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.

[tackshackuk]

That might be some of the problem, However if the price bar from best match to lowest price is broken/not working this could be the main issue. This is a basic!

[vinylscot]

@tackshackuk I see what you mean, but if you use item specifics to search, you are greatly reducing the numbers of listings returned, and the "streamlining" is not nearly as impactful.

If you're good at searching, you will find what you're looking for. But you shouldn't need to be, and eBay must realise this.

[mrq-private]

Fair points...  and yes; if you're savy and have perhaps a little experience and knowledge and are somewhat determined it's possible to ferret items out by being more specific with your search and perhaps using search operators. - But this is a public-facing platform; and the very basic demands of competent UI design require the user journey to be made as easy and seamless as possible as led by the user!  They also demand that where a user provides specific requirements (selects a particular search pattern for example) then that is what they're provided with.

The current situation amounts to sharp practice...  when the user asks specifically for the lowest priced item; instead they are shown something 20X that price being misrepresented as such; and the very thing they asked for is hidden.  That's made all the worse by the fact that in recent days, eBay appear to be attempting to interfere with the 'workaround' which was 'developed' (for want of a better word) by numerous users over these past few months; i.e. reversing the sort order and accessing the last page...

The fact that it's possible to ferret out items that are (effectively) being hidden by eBay does not mitigate the situation.   And yes; in certain circumstances a search in 'lowest price' (or any other) mode might well be overwhelmed with dross... which has much to do with eBay's enabling of deceptive listing practices on the part of - mainly foreign - sellers; something they once stood against.

"Buyers still come to eBay hoping to be able to browse, but they really can't do that with simple searches, as (in cases where everything is returned) there are too many listings, and too many of them are completely irrelevant."

The whole point of competent UI design, and the reason why it is developed as an area of formal study, is to meet the requirements of users.  If simple searches are 'throttled' then logically, so must complex searches...   

If (as I have just done, I do a search for XDCam ; which is a very specific term - a broadcast video format which you wouldn't really expect to return that many results at all.  - I normally get the usual 'throttled' 160 results, all of which are utterly irrelevant tripe; no 'streamlining banner' either.  - Reverse the search order and it's the usual 1900+ items etc.

  ...it's only when you actually put quotation marks around the term that anything remotely resembling an acceptable result pops up; although to be fair, occasionally a search without those marks does return relevant results.  - And before anyone says it; this is nothing to do with clearing caches etc. 

Beta SP is another such obscure term...  results throttled to 160 items (no streamlining banner); almost all irrelevant; reversing the sort order yields nearly 1000 items (slightly-less irrelevant)... "Best match" isn't much better etc... 

Putting quotation marks around the term when I tested it just now caused eBay to direct the search to 'Garage Equipment & Tools'! 🙄  with ZERO results (obviously)  ...and of course you have to manually revert to 'all categories' to undo that.

Search - It's just a complete and utter shambles.  And what they're doing is completely unfair to both buyers and sellers.   ...A few months ago - for a very short while - they even disabled the " - " operator; meaning that when you did do a search overwhelmed by dross  (such as a search for camera equipment being infested with phone cases and usb leads)   you couldn't eliminate it!

"So come on eBay. This is a recognised problem, even if you don't think it is. If you're going to stick with search the way it is, at least educate your buyers. The sellers have done their part, it's time for eBay to do theirs."

Clearly it is indeed a problem... personally I've been using eBay since it first became active in the UK; the particular account I use here (my only one now) is the best part of 20 years old.   - It's not the buyers or the sellers that need either educated or further pressured... 

eBay needs to change its ways to meet the needs of its users; and it needs to start being honest with them; which neither of the eBay responses featured in this thread actually are. 

[tackshackuk]

Listings should not be reduced or increased depending on basic price selected or lowest price selected, listing should be the same!   How can it alter? 

[the-nutwood-collection]

Medieval babies would be swaddled in long linen strips, wrapped in a warm woollen blanket and then more linen strips would bind the baby to a board. The board had a rope hanger which went over pegs high up on the wall and there the baby could hang, seeing everything that went on around it but safely out of harm’s way.

I believe, in current times, some babies in the far east are also swaddled and suspended from hooks.

Saves floor space.

[bojangled]

@vinylscot 

interesting  thread on the .com community board about eBay reducing the number of item specifics earlier this month.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/We-are-testing-a-reduced-set-of-item-specifics-in-the-listing/...

