eBay Search

[goingfishinguk]

Morning all, hope you are all well.  Like many others we come to these boards to find solutions to our problems and/or offer insights to eBay and other users - you know the way a forum should work. 

In the last 12 months or so we have been hit as sellers with a lot of obstacles.. service metrics not been looked after as promised = huge loss of sales, new advertising system dynamic = don't pay don't play.  July's tests, EDDs etc etc.

Some of us have managed to limp through those issues and still remain in business, just in my case.  Well lost one company.

The problem is the current issue, by reading the forums seems to be the 'SEARCH FUNCTIONALITY.'  Dozens of reports with evidence show huge numbers of listings not being found so potential buyers can't find our listings, if they can't find our listings then they can't buy our products, simple enough yes?  Remember we are paying good money for these listings to be visible BUT eBay are not giving us value for money.  We are NOT getting what we are paying for.

So my question is to anita@ebay    marco@ebay    or whoever has the power to honestly answer is the current search system here to stay or is it broken and being fixed?  

I personally retired from my 25 year career to do something I love due to mental health reasons and that is selling fishing tackle.  Until this time last year it was a breeze and I was looking forward to enjoying my formative years.  All I did was tweak a few listings now and again and leave my standard promoted listings at say 2% to 5%.  I sold loads, I had loads of suppliers and loads of loyal customers.  Obviously on top of this I was giving eBay many tens of 1000s of £££ in revenue.  It's all but gone.

All the above reasons since this time last year have put a huge strain on my family financially and a huge strain on my mental health.  Sales are down 80 to 90%  My account seems capped at the exact number of sales per day - 25.  I've heard rumours if you are vocal on these boards you get capped.  Is this true anita@ebay?  All I want to do is my job.  All I want to do is have as little stress as possible and interact here with some great characters, post my orders, buy my stock, list my new stuff (which I loved doing) and generally enjoy the eBay experience.  So all I want to know is will this ever be possible or am I wasting my time?  Remember as I've mentioned, I jumped through all the hoops, watched all the videos, hiked up % promotions etc etc, but if my account is crippled or the Search is forever against me those are things I can't change.  So instead of lying awake at night wondering how 'I' can change things I just want to know truthfully without the 'clear your cache, spin round three times, drink a pint of glitter' or whatever else if I'm wasting my time, money and efforts.

So please tell me and the countless others here who have proved beyond doubt the search facility is hiding in some cases in the high 90% of listings is the search working as eBay want it or is it broken and going to be fixed?  (Oh please can you remove the cap on my account, thanks.  I know it's there..)

Kindest regards.

[goingfishinguk]

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@theelench wrote:

What hope then for private sellers or even small businesses without the resources to hand over 20 / 30 / 40% of their sales price to ebay.

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That is the problem, unless you are selling something you got for nothing how on Earth can any business afford to give eBay North of 40% of a sale in fees/advertising.  99% of my items the profit margin, from wholesalers are in the 40 to 60% margin.  That is just the cost of the item, then you have VAT, rent of premises, postage costs (they have gone up 30 odd % recently) various other costs like packaging, fuel etc etc and that is BEFORE you give eBay it's 19% THEN Advertising fee on top of that.

Anything left for my wages? Mmmmmm.

I'm sure if the shoe was on the other foot and eBay were giving away 40% to 60% they would struggle to survive for very long...

[dwtrading2015]

off stock with a big cut in listings and returned to a career job – like many who threatened to do so, are now actually doing.

I was aware something was wrong with the search for a couple of years, but sometime over the last 12 to 18 months it got much worse and seems to have completely failed at intervals.

As a full-time shop, I would search on items I sell to see how and where they appeared.  In the time frame above I started to find it harder and harder to find my listings.  I composed the title with key words that somebody searching for the item would use.  And this is where the  issue arises.  The search previously would latch on to a key word and use a bit of intel to isolate a reasonable guess as to what the buyer was looking for drawing on other words in the search string. 

