How to get an alert when an item is listed under your price on eBay

Two different kinds of price alert

Whether you call it an eBay price alert or an eBay price watch, people usually mean one of two things, and each needs a different tool:

Spotter Otter does the first one. It watches eBay for new listings at or under your price and emails you each match. It doesn’t keep checking the price of a listing it has already shown you, or of listings that were up before your Spotter started, so it won’t tell you when an older listing is reduced.

Pick a maximum price that will actually trigger

A price alert set too low never fires; one set too high fills your inbox with listings you’d never buy. Base it on what the item really sells for:

1. Look up sold listings. Search for the item on eBay and turn on the Sold items filter. Sold prices show in green.
2. Compare like with like. Only count sales in the same condition and with the same parts. A console with controllers and cables isn’t the same item as the console alone.
3. Find the middle. Set aside the one oddly cheap sale and the one oddly high one. Where most sales land is the going price.
4. Decide what the alert is for. Set your maximum at the going price if you simply want one at a fair price, or below it if you only want to hear about bargains and don’t mind waiting.

Add a minimum price too. Items that share a name with something cheaper, like a phone and its case or a mixer and its bowl, otherwise turn up as “bargains” at a fraction of your budget.

Remember shipping

Spotter Otter’s price limits are before shipping, the same way eBay shows an item’s price. A listing right at your maximum with shipping on top costs more than you planned. Two ways to handle it:

• Lower your maximum by about what shipping usually costs for an item that size. Sold listings show what buyers paid for postage, so you can check.
• Turn on free shipping only, so the price in the alert is the price you pay, before any sales tax.

For heavy or bulky things, local pickup can change the sum entirely; see eBay local pickup alerts.

Auctions and Buy It Now

A new auction shows its starting bid, which says little about where it will finish. An item listed with a low opening bid can sit under your maximum on day one and end well above it.

• Want listings you can buy at that price right now? Set the listing type to Buy It Now.
• Happy to bid? Leave auctions in. When an alert arrives, open the listing and add it to your Watchlist, then place your highest bid near the end. eBay’s automatic bidding raises your bid only as far as needed, up to the maximum you set, so enter the most you’ll pay and no more.

When the listing is already up: price drops and Best Offer

If you’ve found a listing you like but the price is too high, an alert for new listings won’t help. Use eBay’s own tools on that listing:

• Watch it. Add it to your Watchlist. Sellers can see how many people are watching, and many send watchers an offer below the asking price. Make sure your eBay notifications for watched items and offers are switched on so you see them.
• Make an offer. If the listing says or Best Offer, offer what the item is worth to you, based on sold prices, with a short, polite note. The seller can accept, decline or counter. An accepted offer is a commitment to buy, so only offer what you’re prepared to pay.
• Keep a Spotter running. Fixed-price listings that don’t sell sometimes come back later for less, and other sellers list the same item all the time. A Spotter with your maximum tells you about new listings at your price, whoever posts them.

Start from a sentence or a product link

Spotter Otter can also set up a price alert from a plain sentence. Write something like KitchenAid Artisan stand mixer, 5 quart, any color, used is fine, under $200, and Luna, Spotter Otter’s AI, turns it into a search and a list of must-haves for you to check before the Spotter starts. A maximum price is required, so every Spotter set up this way is a price alert.

Must-haves such as a size are checked against the ways sellers write them: Large is also L, LG or Lrg. A listing that states a different size is left out even when the price is right, and one that doesn’t say comes through as a Maybe match.

If you’ve spotted the item in a store, paste the link to the store’s product page, or to an eBay listing for the same thing, and Spotter Otter starts a Spotter for that item. Set your maximum below the store’s price and you’ll hear about each new eBay listing that beats it.

Price alert setups that work