Bad Spelling Pays on eBay

peebeejay writes "People say that as long as they're understood, spelling is unimportant. These people are unwittingly making others a lot of money online, according to this article in the NY Times (DNA sample and clean boxers required). So, aside from clarity and respect for your reader, there's another good reason to either spell correctly or use a spellchecker: get bidders to find your eBay items and give you their money! Or you can go ahead and see how many people bid on your 'labtop computers,' 'camras,' and 'earings.'"

you mean....

to tell me that they aren't called "labtop" computers? ... you could've fooled my dad.

Old, old trick.

I've been using this trick since I started using eBay, something like six years ago. When you look for something, always look for misspellings first, because you're less likely to have competition. Even got a gemstone or two this way.

It's been known for years, and it hasn't changed much. I don't think this article is going to cause much of a change, even if it's widely read.

I check for this on purpose

.. whenever I use ebay, I always try "alternative" spellings of words. Of course, being from the UK, I'm used to spelling things like 'color' incorrectly [its a JOKE!] :-)

Simon

Re:I check for this on purpose

And is Brittish your British word for British?

Re:I check for this on purpose

That was one thing I learned while traveling through Europe. We would inevitable end up meeting/talking with British folks (mainly because they spoke the language) and they would always refer to the French or Dutch as "the Europeans"

Like, "The Europeans have this odd tasting candy" or "The Europeans have some odd TV shows".

At first it threw me for a loop .. I didn't know what they were talking about. I mean .. the British are Europeans with funny tasting candy and silly TV shows too. I didn't know they could detect abnormality among their own kind!

Re:I check for this on purpose

(paraphrasing) I'm an American, but I like to write papers in languages other than American English. I'm suprised when this gets me poor grades in English courses that I'm taking in America.

Adding extrae letteres too wourds jusst tou mayik themm moure impressieve oarr coulourfull iss nout ay goud ideea, even if the brits disagree in *their* english. :) Also, note that, thanks to modern transportational advancements, you could visit Europe regardless of where you live - you don't have to already live there!

Reg Free

Here [startribune.com]

Mother of Perl???

According to the article, Mother of Perl is spelled incorrectly. Shows what they know.

Re:Mother of Perl???

Sweet stupid hell! I can buy Larry Wall's wife on ebay?!

Re:Mother of Perl???

I assumed it was his cat, actually. Everyone knows the first perl script was written when she walked across the keyboard one time.

That makes her a script kitty?

Lower Standards for all!

Is the glass half empty? Is the glass half full? No! The glass is simply too big! What ever happened to rewarding those who did things well, as opposed to making sure nobody gets their feelings hurt because they don't do something as well as someone else. I heard that in some schools they're not running spelling bees anymore because it makes the kids that don't win feel too bad.

use a search engine spell checker

Ebay should use a spell checker like google uses, where it displays a link to a search with the stuff all spelled right.

I love that feature, since I can't spell worth a rats ass, and I'm suprised a site as big as ebay hasn't already done this.

Re:use a search engine spell checker

They do use a spell checker, but I don't think it's quite as effective or aggressive about matching as a Google's. For example, eBay figures out that you've mis-spelled "compaq" as "compac" [ebay.com] but doesn't catch the mis-spelling of "labtop" and recommend the correctly-spelled version. Google finds both of these.

Works for personal websites too

A friend of mine (whose website I host) is terrible. But at least his pictures of the "rockafella center" [google.com] get him on the first page of Google! :)

Google has ruined my spelling

I used to be a good speller, but I use Google A LOT. And it is so forgiving that my skills have declined. I expect all programs to know what I mean when I type "Jva prgfamminh boolks". I just kinda hit the keys that basically represent the words I want.

Re:Google has ruined my spelling

Yuoor seerch - Jva prgfamminh boolks - deed nut metch uny ducooments. Um gesh dee bork, bork!
Nu peges vere-a fuoond cunteeening "prgfamminh".