The search has shifted from key word to high level generic.  It is not intuitive and not the way people think, it is how a computer organises search.  The big idea was that sellers would populate dozens of very specific item details (most of which turn out to be unknown or of no relevance) and buyers would search from the highest category level and then filter results manually.  It is extremely laborious and cumbersome, stops browsing or window shopping and hides many perfect listings.  And it doesn't matter how much a business promotes, the search filter is applied first.

Case in point which I have posted elsewhere.  Early this year in May, I wanted to upgrade the home computer for my new career job working from home.  So enter in search 'micro computer i3 i5 i7 revo'.  Over previous years that would have returned a list of computers, small ones, within the processor list.  I would then browse weighing up specs against price, an i3 but with an SSD can hold up against an i7 with a HD. 

Results?  Nothing.  Not a single result.  I was gob smacked.  The search was looking for an EXACT match in a title to my search string.  I dropped the revo processor and started to get 20 odd results.  I repeated this test last month and got the same results.  However, there are in fact thousands of listings selling what I want.  Fortunately I know how to programme computers and can reverse engineer part of what eBay is trying to do.  I eventually did the search on google to find the listing trigger words.  Trying to find anything now on eBay is a hell of a task, like a new home printer.  It is a day’s long exercise where before it was a few minutes job.  Fortunately I do have a degree in physics and have done some rocket science.  But many eBay users haven’t and are clearly struggling.

Ebay's claim the search isn't busted is just a plain cover up.  There are thousands of users like me who can identify a mile off that it is failing and even identify where the search is failing from a user’s point of view.  The eBay programmers may congratulate themselves they shaved 10 clock cycles off a return and passed over the servers filtering work to the user saving a cent or two on electricity but for the end user it has completely wrecked the whole functionality to the point there is no viable search function available.  And across so many chat topics this is being called out again and again and again.  eBay is literally going to let the business fail for the sake of saving face not admitting there has been a catastrophic failure in the search algorithm and no amount of tweaking is going to fix it because the basic core methodology is not suitable for a consumer interface.

To find anything on eBay, search on Google and discover what you want cheaper elsewhere!  That is why the house of cards is collapsing.

[the-nutwood-collection]

Well, the CEO had a right to be pleased (even if we sellers aren't).  

eBay's first-party advertising products, primarily driven by Promoted Listings, delivered $341 million of revenue in the second quarter, up 47% on an as-reported basis.  That's a very healthy slice of the reported revenue of $2.5b and will please the investors and analysts - and they're the ones that matter.  

Is it sustainable?  Only time will tell.  When everyone promotes, nobody promotes.  Then the sellers' choice is to simply absorb the PL cost, or to stop promoting.  Personally, I think sellers in the 'enthusiast' categories will absorb the cost and it's these categories that are the eBay revenue generators.

The CEO's opening statement for the Q2 results was '... we're raising the bar for innovation and have evolved our vision – to reinvent the future of ecommerce for enthusiasts, only at eBay.' 

My buyers are keen on my wool, ribbons and fabric (when they can find them), but they're not 'enthusiasts', so I'm under no illusion that my business is included in eBay's reinvention of ecommerce.  I will be left by the wayside among the riff-raff in the 'Click for More Results' group.  The 'Are you lot still here?' group. 

[goingfishinguk]

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@the-nutwood-collection wrote:

The CEO's opening statement for the Q2 results was '... we're raising the bar for innovation and have evolved our vision – to reinvent the future of ecommerce for enthusiasts, only at eBay.' 

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 What a load of old cobblers.  Top quality corporate BS.  Which when you strip it down means absolutely nothing or it could mean as little as we are changing our logo slightly.  Amazes me how so many called business experts and would be shareholders and investors believe that tripe....

Maybe there should be an 'eBay II' for all us peasants to sell on.  How about eBay II.  No foreign sellers.  Make your own delivery dates up.  No listing fees and no paying for clicks unless an item is sold.  Wonder which would make eBay more money, eBay I with all it's pay to play but only the Chinese Companies etc on it or the rest of us on eBay II?

