Over the last two years, I've been working on a new forum modification designed to give you the same engine the Auction Hunter bot uses to search eBay.  The tl;dr version is that you can get started by clicking the yellow eBay at the top of your screen, if you're the type who doesn't like reading instruction manuals!


Why I Made This

Very simply, the vast majority of support for site costs comes from our affiliation program with eBay.  When you click on an auction here, and either bid or win that auction, The Acaeum gets a commission (paid for out of eBay's seller fees, so there's no added cost to either buyer or seller).  This system has been working great, except for one glaring problem: sniping.  Many high-dollar auctions are won by sniping, where your bid is placed by a third-party service outside eBay.  In many such cases, The Acaeum does not get credit for those wins, because eBay doesn't see that the "click" came from this site (it's a little more involved than that, but that's the basics).  Unfortunately, sniping remains an excellent tactic and probably the best way to pursue high-dollar items.  The travesty is that in many cases, you became aware of the auction due to a post on The Acaeum (user posts, Auction Hunter, etc), but we don't get a commission from your win, because you didn't go back to eBay after entering the item in your sniping program.

This new system is a ridiculously complex attempt to "remind" you to click on an Acaeum auction link that you're about to snipe, in order for us to get that credit.

Fortunately, the best way to do that was to largely re-create the eBay shopping experience here on this site, and hopefully improve on it in many ways.


Getting Started

First, let's click on the "New Search" button from the home Auction Hunter screen.  Choose your desired category from the dropdowns, then hit "Select".  Next you'll enter keywords.  When you're done, click "Run Search":



We're doing just a basic search here with few parameters; you can enter standard eBay search punctuation here if you like, such as a minus sign ("-") for terms you wish to exclude, etc.  But it's easier to refine the search in the next step.

Here's our list of results from the search.  On the left of each result is a binoculars icon; click that if you wish to add this item to your Watchlist.  The result will be highlighted in yellow to let you know it's been added.  You can click the thumbnail picture to expand it full-size, or click on the auction title to view the auction description.  In this example, we're going to proceed to automate this search, which will let us refine the parameters and will check eBay for new results every ten minutes:



The main search configuration screen.  This should be pretty self-explanatory.  Under the description of "Terms to Search" is some eBay syntax you might want to incorporate, which can help tailor your results (for example, to search for the term "slave" along with ONE of the terms "pits" and "undercity", you put "pits" and "undercity" inside parentheses, separated by a comma).

If you choose the default "Automatic" Execution, the search will run every ten minutes and e-mail you if it finds anything new.  If you select "Manual", you need to run the search yourself from the Searchlist screen.

When we're done here, you click "Submit" to save your search.  The search will now run once and display the results.



Here's our new search on the Searchlist.  The "Email" icon to the right indicates that this search is automated and is emailing you new results.  If you click the icon, a red slash will appear through it, indicating the search is now set to "manual".

If you click the title of the search, it'll run for you again, and display new results only.  If you wish to display already-viewed results, there's a button for that on the top left of the results screen.  



Lastly, what happens when Auction Hunter finds a new item in one of your searches?  In addition to the email notification, the eBay up at the top of your screen will turn yellow, as well as the title of the search in your Searchlist.  These yellow highlights are cleared when you click on them.




Reasons Why Our Engine is Better Than Actually Going to eBay!

• supports the Acaeum!  The Acaeum earns a commission if you win the auction or buy the item outright
  


• screens out extraneous clutter in individual auction listings, search results, and the eBay UI in general
  


• more intelligent organization to search results; easily sortable columns
  


• paging through search/browse results is slightly faster than on eBay itself (don't believe us?  Try it!)
  


• for your saved searches, screens out results already viewed (though you can restore them)
  


• checks your searches every ten minutes and emails you if anything found
  


• search both eBay and eBay.uk in one step
  


• advanced drop-down category selector; drill five levels deep very quickly!  eBay limits you to root categories in their selector
  


• Acaeum-integrated watchlist; add items to your watchlist from other user's posts, or from the "Rares Currently on eBay" threads
  


• no need to authorize The Acaeum to access eBay on your behalf; your Acaeum watchlist is a separate entity from your eBay.com watchlist
  


• all thumbnails can be clicked on to expand full-size
  


• thumbnail images on the item page can be navigated with arrow keys on your keyboard, the arrows on either side of the image, via the dots below the images, or by dragging/swiping them side-to-side!
  