Jo

[performance_suspension_uk]

We have noticed the same in recent months both in drop off of sales and lack of visability of some/most of our listings in searches, just had a quick look at our traffic analysis which to be honest I very rarely do but the last 90 days our impressions are down 38.5% based on the 90 days before that, and page views found through eBay are down 16.8% but we have about a third more page views on eBay from external pages than through eBay and that is up 241% on the previous 90 days, so maybe people can't find what they are looking for on the eBay search but doing it through google maybe an easier way of finding it, who knows, but it's very strange behaviour from eBay if they aren't fixing the "problem" with the search bar algorithim

Definately sorting searches by lowest price first is filtering out a lot of listings (or so we've found when searching for our products), we sell lowering springs for cars and have a lot of listings due to different bodystyles and engines and how much springs lower the car by, it total we have 24k listings, for 1 particular car we have 88 listings and even a search for just the car name and chassis code (searching for Audi A4 B8 Lowering springs) shows up 1500+ listings under best matched, sort that then by lowest price it goes down to 81 or even in a couple of cases I've seen it show 4 with more listings that have the same Audi A4 B8 Lowering springs title come up under the "results matching fewer words" with other springs for other cars (it's like shopping at TK Maxx!)

[goingfishinguk]

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@performance_suspension_uk wrote:

..so maybe people can't find what they are looking for on the eBay search but doing it through google maybe an easier way of finding it, who knows

By doing that eBay collect the advertising fee.  If they search through eBay and find the item they may not.  Makes you wonder...

[theelench]

I wonder why?

I agree with @vinylscot , when they say that the project has never been finished.  I doubt that it will ever be.

When I list an item in Pottery, Porcelain & Glass categories, the Country Of Origin / Manufacture has grown to include many countries through which I have to scroll to get to United Kingdom.

"Brand" is worse, ebay has been adding more brands in an ad hoc fashion since IS started, but the last time I listed, the list didn't reliably include even the three biggest UK manufacturers during the inter-war period.  It seems to depend on which "Type" IS I use.

Searching minutes ago for "Art Deco Vase" as a buyer and clicking "See All" under the "Brand" filter I'm taken to a double column of names which, although it (now) has the main UK manufacturers and a better selection of European manufacturers, there are still some missing.  Jobling and Stuart from the UK and Brockwitz and Buder from Europe.  Just a few that stand-out to me, other collectors will have the same problem with their own special areas of interest.

I think the reason they've decided to reduce IS is that (at last) they've realised just how cumbersome ever lengthening lists of choices is becoming, even when they are still not specific enough, full of omissions as they are.

Sellers are, I think, beginning to come to terms with this mess and work around it.  I've noticed that there are more "Trinket" and "Powder" bowls being listed under the "Decorative table and serveware" sub-cat. than under "Trays & sets" which I've been using and getting very little interest.  Possibly because ebays listing suggestions immediately fixate on 'tableware' as soon as it sees 'bowl' and is reluctant to even suggest the 'trays' option.  Or perhaps because, with fewer listings, the 'Search' doesn't always include the 'trays' category in its search.

IMO buyers and sellers of glass will get back to more or less the position they were in before.  By common consent most 'bowls' for whatever purpose, will end up in 'tableware' and once buyers find them there will ignore everything else.  But by then the damage to sales and the market will probably have become irreversible.

[performance_suspension_uk]

Especially in the category we sell in, eBay are doing a TV ad campagin currently about car parts, whats the point when they aren't showing all listings in the searches "come to eBay for all your car parts.....it'll take you 2 weeks to find them on here!"

[rainbowtrax]

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@bojangled wrote:

@vinylscot 

interesting  thread on the .com community board about eBay reducing the number of item specifics earlier this month.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/We-are-testing-a-reduced-set-of-item-specifics-in-the-listing/...

Jo

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Yes, they included the UK in this test as well but didn't have the basic courtesy to bother to tell us. They also made a complete pig's ear of the test by removing obviously useful and fairly vital item specifics and leaving in the pointless ones, wrecking the listing process and doubling the listing time because sellers then had to edit each new listing to put them back in again.

This was because, in their wisdom, they didn't bother to consult with either buyers or sellers before embarking on yet another "test" so it was rendered completely pointless because, as always, they didn't know what they were doing because they have no knowledge or expertise in any category. If only they'd ask the very people who do have that knowledge and expertise, they may be able to make some "improvements" that are actually improvements.

[paul*tribesandvibes*]

I seem to remember a few years ago when we first started, we only had about 60 characters in the title, and we could add whatever item specifics we thought the Buyers might use for their search. As a purveyor of Jewellery, we always included the metal, the gemstone and Birthstone month (if there was one), the measurements. One of our first ever listing was 'Chinese Zodiac Year of the RAT Jade Hanger 2008/09' with one photo and no item specifics. It sold. Quickly. And it sold because our description was informative about measurements, and what the item was for, and it included the postage and our returns policy. That was in 2008. We built a very good reputation and good sales based on our good descriptions, title and veracity as a Seller.

Skip forward 16 years and we have an 80 characters title, a gazillion useless item specifics, and Buyers cannot find us. Now, it could be that there are many more Buyers on ebay now than in 2008 (- I'd really like to know if there are!)