[goingfishinguk]

I have a deal with Trident Tackle to sell their components on eBay.  A simple one word search does not even bring my listing up.  So conclusive proof listings are being hidden.  Searched all categories and the one it's in.  Not there just a competitor who will be spoken with regarding breaking the manufacturers T&Cs

So anita@ebay.co.uk can you explain why you stated -

'While I see where you are coming from, I want to ensure you, that we want our sellers to succeed and reach full potential on eBay. It is within eBay’s best interest to ensure items are visible in the search results to as many potential buyers as possible, and currently there is no specific issue suggesting it’s affecting the sales.'

When this is even more conclusive proof my listings are being hidden?  Remember I've paid for these listings to be listed AND paid for them to be promoted.  I consider this theft if I'm being honest.  You are not providing the service I've paid and continued to pay for.  What are you going to do to rectify this?

[rainbowtrax]

@goingfishinguk what's your item number?

Edit - scrub that, I've found it. Because it's not a standard English word, the search is not picking up both singular and plural of the word "termalink". Add the singular as well as the plural to your title.

[goingfishinguk]

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@rainbowtrax wrote:

@goingfishinguk what's your item number?

Edit - scrub that, I've found it. Because it's not a standard English word, the search is not picking up both singular and plural of the word "termalink". Add the singular as well as the plural to your title.

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That is a very basic design flaw in the search functionality.  It should never differentiate between singular and plural.  I've searched other items last night and this morning with word for word what my titles are and it's very hit and miss if they show up as well.

[dwtrading2015]

"termalink fishing"

Zero results.  THERMAlink heating elements make up most of the results for 'termalink'.  In the good old days, - 'fishing' would be recognised as an adverb ( -ing gives it away) and therefore filter categories not relevant such as heating elements and car parts are dropped.  Further, with a number of listings containing the same spelling and/or cross referencing against a reserved word list of trademarks and registered names, the search result should easily return any seller with termalink in either the title or item specifics. 

Like with my gob smacking computer search results, this exposes what a catastrophy the algorithim has become.

To reverse engineer, look through all mandatory and optional item specifics (as these appear to be the higher weighted wide search keywords rather than title) and add 'termalink' wherever you have a free text box - even if it makes no sense, for example in add your own colour.  If one of those item specifics has been given high weighting then you should be able to get equal status with comptitors who have also found the same key field. 

Next, add THERMalink in your title.  Part of the algorithm is trying to mitigate user spelling error.  You may get a double negative return on the THERM resulting is TERM being passed forward as the search key.

Also, is it not a Trident Termalink, not a Trident Tackle Thermalink?  The algorithim used to take key words and do cross searches, left - right right - left, but it clearly doesn't do so any more.  It is practically useless from a users point of view in that respect.  You have to match exactly the manufactuer descritption as the eBay computer will find when it does background webcrawls updating it's product name database.

Otherwise, you have to go nuclear.  Part of the algorithm is to return popular sales and high click through, if everybody is buying and looking from one source then people must be happy and so it is given a higher weighting.  So, for a few days, take a loss and whack the promotion up to 80% FVF or something stupid, get your listing posted at the top and get click through, possibly sell a couple of units at a loss.  The response of the algorithm to swings in listing fortune is sluggish and can wave around over a few days and then hold up for weeks if the traffic is maintained.  This is why people do global FVF promotions, whack up to 30% all items for 24 hrs and then back down to 5% or 7% or something (except weekends!).

If nothing works, you've been ghosted.  Nobody can fully understand the reverse engineering on that part of the algorithm.  There is some indication using stock photos or trade photos the same as other listings is part of it because some success has been reported in not just relisting with a clean fresh listing but using own photos – learn the tricks of contrast and brightness adjustment as the algorithm prefers bright and a minimum number of 9 images even if it is 8 additional different zoom levels of the same image.  You have the identical image as a competitor.  The other part is there has been an item specifics change somewhere and you have missed it - we are all supposed to be 'improving' our listings on a monthly basis to improve the customer experience with churn (don't get me started).