• "eBay" link at the top of your screen glows yellow if an item on your watchlist is <24 hours from completion. For snipers, clicking the bid/buy button in the last 24 hrs will copy the item number to the clipboard, facilitating easy pasting into your sniping software
  


• user-configurable Blacklist to filter search results; option to import Acaeum's list of known scammers
  


• displays not only a seller's true feedback percentage, but also displays only negative & neutral feedback comments (unfortunately, eBay only provides comments left in the past year)
  


• displays all eBay item prices (Acaeum-wide!) in your selected currency; make your preference via the Configuration panel
  


• blocks search results of items located in certain countries (China, Indonesia, etc) where a lot of scams and/or counterfeits originate

Limitations of the System

Uh, pretty much none?  There's only two issues I can think of:

• I've chosen to limit the amount of search parameters you can set.  For instance, on eBay itself, you can do an Advanced Search and limit items to Used condition and within 15 miles of your zipcode.  Does anyone actually do that?  I don't think so.  I've purposely chosen to limit the clutter to what's absolutely necessary to find the stuff you want to find.  With that said, if enough folks want some parameter added that I didn't think of, I can incorporate anything.  It's worth noting that you're getting the exact same screen that I see when I program the Auction Hunter bot to find rare items.  The magic is in what terms you search for, and what terms you exclude... not in artificially restricting your results, which will probably end up missing something you wanted.  IMHO.
  


• Since your Watchlist is stored here (and is completely separate from any Watchlist you have on eBay), and since your searches are conducted through the interface here, I of course could monitor what items you're watching and what you're searching for.  I'm not.  I don't care... I sold my collection years ago, I don't buy or sell anything off eBay, and I have way too many other things going on IRL to bother looking at what Dragon magazines you're attempting to acquire.  There's not much else I can say to assuage your fears on that score.  Note, too, that you're not entering your eBay password here, and eBay has no idea what you're searching for or what you've added to your Acaeum watchlist (for the conspiracy theorists, eBay is most definitely keeping track of what you search for or watch on their site itself).

FAQ

• yellow eBay up top: an item on your Watchlist is ending in less than 24 hours, OR one or more of your searches found a new item
     -- yellow eBay highlight is cleared when clicked on (for search-result notifications) or when you've clicked the Bid/Buy button for all items on your Watchlist ending in less than 24 hours
     -- on your Searchlist, the auction title will glow yellow until you click it to view your new results
     -- on your Watchlist, the auction title will glow yellow until you click the Bid/Buy button for that auction
     -- for snipers, clicking Bid or Buy within the 24-hr window will copy the eBay item number to your clipboard.  Pop-up text informs you of this.
  


• How can I ensure The Acaeum is getting "credit" for my auction win?  If you placed your bid via the "Buy" or "Bid" buttons on this site, there's nothing more you need to do.  If you placed your bid via an outside service (i.e., sniping), for The Acaeum to get credit for the win, you need to "click through" (press the Buy/Bid button on the site here) within 24 hours before the auction ends.  You'll know you're in that 24-hr window because the title of the auction on your Watchlist will glow yellow until you click through
  


• Do I need to click through if I'm not bidding?  You do not -- and if you aren't bidding on the item, clicking through to eBay won't help out The Acaeum.  In such a case, the only reason to click through is to clear the yellow highlighting on your Watchlist, but that's strictly cosmetic
  


• I bid on this item days ago, but the auction title is now glowing yellow?  Unfortunately, we have no way of telling whether you actually bid on the item when you clicked the "Bid" button.  The yellow highlighting auctomatically triggers for all items when they are 24 hours away from ending; clicking the "Bid" button again (and ignoring the eBay page that appears) will clear the highlighting.  If you did indeed bid on the item through The Acaeum, regardless of when you did so, The Acaeum will get credit if you win; in this case, clearing your yellow highlighting is just a cosmetic choice for you
  


• Why do I sometimes see a different seller feedback percentage in Auction Hunter than what eBay shows for this same seller?  When eBay does their percentage calculation, they disregard neutral feedback; this can result in the percentages they show being slightly higher.  Additionally, they do not display all-time feedback breakdowns or percentages.  Both of these "methods" are designed to portray sellers as having a better feedback rating than what they truthfully have.  By viewing a seller's feedback stats through Auction Hunter, you will get a far more accurate readout
  


• If I Blacklist a seller from the item screen by mistake, how can I un-blacklist that seller?  You can manage your Blacklist settings via the Auction Hunter configuration panel, located in the upper right on both the Watchlist and Searchlist screens
  


