Buying
Guide

POWER TOOLS!

We've created some really helpful online tools that will help you find and buy your perfect product in the shortest time possible. Even better, they're totally simple to use!

Product Finder

The Product Finder is designed to provide the best product results on the Internet. Each Guide is instructed to reject products that are not relevant. For example, if you look for a Book, you will not see eBooks, audio books, DVDs, or any other product types. You will see... you guessed it -- books! Of course, stores will sometimes sneak an irrelevant product through. Help us improve the system by reporting incorrect results!

Hint: Use quotation marks to improve search accuracy. "Mark Twain" will get different results than Mark Twain.

Deal Finder

The problem with most "deals sites" is that the deals you see are completely irrelevant to your needs. How many times will you visit that deals site to find a coupon for that camera you want? Good luck!

Every time you look for a product on Buying Guide, it automatically finds any deals that are available for any product that matches your search. That includes clearance, coupons, rebates, free shipping, outlet deals, used items and normal sales.

Hint: Since there are far fewer deals than actual products, you may want to widen your search to find deals on related products. For example, instead of looking for "Nikon D90" in the SLR Camera Buying Guide, try looking for "Nikon".

Auction Finder

Auctions are great places to find good prices and special items. However, there are several inherent problems with auction sites. First and foremost is the huge amount of junk. An eBay search for "Harry Potter" found 39,000 results. Nearly 6,000 of those were in the Book category. Page through the results and you'll see large numbers of irrelevant listings. Many items are miscategorized (some intentionally, to benefit from a popular search like "Harry Potter"). Another problem is that, since each listing is posted by the seller, there is no consistency in the listings. The product displays are dramatically different and sometimes hard to interpret quickly.

Buying Guide is a huge improvement in finding items on auctions sites, for several reasons:

• Automatic: Whenever you look for products, Buying Guide automatically searches the auction listings as well and presents them in a separate results list.
• Junk-B-Gone: Buying Guide removes irrelevant and miscategorized items from your auction results. What you see is what you are looking for.
• Consistent: Buying Guide clearly and consistently shows you important information right up front, including the type of sale (auction, buy-it-now and more), the condition of the product (new, used, not working and more), the closing date/time of each listing and of course, the price as of the time your results appeared.
• Sortable: You can sort your results in several ways, including time remaining, product name, price, condition, listing type and relevance.

Bull's-eye Finder

Bull's-eye Finder allows you to adjust your search one word at a time until you have the perfect search - one that returns only the products, deals and auctions that you are looking for!

Here's how it works. When you see your initial results, you will see some large buttons on the left side of your screen. If you click on the Find More button, the Bull's-eye Finder box will appear. It will contain the serch words you just used. At that point, you can type a word or select one of the Significant Features to add to your search to improve your results. Bull's-eye Finder will remember your choices and give you a chance to change them again later.

Hint: Add words to your Bull's-eye Search by clicking on any . Notice that there is a next to the Bull's-eye Search box, so you can add any word you can type. Remove a search word by clicking the next to it.

Hint: When you perform a brand new search, the Bull's-eye Finder will start over with your new search words.

Significant Features

Have you ever seen a "shopping site" that thinks that Brand Name, Seller, and Price Range are the only things you need to narrow your product search? Riiiiight....

Buying Guide's Significant Features are extensively researched lists of product-specific features that tell you what really matters when buying that product.

Hint: Use the to add any Significant Feature to the Bull's-eye Finder. Or search on the feature alone by clicking on the word.

Lots of Different Kinds of Searches!

Most of the text and pictures in your results are links to additional product information or deeper searches. You'll find Price Comparisons, Name Searches, Manufacturer/Author searches, Model Searches, and deep store searches (they get lots more resullts from the selected store). Try them all!

Hint: Move your mouse over the words and pictures in your results. Buying Guide will tell you what kind of search you will perform if you click there.

Sorting

Buying Guide provides more results sorting options than any other shopping site or store we have ever visited. And each set of results (Products, Deals, Auctions) can be sorted in a different way! Just click on the sort results link above your results.