E-bay wasting my time

[Guest cardinal905]

Well here go's, this may have been discussed before but---I bought a 50 sedan and went on e-bay to see what cool Buick stuff I could find. When results for 1950 Buick came up there were over 870 hits. I am real tired of all the duplicate adds, am I the only one that is sick of this---I dont have time for 50 pages ?

[50jetback]

Couldn't agree more - 50 or 60 consecutive adds for green plug leads and the like - you would think 1 add stating green plug leads available for every car known to exist would suffice!

Then you get the dealer ones that run for 28 days or so and then seemingly automatically reload for another 28 days.

I guess eBay don't mind - it's all revenue but it is certainly time consuming sifting the chaff from the hay.

[Mark Shaw]

I gave up on Ebay for this and several other reasons.... I still look at vehicles for sale, but multple pages of brand new parts listed for brass and nickel era cars is just stupid!

[Reatta Man]

I think their hopes are the same as the reasons Pep Boys and Wal Mart move their junk around. They know a lot of people go in to get specific items and get out. If you have to go hunting for your items because they moved, they hope (think) you will buy more of their crap as you walk around.

All it does to me is just tick me off for wasting my time.

Joe

[Guest BJM]

yes I have not used ebay for parts searches for a long time. Scroll, scroll, scroll - and do you really trust a new part from an ebay house seller?

Uh no. It probably was a part made generically and supposed to fit several years and if you get screwed - probably no meaningful customer service

[LINC400]

Put the blame where it belongs, on the idiots that list the stuff. Ebay is simply a listing service. They do not know whether a brass nut is a legitimate part for a 1910 Thomas or is just new generic junk. They get paid for the listing whether it sells or not, so if these idiots keep listing hundreds of items that Ebay gets paid for, I can't blame them for not doing anything when a handful of people complain that whatever is not an appropriate part for their 1908 X.

If the idiots listing the crap had any brains, they would not list 50 at a time. They would list one, pay for one listing, and get multiple bids on it. Then relist another when the auction ends. They also would not waste words in their listing title with 1908 X or Hupmobile, which probably a handful of people are looking for parts for. They would use words that people that actually want these parts would type in.

[Dave@Moon]

I just searched 1950 Buick on eBay, and got 407 hits (7 pages) for the whole system. That's pretty managable. If you go to www.ebay.com and do a straight search, the "eBay Stores" items do not show up unless you request them. That is where most of the oddball stuff is coming from.

However if you want to look in "eBay Stores", do 3 searches:

used 1950 buick; NOS 1950 buick; & NORS 1950 buick.

(Capitalizations aren't necessary.) Anybody who has anything to sell of value, and who knows how to describe that value, will use one of those 3 terms in their listing title.

[Guest cardinal905]

Dave you are right, I have always searched for cars and car parts in E-bay motors (what a weirdo) when I did all categories it cut it in 1/2---still too much crap though. See I learn something everyday on this forum.

[LINC400]

You can see what pops up multiple listings of crap you don't want, and then just remove those words from your search.

For example: 1950 Buick -floormats -subwoofer -antenna

That will get rid of a lot of crap

[poci1957]

We are all grumbling about E bay these days, is there any other similar service available that I am not aware of? I would be interested, but any other online auction I have ever seen has never amounted to anything. Let me know, Todd C

[48k]

I was frustrated with the number of unwanted sellers I was getting from my Kaiser parts search and was given these instructions from another forum reader.

When you do a search on ebay there is a column on the left hand side that says refine search. Under the seller heading you can choose to include or exclude sellers. Choose exclude, then copy the ebay name of the seller you wish to exclude, paste it in the box, then save your listing. Next time you search the saved listing the unwanted seller will be excuded from the search. You can exclude as many sellers as you want. Make sure you save your listing after excluding the unwanted sellers names.

I used this method and it reduced my Kaiser parts search from 800-900 to about 200. It takes some time to eliminate all the unwanted (bulk) sellers but it makes the next search much more enjoyable.

[Smartin]

Just search under "Auctions Only" and it cuts out all the crap.

[Guest cardinal905]

Great tips guys, thanks---------come on Spring !

[TexRiv_63]

We are all grumbling about E bay these days, is there any other similar service available that I am not aware of? I would be interested, but any other online auction I have ever seen has never amounted to anything. Let me know, Todd C

I agree with Todd. even with the frustrations as described, I know of no other marketplace as large and varied as ebay, nothing else is even close for auto stuff. I have found that my biggest problem with them is their constant changing of rules and procedures but everything usually works itself out pretty quickly. As a user since 98, I will get over the small stuff to take advantage of the marketplace.

[Mr Riviera]

If not for Ebay I would have never finished my 61 Le

Sabre . It allowed me to buy the NOS stuff for a reasonable price and sell excess stuff I had in inventory . I have done over 500 transactions with no problems . The days of finding GOOD stuff at swap meets these days are rare . If you put perimeters on your search it will cut down on all the stuff you dont want or need . I also have automatic searchs done while I sleep for things that I would be interested in and when I turn on the computer in the am - the results are there - how good is that ! My days of hauling a truckload of parts to the swap meet is over . Just my thoughts

[keiser31]

I was finally able to win some pieces that I was almost going to resort to making. 1931 Dodge Brothers bumper clamps. VERY RARE, indeed! I waited until there was 30 seconds left on the auction and whoo hoo! Got 'em. Sometimes that ebay thing works well....rare, but sometimes.

