Browsing and Searching eBay for Bargains
- Browsing eBay's Product Categories
- Searching for Specific Items
- Viewing Product Listings
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
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In this chapter:
- → Browsing eBay’s Product Categories
- → Searching for Specific Items
- → Viewing Product Listings
eBay is a great place to shop, with millions of products listed for sale each day. But with so many things available on the eBay site, how do you find the specific items you want to buy?
There are lots of ways to shop for items on eBay. You can search directly for an item, or browse for items by product category. eBay even offers some retail-like “hubs” for its most popular merchandise categories. How you shop depends a lot, then, on how you like to shop.
Browsing eBay’s Product Categories
Perhaps the easiest way for newer users to shop for items on eBay is to browse the site’s various product categories. eBay organizes its listings into an ever-increasing number of categories, from Antiques to Window Treatments.
You start your category browsing from eBay’s home page. To make browsing easier, eBay’s major categories are divided into a hierarchy of subcategories. For example, the Antiques category has more than 20 individual subcategories, such as Antiquities, Architectural & Garden, Maritime, and Musical Instruments. And, as you keep drilling down, you find that many subcategories have their own subcategories. (Sub-subcategories?)
Browse the Product Categories
The key to browsing through eBay’s product categories is to keep drilling down through the hierarchy until you find the specific subcategory you want. You can then browse the individual items for sale within that subcategory.
From eBay’s home page, click Shop By Category to see a list of the most popular categories.
If the category you want is listed here, click it. Otherwise, click See All Categories to display the complete category listing.
Click the category or subcategory you want to browse.
When the category page appears, you see a list of subcategories on the left. Click the subcategory you want to browse.
You now see the featured items for sale in this subcategory. Each listing is represented by a thumbnail image, the current asking price, and—if the item is an online auction—the current number of bids on the item. Click any item to view its full listing page.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click See All Search Results to see a list of all items for sale in this subcategory.
Each listing includes the listing title, a thumbnail image of the item, the current auction or Buy It Now price, how many bids or watchers the item has, and—if it’s an auction item—the amount of time left until the end of the auction. By default, eBay displays both auction and fixed-price items; to display only auction items, click the Auction button at the top of the page. To display only fixed-price items, click the Buy It Now button.
You can filter the listings on this page by a number of different criteria, all listed in the left column. The criteria differ from category to category; for example, you may be able to filter by condition (new or used), price range, delivery options, and so forth. Check those items you want to filter by.
Click an item’s title to view the listing page for that item.
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Shop at a Product Hub
Over the years, eBay has tried to make the shopping experience on its site more like that of a traditional online retailer. To that end, eBay has created several buying hubs for major product categories. These categories are listed below the search box on eBay’s home page.
- From eBay’s home page, click one of the major categories listed—Motors, Fashion, Electronics, Collectibles & Art, Home & Garden, Sporting Goods, Toys & Hobbies, or Deals & Gifts—to see the hub for that major product category.
- Most hub pages include featured listings and additional content, selected by eBay staff. Scroll down to see what’s available.
- Departments or subcategories within the major category are listed on the left side of the page; click a department to view the products for sale in that department.
- Click a listing title to view that item’s complete listing page.
Shop for Deals
One of eBay’s most popular buying hubs is the Deals & Gifts hub. This is a good place to start when you’re looking for the best bargains on the eBay site.
- From eBay’s home page, click Deals & Gifts or go directly to http://deals.ebay.com.
- To narrow down the bargains by category, click one of the tabs along the top of the page—Daily Deals, Tech Deals, Fashion Deals, Home Deals, or Even More Deals.
- Scroll down to view different types of deals. Click any deal listing to view more details—and maybe make a purchase.
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