Set up your first search

This walks through one real search from start to finish. It takes about five minutes, and there is only one field you actually have to fill in.

The example is high-end kitchen appliances. Swap in whatever you flip — the shape is the same.

What you’ll end up with

Field	What you type
City	Denver, CO	Set once, on your account
Radius	25 miles	Set once, on your account
Search Term	gas rangetop	Required
AI Instructions	Premium brands only — Wolf, Thermador, Viking, Miele and the like. Complete, working units. Nothing builder-grade, nothing needing repair.	Optional

A search with nothing but a search term works fine. The rest of this page is about what to add if the results need tightening up.

Setting it up

1. Set your city and radius

   These live on your account, not the search, so you set them once and every search uses them.

   Use the city you’d actually drive to. If you live in Boulder but do your pickups in Denver, put Denver.

   For radius, start at 25 miles. Pick the number of miles you’d genuinely drive for a good deal — if you wouldn’t drive 60 miles, don’t set 60, or you’ll spend your mornings scrolling past listings you’re never going to buy.

2. Type what you're looking for

   Type gas rangetop.

   Not appliances — that’s everything from a $20 toaster up, and you’ll get hundreds a day.

   Not Wolf SRT364G either. That’s one model from one brand — you’d miss the different models and a great deal on a Thermador

   Two or three words describing the item is the sweet spot.

   New Search

   Pick your marketplaces, then filter the results.

   Active

   Marketplace Search

   What to search for, and which results are worth keeping.

   Search Term

   The exact text searched on Facebook Marketplace. Keep it broad to catch poorly titled listings, then narrow with the rules below.

   gas rangetop

   Price Range

   Only show listings within this price range.

   Min Price

   $0

   Max Price

   $10,000

   Turbo (1 of 3 slots used)

   Runs this search up to 3 times faster.

   CancelCreate

3. Turn it on

   Save it. The search starts running straight away, and you don’t need the app open for alerts to arrive.

   Give it a day before you change anything. You need real listings to see what’s actually coming through.

Optional: add a sentence about what you want

Skip this if the search term is doing the job on its own. It is worth knowing about, though, because it is the field that does the most work once a search starts getting noisy.

Open Refine Search, go to the AI Instructions tab, and type a sentence the way you’d say it out loud to someone helping you shop.

The AI reads that against the title of every listing the search finds and drops the ones that don’t fit. That is what lets the search term stay broad — the term casts the net, this sentence decides what’s worth keeping.

Full sentences are fine. No keywords, symbols or special format, and you get 500 characters.

The other fields

You can ignore all of these to start with. Here’s when each one is worth adding.

Field	Add it when
Max Price	You know your ceiling. Set it where the deal stops being worth it — say $2,600 for the example above.
Min Price	Cheap junk keeps appearing. $200 cuts out the accessories and parts.
Exclude Keywords	The same unwanted word keeps showing up. One word each, comma-separated: parts, broken, frigidaire.
Must Include One Of	Matches keep drifting to the wrong product. Add the words a real match always has.
Notes	Anything you want to remember about this search. It doesn’t affect matching.

If it isn’t working

Too many listings you don’t want

Look at three or four of the bad ones and ask what they have in common. Then either add that to your AI Instructions — no wall ovens, I only want cooktops — or, if it’s the same word every time, put that word in Exclude Keywords on the Keywords tab.

Do this once a day for three days and most searches go quiet.

Only want certain brands?

Flip the toggle to Must Include and list them in Must Include One Of:

wolf, thermador, viking, miele

A listing now only reaches you if its title contains at least one of those words. On a category where the brand is the whole decision, it’s the fastest filter there is.

Be careful with it, though. It’s a hard filter on the title, and it costs you deals in two ways you won’t see happening:

• Brands you didn’t think of. A Gaggenau or a BlueStar is worth the same money as the Wolf, and neither is on your list, so neither one reaches you.
• Titles that don’t name the brand. 36 inch gas rangetop, barely used is a perfectly normal listing, and it fails the filter outright.

If you’re certain of your shortlist, use it. If you’re not, put the same idea in AI Instructions instead — premium brands only, the sort that sell for thousands — and it can make the call on a listing you never thought to list.

Nothing is coming through

Usually one of three things:

• The search term is too specific. Drop the model number and let your sentence handle the detail.
• The radius is too small. Add 10 miles and give it another day.
• The max price is below what the thing actually sells for. Search Marketplace manually once and see what the real asking prices look like.

The right items, but they’re wrecked

Add it to your AI Instructions: working condition only, nothing needing repair, no missing parts. Don’t try to do this with keywords — “broken” is one of a hundred ways a seller might describe a damaged unit, and you’ll never list them all.

Save the ones you’re chasing

When something good comes in, tap Watch before you message the seller.

Two things happen. If the seller drops the price, you get notified — a listing you passed on at $2,600 is a different decision at $2,100. And you can keep notes on it, which matters when a deal takes four days and three messages.

Before you message anyone, it’s worth knowing what the thing actually sells for. That’s a swipe away: price an item with eBay sold and active listings.

Adding your second search

Once the first one is bringing in listings you’d actually act on, build the next one the same way: two or three words in the search box, one sentence underneath.

If a search goes quiet for the season, pause it instead of deleting it. It keeps its settings and gives the slot back.