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Search for Misspellings to Find Deals on eBay

You can find some great buys on eBay by searching for misspellings. Many sellers are in a hurry when they set up their auction listings, and to err is human (and to win, divine). It’s easy to forgive sellers for their mistakes because the payoff for bargain hunters is, well, a bargain.

Think of alternate spellings when you search for an item — for example, Von Furstenburg for Von Furstenberg. You might search for the correct spelling and find a bunch of items where the bidding can get steep. But when you search for the misspelled version, you may find identical items that have no bids, because you’re the only one who has found the listing.

You can search for both the correct and incorrect spellings by using a search such as (furstenberg,furstenburg).

eBay sometimes shows alternative spellings — but not always (what is the right way to spell L’Occitane?).

Look! A “Nitendo” Wii Fit Balance Board!
Look! A “Nitendo” Wii Fit Balance Board!

A couple of common misspellings are neckless (instead of necklace) and vidio (instead of video). The above figure shows a search for a popular electronics game. Notice that there were two items with the error. Also note that eBay suggested the proper spelling of Nintendo, with 2,691 items.

Use asterisks as wildcards in your search, especially if you’re not sure of the spelling of a word. For instance, searching for guc*i handbag will lead you to some great Gucci handbags, but it'll also find the "Guchi" handbag that no one else has discovered. You can also find some nuggets when searching for the plural of an item.

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