***Fatfingers.com***
What's that I hear you cry… well it's not a collection of photos of people with chubby digits to amuse the general surf community.
Actually fatfingers.com and their slogan "other people's typos save you money" is a natty invention. You type the correct spelling of ... Read review
Advantages: Might locate you a bargain. Disadvantages: Looking for Barbie you might get a Beanie Babie!
***Fatfingers.com***
What's that I hear you cry… well it's not a collection of photos of people with chubby digits to amuse the general surf community.
Actually fatfingers.com and their slogan "other people's typos save you money" is a natty invention. You type the correct spelling of an item you are looking to purchase over the internet and fat fingers searches your chosen site for all the possible misspellings ... ...Thousands and thousands of items are listed on ebay every day and you'd be surprised how many people don't spell check before they list. If you've ever done a category search you may have come across miss spelt listing titles. As a result these listings receive fewer bids and are likely to sell for less than if they were spelt correctly. Using fat fingers to search for all the spelling mistakes for you might just nab you a bargain.
What's that I hear you cry… well it's not a collection of photos of people with chubby digits to amuse the general surf community.
Actually fatfingers.com and their slogan "other people's typos save you money" is a natty invention. You type the correct spelling of an item you are looking to purchase over the internet and fat fingers searches your chosen site for all the possible misspellings of your item.
***Theory***
Thousands and thousands of items are listed on ebay every day and you'd be surprised how many people don't spell check before they list. If you've ever done a category search you may have come across miss spelt listing titles. As a result these listings receive fewer bids and are likely to sell for less than if they were spelt correctly. Using fat fingers to search for all the spelling mistakes for you might just nab you a bargain.
On the website fat fingers very proudly states that it is the winner of an innovative website award from www.moneySavingExpert.com
***Site Design & Use***
So simple a monkey could use it! Nice purple and white design with a large fat fingers logo in case you forgot where you were.
Below the logo are clickable options for the following: Spelling Mistakes Problems & Feedback Chat Add this search to your site Download.
If you are fluent in Dutch, Norwegian, Italian or Spanish you can choose these language preferences for the site.
In the centre is "Search for" then a box for you to type your desired item. To the right a choice of twelve ebay sites, QXL, ebid and google. Finally a "find" button which starts the search.
Your selected site and spelling mistake listings appear as a pop up if you have them enabled. If pop ups are disabled, a link appears on the fat fingers page that will take you to your search listings.
The advanced search area provides the following options for your search: Include correct spelling Just 'Buy It Now' Auctions (ebay only) Just auctions that use PayPal (ebay only) These few but defined options help you to taylor your search to your specific requirements.
Problems and feedback is pretty self explanatory. They offer an alternative page for searching if you are having trouble using the normal one. The also ask for any positive, negative, improvement suggestions and problems to be emailed to them. You might decide you'd like to see another option added to the advanced search area… and they might decide it's not necessary!
The chat button opens up a page from moneysavingexpert.com. I have not used this chat area and since it is from a different site I feel it is inappropriate to include it in this review.
You can include the fat fingers search on your own site with the possibility of earning commission if you have a commission junction account. Instructions are simple and for the purposes of this review I tested it out. I copied and pasted the HTML and sure enough a fully functional fat fingers search appeared. It completely clashed with my colour scheme and was removed as easily as it had been added.
Finally you can install (for free) fat fingers search on your computer that can be enabled for any site search. Alternatively there is a mini version known as the fat fingers widget - canny and cute too. I've had this on my computer in the past and it is easy to use. I wouldn't recommend downloading it unless you do a lot of buying and selling with ebay.
***Usefulness***
I guess it could be classified as one of those useful but not completely necessary gadgets home catalogues try to sell you.
Regular buyers and sellers would benefit from getting into the habit of using it to search or may consider downloading fat fingers.
It has saved me money in the past for example someone listed "sequned shoes" on ebay and luckily for me they were my size! I bought them for about half the price of similar sequined shoes listed presumably because less people located that listing. Other finds have included Louis Vuitton spelling mistakes which seemed to be free of bidding wars (I did not purchase). On the downside fat fingers has also revealed many search listings that are different to what I am looking for or unhelpful. Recently I searched for Barbie and fat fingers found me Beanie Babies, J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan and Red Dwarf's Chris Barrie memorabilia but no Barbie bargains.
It is free and fast so definitely worth a try, a nice idea but nothing revolutionary thus I award it an average rating.
And finally to avoid embarrassment I must spell check my review thoroughly!
Advantages: free Disadvantages: too many know about this now
This is a site that i stumbled across recently. I have heard that you could search e-bay and other auction style sites for items that have been spelt wrongly, and therefore get them cheap, as no-one can find them.
The main place where you will see these sites, are on e-bay itself where people are trying to sell them to you. This is not necessary, as fatfingers.co.uk is a free to use site that does just that.
No registration required, it is simply ... ...you enter the correct spelling of what you are looking for.
Next you choose the site you wish to search, the main of which are all the e-bay sites, and qxl. The search engine then searches the site for all the possible incorrect spellings of the words you have entered, and displays them for you.
Next you browse through the findings, and see what bargains there are for you!!
Sounds great doesn't it? In principle it is a great idea, but in practice ...
giksy21 22.11.2007
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of fat-fingers.com