Sooggesshuns:

- Meke-a soore-a ell vurds ere-a spelled currectly. Bork bork bork!
- Try deefffferent keyvurds. Um gesh dee bork, bork!
- Try mure-a generel keyvurds. Um gesh dee bork, bork!
- Try fooer keyvurds. Um gesh dee bork, bork!

no wonder they're losing

unnix licsene for olny $699!!1!

An Extra Hyphen Made me $350 on Ebay

I was looking for a BikeE recumbent bike. There weren't any on Ebay. I tried "Bike-E" with a hyphen. There was an almost brand new demo model listed for $500. (They retailed for about $1200 at the time, I think.) I bought it, didn't even take it out of the box, relisted it with the correct spelling, and sold it for $850 seven days later. (I did have to pay for the bike to be shipped to me, which was about $35, I think.) I have also found that you can buy items that are poorly described and relist them with more thorough descriptions, links to the manufacturer's website, better photos, etc., and they will typically sell for higher than you paid for them.

Re:An Extra Hyphen Made me $350 on Ebay

I did buy an ATI card on eBay, installed it and decide it wouldn't work for what I wanted to do with it, sold it a month later for about $50 more. All I added was a couple better pictures and a spare $5 DVI to VGA dongle that I bought to use it.

Apart from proper spelling, good photos and a reputation for accurate descriptions, another thing that seems to help is to be willing to ship overseas, especially for the retailer exclusive items that overseas bidders couldn't get. It is a bit of a hassle but I think it helps the prices, and usually I sell to domestic bidders anyway.

Re:An Extra Hyphen Made me $350 on Ebay

Very true. I bought a stack of HDS ViewStation X terminals at a local DRMO auction and sold a couple on eBay. I wasn't expecting much, because the last one I'd seen sell went for about $15 - but that had no pictures and a single vague paragraph about what it was. I wrote up a whole page about it, took a picture, and sold two of them for over $100 each.

L@@K!!1!! NYT ARTICAL WITHOUT REJESTRATION!!!1!

For those who don't want to sell their organs to read this, visit the link searched for in Google [google.com] and click on the link to the article. This works in general for NYT articles - Google search for the link, and when you get the "nothing found, would you like to try the link?" page, just click on the link. It's 'cos the NYT uses a Referer check or something.

This valuable piece of advice given in the spirit of the article - ie with a crappy header that'll ensure only people looking really hard will find it.

Bidding starts at $5.

I do it on purpose ... form of keyword spamming

Since eBay says that adding terms to your auctions, that are unrelated is called; "keyword spamming" - I purposely don't spell some words right in the description so I can get others who may not spell words right. Some terms in the Apple category are often spelled incorrectly.

This, my friends...

...is why Microsoft could make the claim that people would go to mikerowesoft.com and get confused.

Because people are that fucking stupid.

"Plam" pilots are very common, too

Almost always a good deal in that category.

Re:"Plam" pilots are very common, too

Representing college literature professors in the arts I can safely say I would simply never buy something advertised as a Plam Pilot. What if it really was a Plam Pilot, like maybe some weird knock-off Palm from Vanuatu or something?

Bad spelling really turns me away from these things... Even though there's no real connection between spelling and intellect, it is very hard to read poorly crafted prose and respect it if it's badly written. Oh well, not lkie abyndoy's pinayg aotitentn...

Oh, the irony...

A story on Slashdot about accurate spelling! And referring to eBay no less! Oh, the irony!

This is the first article about eBay where the editors haven't spelt (yes, "spelt" not "spelled") the company name as "Ebay".

Somehow, they alway (well, almost always) manage to correctly spell iMac, iPod and iTunes, but eBay, nVidia and ATi often become "Ebay", "Nvidia" and "ATI". It would be nice to think that this article was the start of a trend but I seriously doubt it.

Re:Oh, the irony...

