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.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

"I want to ensure you, that we want our sellers to succeed and reach full potential on eBay."

If that is the case it appears the selling potential on Ebay is now extremely limited.

[exponential_developments]

Yes i know, i think it meant in translation "small ball".......but i was 12 at the time.

[goingfishinguk]

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@mrq-private wrote:

Well you get 160 results for "Daiwa" on a UK only search in 'lowest price' order.   The cheapest being £39.95.  

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This alone tells me it's more deliberate, as the £40 cut off mark has been mentioned on more than one occasion and by more than one poster.  So again it's contrary to what we have been told on this very thread by eBay staff.

[mrq-private]

...As I recall 'the word'  was considered to be of middle English origin; the case famously defended by John Moritmer QC, he who wrote 'Rumpole of the Bailey'. Met him once briefly at a works do (I used to work for Thames TV) - seemd like a nice bloke with an excellent sense of humour.    Now that you mention it; I do think there was some Biblical origin to the word though.     

[willrose-elec]

When I started eBay was 100% of my turnover but it soon became obvious that you cannoty build a strong business on such a broken system as eBay. It's now around 15% and the rest is via my own website. TBH I am debating whether it's worth sticking with eBay as it causes me the most headaches and is wildly more expensive to use.

[goingfishinguk]

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@mrq-private wrote:

 Now that you mention it; I do think there was some Biblical origin to the word though.     

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Could do with some divine intervention here for sure...

[mrq-private]

"it soon became obvious that you cannoty build a strong business on such a broken system as eBay. It's now around 15% and the rest is via my own website."

That's pretty much my own position - having studied the feasability of starting an 'eBay shop'  as a lead-in to my 'retirement project'; a crafts and photography outlet.   And ultimately reaching the conclusion that it simply isn not viable as such!

...It's been destroyed (by its management) as a 'gateway' platform to e-commerce.   - And in the process seems to be destroying the lives and livliehoods of those who were loyal to it.

[tackshackuk]

Not heard of the £40 cut off, is this something new?

[mrq-private]

"Yes i know, i think it meant in translation "small ball".......but i was 12 at the time."

I was about 15... and attending the local RC Secondary school in a particularly deprived and 'robust' part of Glasgow.  Many of us at that school were delighted to learn it meant  'rubbish, especially that associated with (or spoken by) a priest' and particularly pleased to cite the legal precedent that proved it wasn't a profanity.  😁     

[mrq-private]

"Not heard of the £40 cut off, is this something new?"

Not sure if it's new exactly;  speaking as a buyer, it seems to have emerged as the 'throttling' of results has become more blatant. I'm led to understand some sellers have been made more aware of it as eBay tries to 'turn the screw' and bleed more money out of them for promoted listings. 

[goingfishinguk]

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@tackshackuk wrote:

Not heard of the £40 cut off, is this something new?

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Not sure to be honest but I know a few on here have reported that if you do the old low to high on certain searches the lowest price comes out at around the £40 mark and lower items are erm.. HIDDEN from the search results. 

So, I maybe no forensic expert but I'm not stupid so I conclude my sales have been hindered dramatically since most of my items are under £40.  Hidden items because they are under £40 = lower and lower sales which is what I'm experiencing, I can't contest those FACTS.  Which is the complete opposite to what we have been told on this thread this morning by eBay.  So to conclude your honour what eBay is telling me is not an accurate picture of reality.  (That's a polite way of expressing it..)

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

The situation with promoted listings etc has played a massive part in the performance of this platform, I was happy to pay 2 - 3%, I got to the point where I was reluctantly paying 5% regularly for around 12 months however Ebay just want more and more and more, it's never ending. They now want 12% to 20% plus FVF fees. I'd love to see someone at Ebay trying to run a viable business where you pay selling fees of 30% to 40% from your sales, it's totally unrealistic.

[tackshackuk]

To be fair i haven't noticed the £40, but i know items are being hidden, as i reported this last week to customer services who could not explain why and said it was an IT problem, and he would get back to me....i'm still waiting. On best match my item was there, lowest price my item vanished along with others and new ones appeared! 

Not sure if anyone else has noticed but while playing around i had a look at what other sellers with ebays "best match or whatever" were using category wise as the side bar sub category didn't look right. Low and behold (i was looking at long boots) one was under supplements. I have also noticed by selecting from the side bar more new ones come up depending on the sub category selected. eg - rhinegold long boots (searched) best match 65, lowest price 82 these were the totals without using sub category, if i select Equestrian in the sub category i have 222 on lowest price best match 171, if i select "all" in the sub category (which is what i thought my first one was) i get 226. So our items might not be hidden in ebay terms but the silly customer isn't pressing the correct buttons. 

[mrq-private]

"So our items might not be hidden in ebay terms but the silly customer isn't pressing the correct buttons."

I'd suggest then that eBay terms amount to sharp practice...  the fact that a listing can be found if the buyer is prepared to dance round the room doing the hokey-cokey doesn't mitigate common search patterns being throttled.  - And certainly doesn't help sellers or us silly buyers.  

