Typo Arbitrage On eBay

from the how-to-get-a-bargain-by-misspelling dept

Years ago, I bought a somewhat rare musical box set on eBay for $20. The cheapest I'd ever seen it for sale (and I'd only seen it twice ever for sale over many years of looking) was for $100. It was quite a deal. However, it seems much more difficult to find good deals on eBay since just about everyone is hunting for good deals. Some people, though, have figured out a sneaky way to scratch out a good eBay deal: misspell stuff. People posting goods for sale often don't do much proof-reading and will misspell all kinds of items that they're selling. This means that others don't find them when searching, and bidding never goes that high. In fact, many people seem to be cashing in on a little typo arbitrage. They buy the misspelled items, and then resell them with proper spelling - sometimes getting quite a bit more money for their daring use of a spell checker. Some sellers are even going in the opposite direction. Realizing that even buyers may have difficulty spelling some words correctly, they'll post their ad with multiple (mis)spellings of the items they're trying to sell.
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  • identicon
    Ervino Cus, 28 Jan 2004 @ 3:23pm

    No Subject Given

    Darn! I'm using this trick from 1999. Now I will be forced to sue to defend my IP rights... :P

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Phil, 26 Oct 2006 @ 4:27am

    The best misspelling search engine

    There are a whole host of sites out there that allow you to search eBay for misspelled items but one stands out head and shoulders above the rest - Missing-Auctions.com. What's so good about it is that it allows you to limit your searches to specific categories and get your results as RSS feeds so that you can see as soon as someone lists a new misspelled item matching your search. Well worth checking out . . .

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    awdasdasd, 14 Sep 2007 @ 12:52am

    "Darn! I'm using this trick from 1999. Now I will be forced to sue to defend my IP rights... :P" oh U tricky... copydvdworld

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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