[dwtrading2015]

"eBay's first-party advertising products, primarily driven by Promoted Listings, delivered $341 million of revenue in the second quarter, up 47% on an as-reported basis. "

This is actually a sign things are not going well.  If sellers are having to escalate promotions to maintain sales, it means they are bidding against each other for a limited or diminishing market.  Think it through.  5 sellers selling at a profit because site traffic is high.  No promotion required.  eBay fails to keep traffic to the site by making the site *bleep* to use, traffic falls, the sellers respond by sacrificing profit margin for promotion costs.  It becomes unviable for a couple.  The remaining 3 find they have to outbid each other higher and higher as traffic falls further.  If traffic increased, they would not need to promote - they remain viable and stay if they can't find better returns elsewhere.  Finally there will be one shop subscription left for eBay and ever decling traffic as the other 4 sellers are on a rival platform creating a market place elsewhere.  Do you shop on a high street with one outlet, or go to the retail park (mall) surounded by multiple sellers with various promotinal options?

And that is what is happening to eBay.  Increased revenue from promotion income, very bad.

[goingfishinguk]

Thank you @dwtrading2015  for the help.

Again searching another Trident product (I'm using Trident products as an example as I'm supposed to have the eBay monopoly on them) the ROTO does not bring up my results.  Neither does Rotos however Trident Roto does, now and again.

I'm sorry but jumping through all the hoops should not be needed, after all unless eBay comes out and tells us EXACTLY how their algorithm works then how can be effectively guess by doing X, Y or Z.  The standard advice has been over the last God knows how many years is title this, description that, photo this etc etc but that can never work if the advice stays the same but the systems keep changing.  I've mentioned in another thread the Advanced promotions is a minefield, IMO deliberately confusing so we throw more £££ at it.  It's all a huge mess.  The simplest answer to a problem is usually the best.

[dwtrading2015]

I know the 9 picture advice wroked immediatly for someone, and even adjusting the contrast and brightness and a small zoom or crop on a stock or supplier photo can fool the eBay computer into thinking you have a unique item and not copying somebody who posted the image first or has somehow got the credit for the image.   The item catagories and item specifics are forever changing so use that against eBay, stick the brand name in where the sun don't shine!!!! 

Key thing to remember, the days of adding merely key words to a title for a search to pick up on are gone.  Whatever contribution the title makes to search results now, it is literal.  You have to match what the searcher will say and somehow guess how they will say it.  And it is left to right too.

[dwtrading2015]

"Again searching another Trident product (I'm using Trident products as an example as I'm supposed to have the eBay monopoly on them) the ROTO does not bring up my results. Neither does Rotos however Trident Roto does"

Sounds like the eBay look-up database on recognised trade names and terms has the higher weighting for that catagory and/or subcatagory.  It changes from catagory to catagory.  Car spares for example is extremely specific.

So for you, the 'community' of fishing enthustiasts would refer to the item in general converstion (as in published online articles, adverts and company metatags) as the 'Trident roto' and so the eBay look-up table is rejecting only part matches becuse this must be specific.

Search engines do something called webcrawling where they automatically go to websites and index what they find.  They have a pecking order, defined trade suppliers of items that may sell on eBay will be high priority for example, so they will go to Trident and index their product cataloge - indeed the busines website will be specifically set up to inform webcrawlers with things like metatags to try and ensure the web site contents is actually visible to search engines, they can pay big money for that!  eBay is trying to get a product list so it can match a buyers search in a more targeted way.  It used to work.  It doesn't now becuase they expect buyers to know exactly what the matatag is.  Most times a buyer can not know the exact product description.  Things that appear easy to put in neat little lists often turn out to be very difficult to order.

Tricks of the trade, go to Trident website, view page source to see the HTML coding in a browser, look for metatags, you may find some useful keywords on different product pages.  When you enter a manufacturer part number, and the eBay webcrawler can cross-match, your listing is given a higher creadability score as proven to be the correct item.  Dodgy sellers put branded part numbers in while selling fakes or generic.

It's all work and made many times more difficult with eBay's knackered search engine.

[the-nutwood-collection]

Trident Tackle is on my MSN hub.  Is this you?  I didn't click on it in case it's a pay-per-click.

[goingfishinguk]

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@the-nutwood-collection wrote:

Trident Tackle is on my MSN hub.  Is this you?  I didn't click on it in case it's a pay-per-click.

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Probably is yes. 

