Whether you are a buyer or seller, time is money and knowing how to properly search for eBay items can make the difference between making a sale or finding that great bargain or not. With the huge popularity of eBay as a shopping and selling venue, every minute counts. There are several tactics and techniques that can be used to make your eBay searches and research much more efficient.

Even getting to eBay seems to be hampering many shoppers. Search engine analysis shows that millions of people type words or phrases like ebay, ebay auction, ebay web site, ebay com, and many others into Google and other search engines trying to find their way to eBay. All the while, more efficient shoppers are gobbling up the deals. Some users fumble through their browser’s bookmarks trying to find that magic link that gets them to eBay. All of this time consuming confusion can be eliminated by using the Auction-Geek.com eBay auctions toolbar found at http://www.Auction-Geek.com/toolbar/. Once installed, the toolbar sits below the address bar of your Internet Explorer browser, which means that you can use it to search and navigate eBay at any time, no matter where you are online.

As eBay has grown to be the world’s largest online auction site, their website has become littered with a huge amount of ads, banners and links. Sometimes this clutter can make searching their site confusing and distracting. An alternative is to use an eBay affiliate site, such as http://www.Auction-Geek.com, to do your searching. All of eBay’s categories and listings can be found there, and the site is much easier and faster to navigate. Distractions are at a minimum, so you can spend your time searching and researching.

Once you know specifically what item or product you want to find, there are a few search things to keep in mind. Many times there are different words that a seller might use to describe the same thing. A computer may be listed as computer or PC. Try different options and combinations of terms.

Target your searches as specific as possible. If you are looking for a black, Coach purse, search for black coach purse. A search for purse or coach or coach purse will return many results that you will have to spend time weeding through to find your black, Coach purse.

When I search, I typically use the * (asterisk) as a wildcard at the end of my term to catch all of the plural listings in my results. For example, a search for Longaberger basket will only return auctions where the seller is selling only one basket. If I search for Longaberger basket* , all auctions for Longaberger basket and Longaberger baskets will be returned. Many people offer more than one of an item in an auction as a lot or collection and by using this technique, you might be able to find a great deal. Using the wildcard asterick will be discussed more later.

Sometimes you can find a real deal by searching titles and descriptions of auctions. To do this type of search, enter what you’re searching for in the search box and click the box underneath labeled Search title and description. Many times a seller will simply forget to put a primary keyword in their auction title but list it in the description.

Stay away from typing in conjunctions such as or, and, the, etc. If you want to search for Beauty and the Beast DVDs, type in beauty beast dvd* . Many times a seller will not add all conjunctions since eBay limits the number of characters for an auction title.

Punctuation is another area that you should try to work around. To search for White’s metal detectors, I use white* metal detector* . Some sellers list these as White’s metal detector or Whites metal detectors. My search method will find both of them.

The primary requirement to making your searches efficient is to fully understand the commands for the eBay search engine. The simplest form of search is to enter the major search terms separated by a space such as Betty Boop watch. Be sure to always include the space between your words.

Place quotation marks around a group of words to get only the listings that have those words in that order in their title. For example, a search for “blue shoes" will return all auctions with blue shoes in their title but not those containing just blue or just shoes or shoes blue in their title. Auctions for blue suede shoes would not be returned in the results.

Many times the returned listings will contain many auction items that are unrelated to what you’re searching for because they share the same words. There is a way to exclude terms from your search. Let’s say you want to search for all replica handbags except for Prada brand. You would enter replica handbag* -prada. If you want to exclude more than one word from your search results, enclose them in parentheses and separate them with commas such as replica handbag* -(prada,chole,burberry). This search will find all listings for replica handbags except for the brands Prada, Chloe, and Burberry.

Earlier I mentioned that some items, such as computers, can be known as and listed as different words. In the case of computers, you would want to search for (computer,pc). This search will find all auctions containing either computer or PC in their title.

To find items that contain words starting with a particular sequence of letters, enter the sequence of letters followed by an * (asterick). A search for pen* will find all items whose titles contain words starting with pen, such as pen, pens, penny, pennies, pendant, Pennsylvania, etc.

Get your Auction-Geek.com toolbar and start using the eBay search techniques described, and you will start saving a bunch of time researching for what to sell on eBay or finding those great deals to buy!