Ryan Schultz has published a little tutorial on his site, Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: How to Find Free and Inexpensive Items on the SL Marketplace. I think it is a handy tutorial on how the SL Marketplace search features works… I use the word ‘works’ loosely.
Using the left-column of filters makes finding stuff a bit easier. But, one has to know to make the search using the top ITEMS – Merchant/Store search setting ‘Search In’, ‘Show Maturity Levels’, and ‘Keywords’ before adding the left-column filters.
The ‘Sort By’ in the mid-upper right of the page just below the ITEMS search is also a big help. The sort can be changed at any time in your searches.
You can also search for a store or merchant. Once you select a merchant/store you have the option to ‘Search this store’. Then follow with left-column filters.
Things in the marketplace do not age out. Also, when merchants stop using Second Life, their stuff remains in the market place. Even if it requires a third-party server to work and that server is taken offline. All of which is a BIG gotcha for new SL users.
So, the sort order can be important search criteria.