Been reading a lot to day and it seems it's eBay's masterplan to get rid of the lower priced items, or more they want to 'invest' in the higher spenders, those who part with between $5000 and $8000 a year.  They think they can keep these by only offering more expensive items.

Flies in the face of the Chinese Tat model which appears to be the more realistic model here...

[nigel_paul_wright7557]

From Anita's reply it seems ebay does know of the search fixing.

If ebay think its going to improve its profit margins then they wont change it.

However, ebay is selling a service and that service is open to trading standards if they are taking money but withholding listings that is fraud ?

[the-nutwood-collection]

eBay has been banging the drum for the 'enthusiast' market for around eighteen months.  In one of their puff statements, it says something along the lines of if a person spends $2000 on a purse, they then go on to spend $5000 on other things.

I can well understand their desire to attract the high rollers.  The FVF fees they get on a $2000 purse or a $10000 watch is a big chunk of money.  What I don't understand is why they would want to discourage smaller sales. 

However, maybe they're just more trouble than they're worth.  Lots of INRs, squabbles over negs, sellers calling CS to ask why they haven't had a sale in a week.

I spent my corporate career in IT, and some customers are a real pain.  Never off the phone to support, always moaning, and most of the problems were of their own making.  We would deliberately paddle back on the support, delay callbacks - anything to drive these customers away.   The worst thing we could do to our competitors was to hand them this customer.  The office got cakes in celebration when the customer said they were chucking our kit out.

Maybe this is it.  Sell a $10000 watch, it goes through the authenticator, probably very few problems with sales like that.  Sell five quid's worth of my wool, loads of traffic on the server with messages, INRs, refunds.

Kinda makes sense.    

[performance_suspension_uk]

One thing that doesn't account for is sellers who's monthly fee's are a lot with eBay, I'd say on an average "pre-searching issue" month we'd be invoiced for selling fee's & shop subscription around £6-8k a month, during the first lockdown we were crazy busy so we could've been paying £10k a month for a few months, our avage sale is probably around £100 so although they'd get more fee's as a one off selling higher value items, over the course of a month they'd get more from cheaper items selling a lot

[goingfishinguk]

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@performance_suspension_uk wrote:

One thing that doesn't account for is sellers who's monthly fee's are a lot with eBay, I'd say on an average "pre-searching issue" month we'd be invoiced for selling fee's & shop subscription around £6-8k a month, during the first lockdown we were crazy busy so we could've been paying £10k a month for a few months, our avage sale is probably around £100 so although they'd get more fee's as a one off selling higher value items, over the course of a month they'd get more from cheaper items selling a lot

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Agreed, before all this trouble over the last 12 months I was giving eBay on average £90k a year.  Surely that is enough for a one mann band to be handing over and a good chunk of wages to eBay.  Hard to judge what is enough.  I see people mentioning when they are really busy they are taking £300 to £400 a week, I was doing over double that a day so in my eyes I was not huge but I was not tiny either.  

eBay apparently do not want my £90k a year anymore... that is not enough.  I would rather take a guaranteed four lots of £90k a year than gamble on one person giving me £500k for sure.

[paul*tribesandvibes*]

Agreed. 10% of 1,000 is way more than 10% of 1.

[paul*tribesandvibes*]

@dwtrading2015 

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Key thing to remember, the days of adding merely key words to a title for a search to pick up on are gone.  Whatever contribution the title makes to search results now, it is literal.  You have to match what the searcher will say and somehow guess how they will say it.  And it is left to right too.

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I just wanted to say thankyou for your input on this thread regarding reverse engineering etc, specifics and tips of the trade. I dont understand everything, but I understood most of it, and am grateful for the information, particularly the quote above about title search. I notice on your listings that you put the item first, as you say, if it's a heel protector, put that first etc. I'm changed some of my listings (when I have the time and inclination) to say 'Necklace Pendant' first and then everything else. So far my sales have doubled from 1-0-1-0-0-1-1 to 1-1-1-1-1 a day so far this week, so that's good - and lets hope for more 🤞

Just two questions if you can spare the time. Does this title order work the same for website meta tags, and when you say 'left to right' does that literally mean that the bots read left to right as we do? Cheers and thanks for your time 👍😄 Paul