• Completed auctions can be manually deleted from your Watchlist, or they will automatically be removed during overnight maintenance
  


• Only registered forum users have the Watchlist, eBay search/browsing, and automatic search capabilities
  


• You cannot search "all of eBay" for both regions (US & UK) at the same time; if you want to search both regions at once, you need to pick a category
  


• In the Auction Hunter configuration panel, you can set your currency preference for all eBay prices displayed on the site.  Depending on your preference, prices will be automatically converted to your selected currency.  Also, entering your country (and zipcode, if in the US) allows the system to estimate shipping
  


• When I use a minimum or maximum price in my search, why are there some results included that are slightly outside this range?  We convert currency using up-to-date conversion amounts, which will sometimes vary slightly from what eBay uses.  So, if your search has a 50 Euro minimum, you might sometimes get items that are priced at 49.95 Euros, for example


• Why do some sellers not display a feedback percentage next to their total feedback & stars?  To calculate the feedback percentage, we need to make a separate API call.  If we did that for every seller displayed in every item view, it would slow everything down. Therefore, we only make that API call during certain situations, such as clicking on the seller's feedback score to view their feedback breakdown.  Do it once for a seller, and it will be forever displayed and updated.  What's more, every forum user will now be able see that seller's feedback percentage, so you're helping out the whole team by clicking on it!


• When viewing full-size images from the item page (clicking on a thumbnail in the image slider), your left and right keyboard arrows will now cycle through the full-size pics (previously, you had to close the image, scroll to the right, click on the next thumbnail, etc).  The thumbnail slider will scroll along with you underneath the full-size image, though if you keypress multiple times too quickly, you might get out-of-sync with the slider.  This doesn't harm anything.

I wasn't able to test this system out with real users and a real workload before going "live", so there's bound to be some bugs present.  Please let me know of any issues via this thread or via PM.

Enjoy!

Foul

FoulFoot wrote:Bug List (updated as I find stuff; items removed once fixed)

• Rares Formerly on eBay thread is currently broken.  All data is safe; I just have to convert it to the new format
  
  
• List of a seller's items gets weird if you try and sort the results

I...am...in...AWE!
We're not worthy! We're not worthy!

Your choice!  If you post a list, the system handles it:

** eBay auction listing blocked.  Please enable cookies in your browser for this site and for eBay! **

Foul

Hi Foul, great job done!
A small request i find useful: would it be possible to add a filter for the category "toys and hobby"on ebay so that you can see listings related to our scope insted of the full listing of the seller?
Thanks and best
Ciaoo

OK, this appears to be working well now!  On the main Auction Hunter configuration screen, you can set this.  You'll need to manually enter the eBay category you wish to restrict to (it was not technically feasible to put the category drop-down chooser in there), but there's a link to a helpful list just to the left of it.

If you enter a category number, whenever you view a list of a seller's items through Auction Hunter (i.e., by clicking on a seller's name from an auction preview or from an item page), only items listed within the category you chose will be displayed.  I recommend not setting this too narrow (i.e., enter "2543" for "Role-Playing Games", not "44113" for "D&D Adventure Modules").

As noted on the configuration screen, this setting will only affect individual seller listings through Auction Hunter.  Its only use is to help you focus on an item category that interests you when viewing sellers that have hundreds (or thousands!) of items for sale in multiple categories.

Enjoy!

Foul

Thanks Foul!!!

I get this error pretty frequently. I'm assuming because I'm in Canada and some US sellers don't ship here. But I wonder why I can't at least see the auctions and the seller's other items?

I took a look in there, and did find two problems with seller listings... but neither problem should have affected seeing this seller's list of items.  The only way I could replicate your issue was to view this seller ("brightstarryeyed"), and then click the "Bids" sorting button to the right.  Since this seller has only Buy-It-Now auctions, all his auctions disappear when you click the "Bids" button.  But this sorting preference isn't saved, and viewing the seller again should display the items.

The configuration option for "Filter out auctions that won't ship to your location" WAS incorrectly affecting seller listings, when it should only have affected "Browse eBay".  I fixed that.  But this seller ships worldwide, and after I set my country location to Canada, I could still correctly see his listings.  So that wasn't it.

If you're still getting this for sellers who should be displaying items, please copy me in a PM/email the URL in your address bar.

Foul

How is location determined? GeoIP is imperfect... I rarely peak out from a VPN and/or Tor.