So, I guess what I'm saying is - why don't ebay do away with item specifics altogether, and allow the Seller to have a 150-180 character title so that it can include the kind of info that Buyers look for - 'sterling silver Pendant wrath of khan 1983 vintage pre-loved Star Trek sci-fi fans' (82 characters) for example. Or to use @performance_suspension_uk  as another example 'Pair of rear LO LOWERING SPRINGS for Audi A4 Avant 2.0TDi B8 08-15 35mm (not Quattro or S-Line) for a lower ride' (112 characters)

I'm probably being really naive, but for crying out loud, that's got to be better than what we have now!

[mrq-private]

"So, I guess what I'm saying is - why don't ebay do away with item specifics altogether, and allow the Seller to have a 150-180 character title so that it can include the kind of info that Buyers look for"

...At a guess, that would require writing code in a capable and competent way such that the description can be parsed into terms from which the search can be derived.   ...This happens to some extent; and there is a legitimate part for 'item specifics' to play in meany search scenarios.    

However; it's easer to sort through a 'box-tick' list than it is to parse a complex search string... much as it is to colour in a 'painting-by-numbers' image as opposed to actually drafting and colouring a good painting.  - Everything points to eBay's UI design and implementation team being clueless and bereft of even basic understanding...   Script kiddies, 'painting by numbers'.   ...At a futher guess I'd imagine most of this is 'outsourced' to the third world; where labour is cheap and skills limited.  

Item specifics will have their place -even in the most competent search/sort scheme.  - Which of course isn't what is causing the problems here; the current search scheme is an abomination!

[the-nutwood-collection]

Now, it could be that there are many more Buyers on ebay now than in 2008 (- I'd really like to know if there are!)

In 2008 there were 1.8m sellers on the platform, and the GMV was $48b.  I don't have the number for active users.  However, in 2010 there were 92m users, 3.3m sellers and the GMV was $53.5b.

The peak for active users was 2018 (175m), but the number had declined to 138m by 2022.  There were 22.3m sellers in 2018, declining to 18.3m by 2022.

So, worldwide, in 2010 the seller to buyer ratio was 1:28.  In 2022, it was 1:8.

Source:  https://www.businessofapps.com/data/ebay-statistics/  

[paul*tribesandvibes*]

thankyou for that @the-nutwood-collection  

[theelench]

The latest quarters figures should be published soon and will give an update.

However, whatever the numbers seem to indicate to anyone at this end, the CEO always manages to find some reason to say that ebay is on course, the boards plans are maturing as envisaged,  everything is just great etc. etc. etc.

[goingfishinguk]

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@theelench wrote:

The latest quarters figures should be published soon and will give an update.

However, whatever the numbers seem to indicate to anyone at this end, the CEO always manages to find some reason to say that ebay is on course, the boards plans are maturing as envisaged,  everything is just great etc. etc. etc.

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Fudging the numbers is easy.  They can apply the corporate spin to say they are gaining much more income from advertising revenue which I can assume they are.

As long as that graph points Northwards the shareholders will be happy, the board will be happy and not give a flying you know what for a) employers out of the inner sanctum, b) sellers, c) buyers.

Greed greed greed.

[darth_baggins]

Did a search yesterday for (ewww) Manchester City cufflinks. First result was socks, followed by a multi-variation listing that broke all sorts of eBay rules regarding MVLs.

To quote Mrs Baggins 'no point in searching on eBay, it just winds me up, you can never find what you want'.

[goingfishinguk]

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@darth_baggins wrote:

To quote Mrs Baggins 'no point in searching on eBay, it just winds me up, you can never find what you want'.

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....and there lies in the issue.  People can't find what they are looking for, not just limited to U2.

It's all over these forums, it's all over the .com forums, it's all over eBay Expressions, it's all over the Facebook pages... HOWEVER we get the reps here saying the search is working as it should.  NO it's not, well it might be for eBay but not the core of the sellers.

[theelench]

It certainly is.  From my memory of the last quarters financials, they said exactly that and the CEO sounded pretty pleased about it.

Buyers down, sales down, sellers down, BUT income from PL up 35%.

Again I can't remember if I said it on this thread or another (perhaps the "No Sales" thread),  ebay has realised that it can make more $s by not selling stuff as, for a while at least, sellers are willing to throw more cash at ebay for the possibility of extra visibility and (hopefully) extra sales stemming from it.

Having read the search experiments and the frightening level of listing hiding that's going on, that seems to me to be an increasingly vain hope.  If 90% of listings are being hidden to the 'simple' searches that most buyers would use, surely an increasing number of the hidden listings are likely to be promoted?  Making the whole exercise pointless unless a seller is willing to promote at the (always increasing) higher levels that ebay suggests?  

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.