eBay Sourcing with Negative Searches

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For those who would prefer not to spend money on online arbitrage software, eBay is one of the best starting places for flippable bargains. It's filled with amateur sellers and people who value a decluttered home over getting the maximum price for a listing. This combination makes it the ideal spot to find products to resell.

One method to find particularly strong deals is through negative searches. It's an underrated tactic, but one that unearths deal after deal, once you settle on the right profit-rearing keywords.

What is a Negative Search?

All good search engines have negative search functionality. By adding a ‘-‘ next to a particular word, you're telling it to fetch you results that match one keyword (or keywords), but exclude the other(s). When coupled with a few filters; you can quickly come across gem listings that others would overlook.

Isn't This Just Like ‘Search Description'?

Like, but not the same. With a description search, you will find listings that don't state a particular keyword in the title, but do in the description. With this, you will find listings that don't mention it in either.

In some cases, it might be that the seller just isn't aware how significant that word might have been. In others, these sellers are just slipping.

Show Us an Example

Oh, you wanna see, do ya?

Let's look for some trainers. Searching [men's trainers] will return thousands of results.

Let's filter by ‘New with Box', ‘size 10', and Nike. Still thousands of results.

Now we pull out the secret weapon. Watch this. By using the negative search ‘-Nike', we can see all of the listings of new men's size 10 Nike trainers on eBay that are listed without “Nike” in the title. Who would do a thing like that? Wack eBay sellers, that’s who. This is where some of the gems are hiding.

Obviously, this example hasn't revealed a proper deal, but it proves the theory. Now you've got the idea, get searching yourself.

What Do I Need to Be Aware Of?

The thing about amateur sellers is that they don't always look abide by the rules. I mean they're out here selling Nike trainers and not putting “Nike” in the title. Because of this, you may need to do is ask a couple of questions, before you make any purchases. Their definition of ‘New' may not be the same as yours. And if your buying something bound for an Amazon FBA shipment, it could be a wasted purchase.

Read descriptions thoroughly, check the photos properly and ask questions, if necessary.

Any Advice for Negative Searches?

To make your online sourcing more effective, you need to get into a routine. Set up saved searches to snatch deals like this. It's especially good when you come across 99p auctions like this or underpriced Buy It Nows. Experiment, play around with keywords, find product categories that are especially prone to poor listings, and go get them deals.

More than anything, doing this will ensure that you don't make the same mistakes with your own listings. Just knowing that someone else could swoop in and grab your item for cheap, because you've forgotten a keyword is motivation enough to take eBay listing more seriously.

More often than not, the very items you bought on eBay can actually be sold on there again – just with the right keywords this time. This technique might be a little time intensive, but it's more likely to find you low risk deals.