[paul*tribesandvibes*]

Despite what Anita has said, all I can tell you is that our once healthy and happy ebay business that used to turn over an average of £2000 to £4000 a month (depending on the time of year) is now only doing about £300 to £400 a month.

I dont need fancy graphs to tell me that after 16 years of successful selling on ebay, that this site is now a total waste of time for our business.

I dont need ebay to tell me that they are not throttling our business, or capping our earnings, or hiding our listings, because our revenue begs to differ. These days we get 1 sale a day, then nothing, then another 1 sale on the 3rd day etc etc etc. Our bank balance begs to differ Anita. The facts and figures - the sales records, beg to differ Anita.

We will see out Christmas, unless we remain at 1-0-1 sale a day, in which case you can colour us gone.

And just for the record because I have asked this question a lot, and never got a satisfactory answer to it - what the heck are listing fees for? If we are paying ebay to promote/show a listing (which I think we can all agree is about 90% to 96% of the time unseen) why do we have to pay listing fees as well as promoting fees? Final fees I can understand - but LISTING FEES - what the heck? ebay you are sooooo greedy! and good sellers will leave this awful site because there is nothing here but misery, stress and empty promises and assurances from ebay.

[goingfishinguk]

Related to the search issue.  A mate came around yesterday (yes a real one!!! 😁) and he claimed he could not find ANY of my products for sale on eBay and showed me another search disaster on his phone which I managed to replicate.

He typed into Google 'Hooks eBay' without the quotes.  A few adverts were across the top but because he wanted to see all the hooks on eBay for sale he clicked the first link.  All that did was bring him to an eBay page that had the default little icons/pictures for all the eBay selling categories.  No hooks or listings at all.  I did the same on my phone's web browser and got exactly the same results.  So even the search from Google to eBay is not even working correctly.

[bojangled]

@goingfishinguk 

I've just done the same. I get wall hooks, not fishing hooks.

If I google 'fishing hooks eBay' a big eBay seller takes up first page of results, all eBay links.

However a search for fishing hooks koike (because surely this a more recognised term?) second sponsored link ad under Amazon gives you top spot in the eBay search.

Just thought I'd jump in as someone who never searches for fishing equipment.

Jo

[paul*tribesandvibes*]

@goingfishinguk  I seached the same and got the same results as @bojangled on my desktop. Those who want to pay for google ads offsite will be seen. Here's a couple of screen shots from my 'fishing hooks ebay' search - if you click on the link below the sponsored ads, you get the ebay fishing hooks page.

So you've got to know what you are searching for on ebay these days. I remember when I used to be able to browse, but now it's hard to do that unless you have the correct terminology!

[mrq-private]

"So you've got to know what you are searching for on ebay these days. I remember when I used to be able to browse, but now it's hard to do that unless you have the correct terminology!"

...And even then eBay search dredges up some mind-numbingly irrelevant old toot!  Try a search of 'broadcast camera case'   ...ONE remotely relevant result out of 36. 

Change that to "broadcast camera bag"   - 8 results, one which 'might' be relevant  - three are for (obsolete) industrial cameras that happen to have a bag.   - With, interestingly enough the cheapest item priced at £39.99 (the £40 thing again!)  

I happen to know that there is a 'shoulder mount camera case' on offer from a seller I've bought a couple of things off previously at just £30!   - I only found it because when I bought from them the other day, I had a look at their other items - it's never popped up on a search. 

Category browsing has been made more difficult...  unless you know that 'cameras and photography equipment' are a subset of 'Electronics'  (Why? Even film cameras, film and darkroom chemicals are in there! )  you'll never find the category to browse! 

Likewise 'video broadcasting and recording' is a subset of Business, Office & Industrial (itself fairly buried) with its sub-categories all over the place...    if you navigate to 'lighting products for video production' for example, you'll find the category filled with irrelevant junk;  the first few items are some obsolete video tapes, bits of randon gel and some of those 'ring lights' used by kids making phone videos; none of these have any serious professional application...  So, not 'business' or 'industrial' things at all.  Meanwhile, back in the jungle, you'll often find what you might be looking for buried in among 'pro audio', 'photography', 'sound and vision'. 

"So even the search from Google to eBay is not even working correctly."

My suspicion is that eBay wants to become a retail search engine... similar to the old Froogle/Google Shopping services of old but more corporate oriented...  So it's perhaps unsurprising that they will try to move product-specific searches on google such that they direct to the front page; and why the site is becoming increasingly-less tenable for small businesses.  

Essentially, eBay is becoming more of a 'price comparison' website than what it once was.  - They're 'boiling the frogs' quite frankly. 

[paul*tribesandvibes*]

It's interesting how each of us is getting different results. I'm on a desktop, Chrome, Windows 10. Dont know if that makes the slightest difference  but here's my search for Shoulder Mount Camera Case' and I get a range of stuff from £9.99 to £570. A mobile phone shoulder strap gets a massive load of listings shown - a German seller apparently. As I said, you have to know what you are looking for. Even this search term which seems fairly specific yields over 800 items which are not relevant.