You are able to add a new search query from the add search query page. There are many different pieces that make up a query:
Keywords
This is what you want to search for on eBay. This field is required since without we won't know what to search!
Category
This selection box allows you to choose a category in which to search such as Books or Video Games. Only items listed under the category you choose will be returned.
Subcategory
After selecting a category, you are then able to choose a subcategory. For example if you chose the category Books you could then narrow it down further to Cookbooks or Nonfiction.
Location
This selection box determines which eBay site will be searched.
For example, choosing United Kingdom will return results from the http://www.ebay.co.uk site.
Likewise, searching the Australia site will fetch results from http://www.ebay.com.au.
Please note that not all listings from foreign countries will deliver to your location.
You may have to work with the seller to see if they are willing to ship internationally to you.
This also works with the preferred domain you have set within your account. All prices will be converted to match your preferred domain.
If you are searching the United Kingdom site, which has prices in GBP, but you the United States as your preferred domain, then the item's price will be converted from GBP to USD for displaying purposes.
Search Description
If this option is checked, your keywords will not only be searched against the item's title but also the item's description. This will allow for a broader search, but it might return unrelated items as some sellers include words in their descriptions even though that is not the item they are selling.
Free Shipping
With this option selected, only items with free shipping will be returned.
Listing Type
Auctions are listings that start at a specified price and then users can bid the amount they wish to pay. When the auction ends, the highest bidder wins the item.
With a Buy it Now, instead of placing bids on an item, you are able to purchase the item immediately for the specified price.
Choosing either of these options will only return results that offer the specified type of listing. By default, both types are searched.
For more information please see http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/formats.html.
Condition
Your options for condition are New, Used, and Unspecified. Based on the options selected, only items matching the specified condition(s) will be returned. By default, all conditions are searched.
Minimum and Maximum Price
Setting these values all you to specify a minimum, maximum, or range of prices you are looking for.
If you do not want to pay more than $100 for an item, you can set 100 as the maximum price.
If you are looking to pay between $30 and $50 for an item, you can $30 and $50 for the minimum and maximum prices respectively.
These currency for these values is determined by your preferred domain set in your account. If your preferred domain is .co.uk, these values will be in GBP.
Likewise, if your preferred domain is .com, then the values will be in USD. If you are searching a location other than your preferred location, then these values will be converted automatically.
Let's take the following example:
1. Your preferred domain is .co.uk
2. Search query location is .com.au
3. Maximum price is set to 100
The maximum price will be 100 GBP and this 100 GBP will be converted into AUD, thus any items returned will be less than 100 GBP or in other words, less than roughly 166 AUD.
This conversion is done because your currency is in GBP and you are willing to spend up to 100 GBP so you shouldn't be limited by the exchange rate.
On the view search queries page, all of your saved queries will be displayed.
Clicking on a specific query will bring up its results as well as some options for it. One of the options is Edit.
Upon clicking this button, you will be taken to the Update Search Query page and the query's information will be pre-populated in the form.
From here, you are free to edit the query as necessary and save it. Then, the next time the query is searched, it will use the new parameters and any new results will be delivered to you.
Yes! Here are the following search operators that are supported by eBay and how they work. In order to show how they work, let's say there are the following items for sale on eBay:
1. DVD
2. Action DVD
3. Funny Action DVD
Quotation marks
Surrounding a word or phrase with quotation marks returns listings that contains those exact words or phrases. For example, using our listings above, if we search for "Action DVD", we will only retrieve one result. If we remove the quotation marks, then we will retrieve two results, the ones containing both the words Action and DVD.
Parentheses
Using parentheses allow you to set up an OR operation. Either this word or this word. If we search for (Action, Funny), then two results would be returned to us since we are searching for items that contain Action or Funny.
Minus sign (-)
Using the minus sign acts as a NOT operator. Placing this symbol before a word will make sure that the item does not contain that word. If we search for DVD -funny, then two results will be returned. Additionally, this can be used in conjunction with parentheses. Searching for DVD -(action, funny) will only retrieve a single result.
For more information please see http://pages.ebay.com/help/search/advanced-search.html#using.
Once a query has been saved you will be directed to the view search queries page where you can see the list of all your currently saved queries as well as the results for each query.
Within one minute, the newly saved query will be searched and new results will be delivered via email. From then on, it will be search every minute and you will be notified of any new results that are found.
Every search query is searched every minute.
You have the ability to mute a search query if you wish to stop searching that query but still want to save it for potential future use.
An active query means that the query is being searched and you will receive any new results for that query via email.
Inactive queries will not be searched and new results will not be retrieved.
You are able to set whether or not a query is active or inactive by clicking on the query's keywords and then clicking either the Activate or Deactivate buttons.