[oldsobsolete]

Try doing a search for 1927 Marmon. It is a joke! How many times are you going to wade through 700 antenna listings to find a real listing? I am ashamed to say I have actually done that ! What we will do to complete the treasure we are working on is beyond me.There is another listing service available called Vendio stores. I do not know how many former E bay sellers are useing them but I know that many legitimate sellers have switched to Vendio stores . The only trouble they have is that they are hard to find but if they ever get that figured out E bay will die. That is my opinion anyway. I plan on listing all 500,000 pieces of NOS GM that I have there, which includes a lot of 50 Buick NOS. They are a lot similar to an E bay store but are a lot easier to deal with. I think you would have to do a google product search to find them. You can check out my store atOldsobsolete : Vendio Stores if you want.

oldsobsolete

[Dave@Moon]

Try doing a search for 1927 Marmon. It is a joke! How many times are you going to wade through 700 antenna listings to find a real listing?

Right now I get 6 listings: 1927 Marmon, Collectibles, eBay Motors. Great deals on eBay!

[Thriller]

I don't mind seeing new reproduction parts, but it is the skull shift knobs and the like that start to annoy me.

I don't go to eBay very often nowadays - I don't have enough willpower to not buy everything in sight...sometimes incorrectly.

[Budd]

you can also use operands for your searches within eBay, such as "1956 Buick -cover -led" without the double quotes, and it will minus out some of the offending listings. Helps cut the clutter a bit, but I do agree-- there are some vendors out there just shoveling heaps of non-relevant stuff into eBay.

[46Chris]

Reading keiser31's post, how many of you fellas use an auction sniper? I found a good one for free (many charge a fee after a few free tries). Just Google 'ebay bidding scheduler' for the link.

At the risk of boring some of you, the idea is to put your max bid into their scheduler and indicate how many seconds before the auction end you want your bid to appear. It's called 'sniping'. The benefit is that you don't 'tip your hand' or artificially hype the action - your bid just comes waltzing in at the last few seconds (they recommend 7 seconds) of the auction. I've found it quite helpful, and frees me from hanging around until the end of an auction to enter my bid.

On another note, thanks for all the tips on filtering. Learned some good stuff once again from my favorite forum! The 'spray and pray' listings will only continue and grow, since it's so easy to automate massive listings and relistings. I really liked 48K's exclude seller tip. I will definitely use that one!

By the way, this is the last 'many letter' months. The months with the most letters in 'em are the ones that keep a lot of us from our happy pursuit. Soon as February is over, March (beginning of the few letter months!), and then soon after my most favorite of all, May. Can't get any fewer letters than that, winter's really over, and the salt is washed off the roads. The older I get, the more I look forward to it...

Edited February 2, 2010 by 46Chris (see edit history)

[Guest windjamer]

For me E-Bay has become so difficult I dont even look at it anymore.

[TexRiv_63]

Reading keiser31's post, how many of you fellas use an auction sniper? QUOTE]

I had one once but got rid of it. I found it made me overbid for some items and kind of took the fun out of the process. I usually wait until the last day of the auction, put in my maximum bid, and walk away. I almost never bid more than once. I lose a lot of things but I still win more than I probably should. One thing with Ebay, no matter how rare you think an item is, in most cases another one will come along, most of the time a few others!

[Larry Schramm]

TexRiv, I agree with you. Most of the time I put the price that I am willing to pay and walk away.(Usually forgetting that I bid on something) If I win, OK, if not was not meant to be. Sometimes if it is something I do not really need and have a low price that is what I wll pay to have it sit on the shelf "just in case" I still end up with it. What a surprise.

[danhar1960]

I had one once but got rid of it. I found it made me overbid for some items

How does the auction sniper "make you" over bid ???

Aren't you the one that sets the amount of your high bid ??

The software only electronically bids what you tell it to do when you tell it to do it.

I have found it stops me from getting carried away wth overbidding (auction fever) on something. Set your max at a calm an rational moment and forget about it. I agree it's more fun to sit there with your finger on the mouse watching the seconds tick down but most of the time it's just impossible for me to be at a computer when the auction ends.

The biggest time waster on eBay is sitting and waiting for ebaystatic.com to load.

Danny

[46Chris]

I have never experienced overbidding with an auction sniper. Not quite sure how that might happen. I'm with you, I want to put in my high bid and then be pleasantly surprised if I win. The value with sniping is that it doesn't artificially increase the activity on the item - it only shows up at the last few seconds. It uses the same logic as normal ebay max bids entered, it just doesn't contribute to a bid frenzy. If the bid with one minute remaining is $20 and you've entered $40 as your max snipe bid, and the increase has to be at least a dollar, then if at a few seconds left the top bid is $26 and your bid wins, you get the item for $27. If you enter your $40 max bid the regular way, then whenever someone else increases the bid, yours will counter and turn up the heat. With sniping you're just lurking until the very end. It keeps me from getting caught up in the fever, because I am prone to it.

[michaelod]

you can also use operands for your searches within eBay, such as "1956 Buick -cover -led" without the double quotes, and it will minus out some of the offending listings. Helps cut the clutter a bit, but I do agree-- there are some vendors out there just shoveling heaps of non-relevant stuff into eBay.

"operands"?

Obviously a fellow software engineer...

[poci1957]

I tried Smartin's use of the "Auctions Only" tab (right in the middle of everything but I had never noticed) and found that helpful. You can still look at "buy it now" items too but having them separated makes looking at the list faster and easier.

My next move will be the list of excluded sellers, thanks, Todd