Shopping Sites - How to Find Advanced Search, Site Maps, and Indexes

eBay, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, QVC, and More

Have you ever been shopping on one site or another and for the life of you, just can't find out where they're hiding their specialized search commands page? Well, here's a list of some of the more popular shopping sites out there and their respective advanced search help pages.

• eBay Search: list of search commands for eBay and tricks to narrow down your searches
• Search Books at Amazon.com: Search by author, title, subject, ISBN, etc. There's also a Power Search on the same page that allows you to "search by any combination of author, title, subject, publisher, and/or ISBN."
• Amazon Search Inside the Book: Search Inside! allows you to search millions of pages to find exactly the book you want to buy.
• Amazon Directory of All Stores: Here's a big list of all the various layers to Amazon; anything from Apparel to Music to Books.
• Barnes and Noble Advanced Book Search: can narrow your search by not only title and author, etc. but by price range and age range.
• Yahoo Shopping Advanced Search: This one is a bit tricky to find and not very powerful; a better option is Yahoo SmartSort.
• QVC Fashion Search: Search for fashion on QVC, and then do a QVC search for jewelry, or do a power search and search for QVC apparel, shoes, and jewelry all at the same time.
• Advanced Froogle Search: Froogle is Google's comparison shopping search engine; here's the advanced search page.
• ThinkGeek Site Index: Not so much advanced search, but still very helpful to find just the geekly gadget you're looking for. One of my favorite stores.
• Shop PBS - Site Index: Yep, another site index; but it's the best way to drill down and see what PBS has to offer (hint: it's a LOT).
• Apple Store Search: Try the basic Apple search, and then check out Apple Advanced Search, or check out the Apple Support Site Map to find quick support answers for any Apple product.
• Disney Search: Get the top searches by category at Disney Online, or use the Disney Store Site Map to drill down by category.
• Wal-Mart Site Map: Search by category at Wal-Mart; make sure you scroll down the page to check out all the buying guides that Wal-Mart offers.
• GoogleStore: Start at the home page of the Google Store to determine how much shipping is from your area, and then go straight to the Google Store Advanced Search to find what you're looking for in all things Googley. (for some reason, the Advanced Search option is not available to the North American store).
• Best Buy Site Map: Best Buy's search option is kind of weak; I would use the Site Map to find what you're looking for.
• REI Product Categories: I love REI - check out their sitemap, or use the REI Search Tips in order to use their site search more effectively.
• Michaels Site Map: Michaels is a great craft store - use the site map to locate hard to find items. Off topic, I noticed that Michaels Corporate offers live webcasts of some of their sales releases/conference calls.
• Powells Advanced Search: Lots of fun options here in addition to the standard title and author fields, including sort by binding, book class, and location. And did you know that Powells has a blog?
• Office Depot Site Map: Use the Office Depot Site Map to find office supplies, or even better: an A to Z listing of all products available on the Office Depot website.
• The Met Store: Browse the Metropolitan Museum of Art's categories, or view all the Met Store's products alphabetically (over 2000 products).
• Smithsonian Store Site Map: Drill down by category; also includes customer service support and links.