eBay Listing Title Misspellings - Finding those Bargains

By Sean Eyring, Online Marketing Consultant

In past articles, we found how misspellings of eBay title keywords can result in poor auction results. By the same token, however, you can profit from others' poor spelling skills. Let me explain.

First of all, when an auction results in a poor closing price, it's bad for the seller, but great for you as a buyer. It's a great way to pick up undervalued, overlooked eBay listed items. The bargain hunter in me loves to get a great deal. Maybe you're the same.

When you get an undervalued item on eBay for far less than it should have sold for, you've also found a great source of products to sell on eBay. In last week's newsletter, you learned which listing features make up good and bad eBay listings.

Misspellings: Good News or Bad News?

One of the major reasons why listings end with no bidders or with a price that's too low is a poor choice of keywords used in the product title. That is good and bad news, depending on the circumstances.

It's a great thing when the seller misspells keywords in the title if you're the one who finds the bargain and takes advantage of the error. You get a good deal.

For the seller, misspellings can be a good or bad thing. If buyers can't find your listing because you accidently misspelled keywords, there's no mistake about it, it's bad.

On the other hand, as a seller, you can take advantage of typos to your benefit. Why? Because sellers aren't the only ones who get "fat fingers" from time to time. Buyers do too.

Having done research on common misspelling of keywords, I have found that the LSR (Listing Success Rate) is often well above those that were not misspelled. As a seller, I might want to list my items, purposely misspelling keywords I have researched, and use a BIN price. I want to set this BIN price slightly below the price of my competitors, knowing I have a better chance of selling a larger volume of the product. I may sell at a lower profit, but have a greater chance of selling more of the product.

Buyers who have misspelled the same words in their search within eBay that you've used in the title or description of your listings, will find your listing when they otherwise might not have.

With more traffic to your eBay listing, you increase the chances someone will bid on it. With more bids, you tend to get a higher closing price on your listing. It's as simple as that.

So how do you identify common misspellings used in eBay auctions? One way is to use the HammerTap auction research tool. Perform a search for a product in HammerTap. Then click on the "keywords" tab at the bottom of the application.

You'll see a list of keywords used in eBay listings for your product. Simply find those that are misspelled.

Other ways to identify common misspelled keywords is to use a tool like the one at www.missing-auctions.com  I stumbled upon this tool the other day.  You just put in your keyword, and it queries eBay for likely misspellings.

The bad news about the tool is that I found some great bargains with it. Why is that bad? Because I ended up spending money I hadn't intended on! I'm a sucker for a bargain!

Make the most of your auctions with research!