Obviously adding in your parenthetical expression (which is what the text inside these rounded things is called -- are they referred to as bracket expressions elsewhere? (and they can even be nested for no apparent reason (by the way, that question wasn't rhetorical, I really want to know)) solved the problem of smart-ass replies ;)

To be perfectly serious, there is a language called American English. Thank Daniel Webster for pushing for a distinct variant in spellings (Two countries separated by a common language and all that). And since this is slashdot, it is very American leaning (see here [slashdot.org] for the editorial opinion). Thus, your pre-emptive strike regarding which came first is really a moot point. You write for your audience. Do you use polysyllabic words when addressing toddlers?

While correct, the word spelt just comes across as pretentious. It isn't wrong, but it sounds funny to the ear and is distracting in conversation. Of course, that's just Dennis Miller's opinion, he could be wrong.

*blink*

experts say the Internet -- with its discussion boards, blogs and self-published articles -- is a treasure trove of bad spelling.

They had to ask experts?

Daniel

Pot to Kettle: You are black

Making money off of mispellings? Slashdot's been doing it for years!

Obligatory Simpson's Quote

Homer: "Look at these low, low prices on famous brand name electronics!"
Bart: "Don't be a sap, Dad. These are just crappy knock-offs."
Homer: "I know a genuine Panaphonics when I see it. And look, there's Magnetbox, and Sorny!"

Illiteracy on the internet

I remember back in the early days of the web, when it was just becoming popular, that John Dvorak hailed it as the coming of true mass literacy. His belief was that with so many average every day citizens posting web pages, surely this would lead to increased literacy.

It couldn't have been a year later that he retracted that prediction and instead said that the web has proven just how illiterate Americans (and I presume others) are.

Anyway, just thought I'd toss in my little anecdote.

feedback loop

"Before the Internet came along, poor spelling by the public was by and large not exposed,"

Just as importantly, it wasn't reinforced. Kind of like the lady who felt reassured by seeing "chandaleer" on hundreds of web sites, people whose reading consists primarily of web pages, e-mail, and chat (rather than books vetted by proofreaders) are learning to spell incorrectly. It's like the blind leading the blind. I've got nothing against spelling changes in principle; language is going to evolve. But this seems more like a case of language forking, almost geometrically.

Ironically, the internet seems to be taking us back a few centuries, to the days before English spellings were standardized by the likes of Webster and other lexicographers. Which was fine back when all parsing of text was done by humans, who could easily figure out that "Thomas Smith" and "Tomas Smythe" were the same person. But as this article points out, it can be a problem when more literal computers are concerned.

I am uneasy

At first I enjoyed the stories posted in this topic: "I saw a Rolex listed on eBay under Rollex. Bought it from the idiot for $10, turned around and sold it for $500. What a loser!"

Then I started to think: what if instead of trying to make a few bucks off of someone's typo, why not email them and tell them about the error? Here on Slashdot there is endless (and justified) ranting about the greed of corporate officers and their PHB minions. But are picking up a dollar off the floor in 7-11 and pocketing it even though you saw who dropped it or pulling these eBay spelling error tricks or laying off 1000 programmers to boost your stock price before cashing in your options not all acts from the same human motivation?

Lay off the NYT

The registration is free and you don't even need a valid e-mail address. What's with the complaints? The 20 seconds you have to spend *once* to input bogus information is certainly a fair price for the online content of the NYT.

Sheesh. People here would complain if you hung them with a new rope.

Use the asterisk

I hate to give this one away, but you're all my friends so what they hell. Search using an asterisk. Example - If you're looking for sony headphones, type in "sony head*" and it finds anything with the word head and sony in it. I get stuff cheap all the time, because this trick can get the spelling mistake listings.

spell casting

It's incredible to me that this late in the GUI game, I still can't just select text anywhere in Windows, right-click and select "Check Spelling". Anyone hook this up for GNOME yet?

