Salehoo Alert (download here) helps you to keep track of new wholesale lots as they are listed for items you are interested in selling. You can set up to 20 different alerts at a time and be informed as soon as a new wholesale listing appears. Not only does Salehoo alert save you the time of searching manually, it allows you to easily compare current wholesale lot listings and find the best deal. Keep tabs on wholesale lots selling on eBay Australia, Belgium, Canada, eBay Motors, France, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Singapore, Spain, UK and USA.

Setting up an Alert

To setup an alert, click the +Add new Alert button from the top left of the Salehoo Alert window. Choose a name for your alert and type it into the window. This name can be anything you want – it is purely for your reference.

Your new alert name will now appear in the Alert name box on the right hand side of the Salehoo Alert window. You can add up to 20 different alerts at one time; enabling you to keep tabs on all the items you’re looking for. Once you have named your alert, the next step is to enter keywords to refine your search.

Using Keywords to Refine Your Search

Keywords are the specific search terms that describe the item you are looking for. For instance, the keyword phrase ‘martial arts dvd’ would help Salehoo Alert to display only wholesale lots that contain this specific genre of film.

Why do you need to add keywords? By adding keywords, you are essentially describing to Salehoo Alert exactly what it is you are looking for. This ensures you will be only informed when wholesale lots of interest appear, so you don’t waste time sifting through lots you are not interested in. For example, if you were searching for a wholesale lot of kids Disney dvds, you wouldn’t want to be informed when action and adult dvds were listed or coming to a close. It’s also important to specify keywords that you’re NOT interested in. To do this, just place a negative symbol in front of the keyword you wish Salehoo Alert to exclude.

For example: -adult and –martial arts.

Salehoo Alert will now not bring back any wholesale lots with adult or martial arts in the title and/or description. For the most comprehensive results, we recommend that you check the Search in Description box in the Miscellaneous tab for every search you make. The reason for this is that wholesale lots can be placed in multiple categories on eBay and they don’t always include the words ‘wholesale lot’ in the title. By enabling the Search in Description function and adding the word ‘lot’ to your list, Salehoo Alert will be able to search listings more thoroughly.

Choose eBay Site

Use the drop down menu labeled eBay Site to select the eBay you wish to search.

Specifying Search Type

The next step requires you to select whether you wish to focus on wholesale lots being sold as auctions or Buy It Now listings only. If you select All Auctions, then Salehoo Alert will search only Auction listings. Then choose whether you wish to only view alerts for listings ending within 5, 10, 30 or 60 minutes, 12 hours, 1 day or Anytime.

If you select Buy It Now, then Salehoo Alert will focus on listings that have just been added – enabling you to take advantage of any particularly good BIN price before anyone else! Like auctions, you also need to make a time selection, but this time Salehoo Alert will concentrate on items started within the last 5 minutes, the previous last hour, and so on.

This feature helps you tailor the number of search results you view for the item. For wholesale categories with small listing numbers you may be able to easily review all the auctions running for that item at once. While for those with piles of listings – think of the makeup category for instance - narrowing numbers down to auctions in the last 10 minutes will help you hone in on the bargains without being overwhelmed. When you’ve made your selections, just click Check Selected and Salehoo Alert will begin to search the results.

This will take around 2 or 3 minutes, depending on how many results need to be grabbed for your search. The results will appear in the display window in the lower half of the Salehoo Alert window. You’ll be able to see the Item ID, Auction Title, how many bids have been placed, current price, buy now price and the photo. You can easily browse the listings in this window.

Viewing a listing in eBay

To view a listing in more detail, just click through on the link to eBay, where you can also bid and buy. If you are not interested in the item, just close the eBay window and you’ll come back to your Salehoo Alert results.

Select Price Range

To refine your search even further, you are also able to make price specifications. Just use the Lowest and Highest price boxes in the Miscellaneous area to enter your minimum and maximum price. The lowest price is a great way of weeding out very small wholesale lots or accessories that you are not interested in; while setting a highest price means that you only view listings within your budget.

Whenever you add or alter your price settings, click Save Changes before beginning the search.

Automatic Mode

The automatic mode will run searches automatically at the rate you select. To start, click the Automatic mode tab and check the box to enable. You can then select the time period for Salehoo Alert to start a new search: this can be every 5, 15, 30, or 45 minutes, or hourly.

The great thing about the Automatic mode is that you can continue working using other applications while Salehoo Alert is running. When Salehoo Alert finds new listings a little popup box similar to an MSN message will appear on the bottom right of your screen. To view the new listings, just click on it. Or, if you are busy, you can just ignore the box and it will disappear – only reappearing when the next automatic alert is due.

Search the item Description

It’s a great idea to perform at least a couple of searches each week searching in the listing description as well as in the title. Some sellers don’t know how to use keywords properly in their titles – or else they don’t bother! To do this, check the Search in Description box in the Miscellaneous tab.

Searching the descriptions is a great way of finding those bargains you might otherwise miss!

View Only Item with Paypal

We’ve all heard horror stories of money that never appears after a transaction has been carried out. That’s why many buyers these days prefer to only use Paypal. If this is you, then Salehoo Alert is able to conveniently display only listings by sellers who accept Paypal. To enable this feature, just check the Listed with Paypal box in Miscellaneous to only watch listings that meet this criterion.

Search for Misspellings

Misspellings represent a huge hidden opportunity for finding bargains. A great many sellers either can’t spell correctly, or don’t bother to check the spelling in their titles and descriptions before submitting! Some terms such as Playstation are consistently misspelled, meaning they are not found by regular searches and therefore often end up selling for much less than usual. You’d be missing out on a great many bargains if you didn’t carry out a Misspellings search on a regular basis! When you wish to use this option, just check the Misspellings box in Miscellaneous and Salehoo Alert will search for common misspellings of this term as well. Note that Salehoo Alert can only search for one misspelled keyword at a time.

Begin searching

When you have finished selecting your preferences (or making alterations), always click on Save Changes before clicking Check Selected to begin the search. Note that Salehoo alert can only display 400 results at one time. If more than 400 listings are found for your alert, then you will be notified and prompted to refine your search. You aren’t obliged to do this, but if you don’t, you’ll be missing a number of results that may represent great bargains!

If you see an item that looks worth pursuing in the search results, just click through and you’ll be able to view the listing on eBay and buy or bid if you wish. If it isn’t what you are looking for, just click out again and come back to the Salehoo Alert results.

Salehoo Alert lets you customize your searches to hone in on the bargains for whatever you are looking for!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 28th, 2007 at 8:49 pm and is filed under SaleHoo Alert. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.