capturing and displaying stamp attributes and properties. Unfortunately, most sellers don't bother, because significant effort is required. I developed software to build listings with item specifics starting with Excel spreadsheets containing specifics about the condition of the stamp and catalog information which has to be entered only once. You can check out the results in my listings on ebay or bidStart.

Clark
clarkphilatelics

Clark,
What you've done is very nice and everything is fleshed out so anyone with a catalog different than Scott can determine what the stamp would be in any other catalog. I've noticed you basically have the same information in the item specifics as you have in the description. Does having the information in the item specifics helps more in the searches than if you just have the same information in the description? I write detailed information of the covers I sell, but only use the description field and always seen item specifics as redundant. Buyers find my material just the same as I can tell. If you use TurboLister for listing items "item specifics" is a pain as copy & pasting is slow and tedious in page view. I write my items in a word processing program and copy & paste them over.

I've attempted to use a spreadsheet program with ebay's TurboLister, but that was a mess. It was easy enough to export information from TL to the spreadsheet, but not back to TL. TL also doesn't give error messages so you never know what you did wrong. The import will simply fail. At this point I'm not going to pay a monthly fee for a listing program and I find it easier and quicker to create listings via word processing and a template builder I created.

Battlestamps,

I developed process and the code before Item Specifics existed. Initially, I started with Selling Manager Pro, graduated to Blackthorne and migrated to SixBit a couple of years ago. Initially their database was Microsoft Access, as was Turbolister, but later it was upgraded to Microsoft SQL Server while Turbolister devolved to some proprietary file manager. I stopped using Turbolister as soon as I found out how unreliable it could be. After it was rewritten, I found that it did not scale very well. The primary advantage of SixBit and the now defunct Blackthorne is management of the entire listing and sales process. Once my software inserts new listings into the database, I can use SixBit for touch-up edits, submitting listings, processing orders and managing inventory.

Unfortunately, the code to convert Excel spreadsheet rows to listings is not particularly simple, especially management of item specifics, which ebay requires in an XML format. The good news, is that SixBit supports importing comma delimited csv files which can be exported from Excel. While, not simple, this may be the best approach for computer literate users. My solution required custom code that I maintain. Because the SixBit database is quite stable, I found that my code with transaction controls rarely needs updating. The advantage for me is almost complete avoidance of filling out forms and the ability to fully populate descriptions and item specifics with no extra effort. I now use the ebay Condition Description field to populate the condition information in the actual description.

Why the redundancy? It seems like listings with fully populated Item Specifics are more likely to be at or close to the top of the ebay Best Match search. I don't know why this should be the case, but it appears that the Search Engine likes items specifics even if they are not being directly used. I plug the item specifics into the listing template, because that code existed before item specifics. I found it straight forward to change the code to use item specifics in the template. Most of the substitutions could now take place in a Sixbit Software Wrapper, but I find that processing most of the item specifics into the description as a form of early binding before inserting into the SixBit database makes it easier to control the description and allows reformatting fields, not possible with straight substitution. As descriptions continue to shrink because a more tabular approach is being used by ebay, my approach seems to be working better and better. The next step will be to stop including images in descriptions and try to eliminate the remaining HTML.

Probably more than you needed to know, but I would suggest that you look into SixBit as a far superior alternative to TurboLister. I believe that the Home and Hobby edition is free.

Clark

Clark: Thanks for the explanations and some of that did go over my head. I'm not well versed in spreadsheet programs. As for TurboLister I only use it as a vehicle for listing auctions, but I don't use it to create listings. I'm more at ease with word processing programs and find it easier to edit, copy, replace and all those functions. I still use some html in the descriptions and actual prefer to have my pictures embedded in the descriptions. I absolutely hate ebay Picture Services and refuse to use them. I'll peek a sixbit and see what it is about. I looked at Blackthorn in the past and didn't like it. I'm not fond of the database format and find it hard too hard to use when writing up covers, but to each their own and one need to use a system that works for them. What I really want is something that can translate my work from word processing into something like the TurboLister program so I could eliminate the copy & paste work.
Will

Well! It is comforting, in some twisted sadistic sort of way, to see that everyone else appears to have tried everything I've tried and had the same awful results.

It's also discomforting to see we have no real solutions.

I will note, that it seems to depend on the Scott number of the stamp as to how well the search turns out. It's better if it isn't a number that ends with 5 or 0.

Just for grins, type bidStart.com into your address bar. Then type in exactly " u.s. 245 " for e.g., and select the drop down category "stamps", at right. When the search comes up select "19th century used (or unused)" and see what comes up in their search. Isn't that sweet!?

So making a topic selective search for a website can't be that hard. Granted ebay is bigger, but the principle is the same. Perhaps just a bit more of it was needed.

btw...I looked up "Cassini search" on Google. Looks like there are lots of websites with tips here...

https://www.google.com/#q=cassini+search+tips

Haven't had the chance to go thru them yet, but you can bet your collection I will find the time.


-IBFS

IBFS

Sometimes I use the search in quotation marks.

So first search is the word stamps in the category of stamps. Then click on united states. Should have 800k listings or so then do a search within united states But put your search term in quotation marks such as:

"scott 500"

There still is some stray listings but you have way more of what you want than what you don't.

But it only works if the listing heading has scott and 500 together.