Welcome to the Watchlist!

[shmax]

Hey guys, you may or may not have noticed a few weeks ago when a "Watchlist" widget quietly appeared next to the "Wishlist" checkbox. A few early adopters have been trying it out and providing suggestions and feedback, and I think it's about ready for general use.

In principle, it's pretty simple. You browse through the database and add toys to your watchlist by selecting a condition ("Any", "Graded", "Opened", "Sealed", "Loose", or "Parts Only") from the watchlist drop-down widget, and you will then receive a nightly email reporting matching auctions. You'll also receive an immediate email when new "Buy it Now" auctions appear, so you can be the first to snap it up. For rare items, I recommend choosing the "Any" option, as that's how auctions that don't mention any condition keywords are automatically classed.

The most interesting choice is the "Parts Only" option. Yes, the database not only knows which parts came with every Transformer toy ever made (up to the present), but it knows how eBay sellers are likely to refer to them. For example, sellers might refer to G1 Alert's Rocket Launcher as "Rocket Launcher", "Launcher", or just "gun", or maybe even "rifle". The system knows all of this, and has been carefully trained to to spot the auctions that represent lone or (lot) parts. In the future, I have plans for a more sophisticated system that will let you program the watchlist to do more subtle things, such as automatically searching for parts we know are missing from your collection checklist, but even now you have a powerful new tool for building your vintage collections.

You'll also notice the addition of a new "Preferences" link in the "Membership" box. You can go in there and manually select a preferred eBay site (the default behavior is to try to match you with an eBay site by examining your ip address), and any links sent to you by email or viewed on the package details pages will be customized to send you to the appropriate site, so you can view the listing with your country's currency and shipping information.

Well, that's all for now. I hope you enjoy the feature, it's been a long, long time in the making. Please don't be shy about getting back to me with any feedback or suggestions, and happy hunting!