Thanks Maggie - I'd forgotten you can do that with google. It does make it nicer to browse with images. You can also force google to give you links that were uploaded within the past 24 hours, etc, so you can (hopefully) be browsing new listings. Still the issue with whether "vintage clothing" is being used in all vintage clothing listings, the 8000+ listings, the "sold" listings, etc. Also, I tried it out on something I was searching for today and was unimpressed with google's performance - see below.
I hate to keep harping on this, since y'all are so happy on Etsy, but take for instance something specific I was looking for today:
I want to accessorize an evening ensemble, so I'm looking to find an evening/formal cape, coat, shawl, or wrap; preferably in the red/burgundy/wine range of colours or in silver/grey/gray; and preferably from 1910 to 1960.
Ebay:
Ebay has remarkably powerful Boolean searches, this plus the more refined categories makes for much more profitable and less frustrating searches - I always specify to include "Store Inventory", "Worldwide", and "Include Text & Description" for maximum reach, then to limit to vintage clothing, I start off my search in the "Vintage" category (since this might be listed in either Women's Vintage Clothing, or Vintage Accessories). What I put into the search box at that point:
(red, burgundy, wine, silver, grey, gray) - will get me the colours I'm after.
(shawl, cape, cloak, opera, wrap) - will hopefully get me the kinds of garments I want.
Putting both together in the search box means I'll get listings that have at least one from both bracket - at least one of my colours, and at least one of my garment types. This particular ability - to search at the same time for (x OR y OR z) AND (1 OR 2 OR 3) - is something I don't think either Etsy or Google can do.
From those results, I can separate the wheat from the chaff by opening two Ebay categories: "Women's Vintage Clothing" and "Vintage Accessories".
In Women's Vintage Clothing, I then open only the categories of the eras I want, ignoring the 1970s and onward. This gave me about 250 listings to look at in four era sub-categories.
In Vintage Accessories, I then open only "Scarves, Wraps" which I find is full of un-vintage scarves, but I can further limit this search by adding to the search box:
(192*, 20s, 20's, flapper, 193*, 30s, 30's, 194*, 40s, 40's, 195*, 50s, 50's, 196*, 60's, 60s) - note the ability to use "wild cards" with the "*"
So that the search box is now:
(shawl, cape, cloak, opera, wrap) (red, burgundy, wine, silver, grey, gray) (192*, 20s, 20's, 193*, 30s, 30's, 194*, 40s, 40's, 195*, 50s, 50's, 196*, 60's, 60s)
And that was a bit better.
So, on ebay I felt I wasn't missing out on too much, and managed to get a pretty good hit of relevant listings to review in essentially 5 separate searches.
Trying out Google Images on Etsy:
First there is no way to use the (x OR y OR z) AND (1 OR 2 OR 3) format on google that I can find.
The best I can do is put in an approximation of what I'm looking for "vintage red shawl" then specify that it should contain dates that range from the 1920s to the 1950s, and leave out those that mention the 1960s through 1980s.
vintage red shawl 1920s OR 1920's OR 20s OR 20's OR 1930s OR 1930's OR 30s OR 30's OR 1940s OR 1940's OR 40s OR 40's OR 1950's OR 50s OR 50's -1960s -1960's -60s -60's -1970s -1970's -70s -1980s -1980's -80s -80's site:etsy.com
This got me just over 100 results, none of which were actually a vintage red shawl.
I needed to then do all the variations of red with the garment types:
vintage red wrap 1920s OR 1920's OR 20s OR 20's OR 1930s OR 1930's OR 30s OR 30's OR 1940s OR 1940's OR 40s OR 40's OR 1950's OR 50s OR 50's -1960s -1960's -60s -60's -1970s -1970's -70s -1980s -1980's -80s -80's site:etsy.com
This got me almost 300 results, none of which were relevant.
vintage red cape 1920s OR 1920's OR 20s OR 20's OR 1930s OR 1930's OR 30s OR 30's OR 1940s OR 1940's OR 40s OR 40's OR 1950's OR 50s -1960s -1960's -60s -60's -1970s -1970's -70s -1980s -1980's -80s -80's site:etsy.com
100 results, none relevant.
And so forth for "red", then I needed to try out the other colours I thought might work for the outfit.
vintage silver shawl 1920s OR 1920's OR 20s OR 20's OR 1930s OR 1930's OR 30s OR 30's OR 1940s OR 1940's OR 40s OR 40's OR 1950's OR 50s OR 50's -1960s -1960's -60s -60's -1970s -1970's -70s -1980s -1980's -80s -80's site:etsy.com
This got me about 100 results, a couple were vintage shawl/cape sort of things.
And so forth, each time I did this I noticed the search was pulling up a lot of the same items. So it was sort of frustrating.
Sadly, Google just doesn't seem to pick up relevant items this way.
Using Etsy itself:
Again, since you can't enter a search string that's like (x OR y OR z) AND (1 OR 2 OR 3), you have to keep doing separate searches. You actually don't have an "OR" option at all. You do have a "minus" option to exclude by adding a "-" in front of the term you want to exclude.
I started off by going to Advanced Search, choosing Vintage, then Clothing, and picking "Include Item description". Then, I opened a tab for each sub-category that might apply: Jacket, Shawl, Outerwear, Women.
I just left the category to stand alone as my garment type, though this gave me a lot of irrelevant results:
In "Shawl"
red -1960s -1960's -60s -60's -1970s -1970's -70s -70's -hippie -hippy -1980s -1980's -80s -80's
This does get me scarves and shawls - about 40 of them - and I'm sure most of them are vintage. But most them are post 1960.
It seems more specific if I tell Etsy to look for "red 1920s" in Shawl. But then I have to do a separate search for every single iteration: "red 1920's", "red 20s", "red 20's", "red 1930s", "red 1930's", "red 30s", "red 30's", "red 1940s", "red 1940's", "red 40s", "red 40's", "red 1950s", "red 1950's'", "red 50s", "red 50's". That's 4 searches per decade, 16 searches in total. Just for "Red".
Now, I have to go back and do it again for "Silver", then for "Grey", then for "Gray"... and then go and do the same iterations in the other sub-categories.
You can see how it ceased to become fun to search in Etsy for me quite quickly.
You can be more shotgun about searching in Etsy, and just load it with the best words for your item, like going to Vintage -->Clothing then searching "Opera" which actually got me the most relevant results of all my attempts on Etsy. But there's relatively little from my favorite eras on Etsy and doing this makes me worry that I'm missing some of what little there is.
It would just be SO much easier if Etsy adopted categories by era, then an "OR" search function, and then, to truly compete with Ebay for ease of searching, it would be fantastic if they developed an (x OR y OR z) AND (1 OR 2 OR 3) ability too.
Anyway, this might bore the pants off ya, but take it as insight into how this regular, devoted buyer of vintage finds your stuff.
