Bad spelling leads to bargains
by Ludwig Kietzmann 
{ Dec 20th 2005 at 3:51PM }
With words like "pwned", "133t" and "OMGsplosion" splattered across forums
and overly enthusiastic websites, it's little suprise that the internet is slowly destroying the English language,
reducing hundreds of years of subtle communication to simple emoticons and way, way too many exclamation marks. With
that in mind, we'd like to point out how an errant space in the word "DS" led to one guy nabbing a shiny DS
and three games for the paltry sum of $93. OMG, indeed.When an item on Ebay is listed incorrectly (example: listing your GBA as a type of a lawnmower) or spelled in a weird way (example: Nitmendo 46), it throws off the search engine and category listings, resulting in fewer people seeing the item than originally intended. And while there is a market for the Sony Gamestation hairdryer, it's not as wide as the one that would be looking for a game console instead. If you're a seller, that means you're likely to get fewer bids and thus, less money. That is, however, a very good thing for the buyer. If you can find an obscure auction, you can definitely look to save a few bucks. The man who scored that "Nintendo D S" on the cheap used a nifty search engine that actually finds auctions with spelling errors in the titles for you.
Remember, always capitalize on the mistakes of others.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
J.T. Mill @ Dec 22nd 2005 7:30PM
That's the same way I got a 300 dollar Wacom tablet for 100 dollars. When going on eBay it's best to search everything rather than narrowing down the catagory first.
Fortyseven @ Dec 24th 2005 9:46AM
I think I would hesitate transacting money with a seller who couldn't spell correctly, especially concerning the item he is trying to sell.
The logic in my head goes: guy isn't intelligent enough to properly place an advertisement -> probably desperate for cash -> increased chance he's gonna try to screw me over.
Or, as some folks think, it could easily just be someone who's ignorant and doesn't really understand what they have and you could probably score the item super-cheap.
Stop making me think about this shit. :(