This confused buyer is new to eBay and tried to find what she is looking for by simply typing “shoes” into the basic ebay search window. Checking the woman's shoes category this morning, I find 67,950 listings. Whew, that would take a while.

Fortunately, though, eBay has refined its search parameters over time and there are ways for my reader to more easily find what she is looking for.

Of course, the easiest is to add “green” and either “8 1/2” or “8.5” to the search.

* shoes + green + 8 ½ = seven items
* shoes + green + 8.5 = 53

Further, at the bottom of the regular listings, which includes both regular auctions and Buy It Now items, is a listing for “Additional Buy It Now items found exclusively in eBay Stores” which yields a few more choices.

There are other decisions to be made. We can either sort items by “List View” or as a “Picture Gallery”. Pictures are very useful when appearance is important. After all a 'green shoe' might be a thick soled athletic shoe with flashing whats-its attached, or it might be an elegant and sexy high heeled designer shoe.

A third way to limit your viewing is “Show only: Items listed with PayPal”. eBay does everything possible to promote PayPal – no big surprise since eBay now owns the popular online payment system.

If the basic search on eBay doesn't locate the products or information you are seeking, you can use their Advanced Search features:

http://search.ebay.com/ws/search/AdvSearch?sofindtype=13&ssPageName=h:h:advsearch:US