eBay Hacks, 2nd Edition

Find Similar Items

Quickly list auctions similar to the one you’re looking at with a simple JavaScript tool.

I’m always excited to discover something new while searching on eBay, but I’ve been around long enough to know that there’s virtually no such thing as “one of a kind.”

When you’ve found an item you’re interested in, it’s often helpful to seek out other auctions for similar items, either to compare prices or perhaps to find something better. Typically, this involves opening a search box and typing the name of the item for which to search. Here’s a quick hack that will eliminate these steps and list similar items with a single click.

Create a new button on your browser’s Links bar (see the “Customizing the Links Bar” sidebar for details) and type the following JavaScript code, all on one line, into the new link:

    javascript:void(win=window.open('http://search.ebay.com/' +
           document.title.substring(document.title.indexOf(' - ') + 3)))

Make sure to note the capitalization of the JavaScript code, such as the uppercase “O” in the indexOf keyword. Note also the spaces around the hyphen (' - '). You can name the new link anything you like, such as “Find Similar.”

Then, open any auction page and click the new link, as shown in Figure 2-2. (Naturally, the hack won’t work on a nonauction page.) A new window will appear with search results matching the title of the auction you were just looking at, which, in theory, should contain at least one auction. At this point, you can modify and repeat ...