At Apple, we developed a "styled text pane" GUI component for a hypermedia documentation browser (not HTML, in 1993) as part of the corporate switch to a C++ toolkit. We threw hooks for spellcheck and themes (a la CSS) into the class, and argued that the component ought to be part of the toolkit itself, for *every* text display in the OS, which would mean every app, entirely standard. I heard that the design was part of Apple's plans right through the demise of the Bento initiative, which drowned our approach like a rat on the Titanic. So now every app reinvents the wheel, and it takes forever to crawl back to steel-belted radials.

Survival of the mentally fittest?

I woke up to the news that some people went canoeing yesterday, during a wind advisory, without life vests, and apparently not knowing how to swim, and one guy drowned. Not to be callous about such a tragedy, but the phrase "survival of the fittest" did cross my mind.

I think this story beats mine, though.

The phrase that starts "a fool an his money..." also seems to apply.

(Oh, and I spell checked this because I'm smart enough to know I'm stupid.)

bad spelling = good deals

I think it's a liability for the seller, but a windfall for the buyer. For example, I was searching for a rare item that was part of a series of collectables named after the "millennium". The seller had the product misspelled as "milennium" and had much fewer bids and I was able to pick it up for a fraction of its worth. I guess it depends upon whether you want the buyer or seller to be uneducated. The former works if you're trying to scam someone; the latter works if you're looking for a good deal.

Re:This article is ridiculous

Try again....

Search for "labtop" on ebay [ebay.com] :)

Re:This article is ridiculous

LOL! Priceless - look at the description for http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =3456315281&category=177

Choice quotes

"I am not lying when I say that this labtop is hands down one of the fastest computers I have ever seen in my entire life. On the other hand, I am also completely clueless when it comes to computers so please bare with me."

Oo-er - are we getting our clothes off together? (It's "BEAR with me")

"keyboard has more buttons than I know what to do with"

"a floppy drive, a CD rom drive, and another drive that I have no clue what to do with"

"And...a rechargable battery"

"some disk that I suppose you'll probably need"

and to top it off "Chances are that you'll probably want to run this computer by a shop and get it cleaned out"

Then he says "if you have any questions email me." Yeah, like he's really going to have a clue amout MHz, GB, serial ports etc. I wouldn't recommend asking anything more difficult than: "What colour is it?"

He also can't spell "I nicked it" - he says "this is not my computer (I'm selling it for a friend)"

Re:This article is ridiculous

Actually, this is exactly the kind of thing I'd been hoping noone would bother to publish as "news", precisely because I (in my cheapass, impoverished, bargainhunting gadgetlusting ways) have always managed to find the things I've wanted on eBay for great prices simply by repeatedly performing searches on what I'd expect to be common misspellings/permutations of spellings of the names of the items (whew... long sentence... deep breath...).

That having been said, I wound up with a MITS Altair [ebay.com] for $100 because it was listed as "Vintage Altar Comp", and a "sonydcv1 [sonystyle.com]" for about $300.

My point being that as geeks, we should encourage all non-geeks we know who have an interest in selling items on eBay to forgo spellchecks and not worry about spelling in general. We stand to profit from it! Any attempt to educate the general populace (as this NYT article attempts to do) will reduce the number of magic bargains to be found on eBay ;)

Re:This article is ridiculous

I've always said that the best (and worst) thing about eBay is that it's full of stupid people. It's not just bad spelling that can get you the bargains, often people under-price their "Buy it now" items, or advertise things incorrectly, i.e. "This laptop has a 500MHz processor", but the model number they've stated suggests it's a 1GHz.

This 'feature' isn't going to go away because the NYT has mentioned it. The problem comes from clueless people, who will still be clueless now! I doubt people deliberately mis-spell items on eBay and now are thinking "perhaps I should spell things correctly from now on"

P.S. Remember to take full advantage, if you find cluelessness on eBay, "View Seller's Other Items" might be your key to many more bargains!

Re:But what about the searchers?

Just add a line at the bottom of your listings with all possible misspellings of the main keywords.

Re:earings!

No... 'Earings are what they 'ave in the 'Ouse of Commons, guv'nor.