Where is the Non-fiction Book Category?

[fmarotta]

I am a buyer and seller here on eBay, with over 10,000 book purchases.  I used to have a saved search for Non-fiction religious books.  That no longer works.  When I click on that saved search, it takes me here:

eBay > Books & Magazines > Book & Magazine Wholesale & Bulk Lots > Book Wholesale Lots > Books

Two comments:

(1)  I no longer see a Category Non-Fiction, nor can I locate it!

(2) I cannot find a Subject of Religion&Spirituality any longer.

I would note that Antiquarian&Collectible works as expected.

Simply put, my search helped me win (purchase) 100+ books a year and bid on at least 300 a year.   Have no clue what to do about this.  And I have been here over 20 years!

Any advice or insight?

[figtree3]

Hi, 

I did some looking and found a recent announcement of category changes to take place in October 2021. Apparently eBay announces changes fairly regularly. There is no announcement about the change you are mentioning, so I assume it happened earlier.

Meanwhile, there was a link to look at All Categories on eBay, and here is the list for Books & Magazines and subheadings. The ones you mentioned are no longer part of their structure. Maybe Booksellers here can tell you when it happened. 

• Books & Magazines | ID: 267

  • Accessories | ID: 45110

    • Book Covers | ID: 45113

    • Book Lights | ID: 120869

    • Book Plates | ID: 48831

    • Book Stands & Holders | ID: 162028

    • Bookmarks | ID: 45114

  • Antiquarian & Collectible | ID: 29223

  • Audiobooks | ID: 29792

  • Books | ID: 261186

  • Catalogs | ID: 118254

  • Magazines | ID: 280

  • Textbooks, Education & Reference | ID: 184644

    • Dictionaries & Reference | ID: 171273

    • Language Courses | ID: 11442

    • Maps & Atlases | ID: 69496

    • Study Guides & Test Prep | ID: 171223

    • Textbooks | ID: 1105

[eburtonlab]

eBay has reorganized many categories. eBay seems to be moving away from having many specialized categories, and instead moving toward having a few broad categories, and then allowing the use of filters to distinguish by subject or topic.

Such reorganization can cause old targeted searches to point to much broader categories, and may require you to try searching a different way to find what you are looking for. That old searches no longer work as expected is certainly a problem, but eBay seems to think that the results of the changes will make listing and searching easier overall in the future.

If I start with a search using the keyword nonfiction, and then narrow the category to Books & Magazines, I get about 2 million results that ship to my location.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=nonfiction&_sacat=0

From there I can use filters for specific topics such as cooking or genres such as Religious & Spiritual.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=nonfiction&_sacat=0&rt=nc&Genre=Religious%2520%2526%2...

I find that starting with search keywords, then limiting the category (if necessary) and finally choosing filters seems to work well for finding items. Since some filters are category-specific, you may need to choose a category before you can see your filter options.

[bugler1998]

From the seller's perspective, ebay has required sellers to list the title of a book under the title item specifics.    When you search for "gone with the wind", you will find it even if you do not have any of those words in the title of the listing. search will still find it.  That is what it says, anyway,

You might want to keep that in mind.  Of course, everybody does not follow the rules.  

[taylor_memorial]

It happened about the same time as they announced certain required item specifics. 

There is now an item specific that differentiates between fiction and nonfiction (no other options). 

One should be able to save a search with some of the item specifics selected to filter out all books which don't meet that criteria. 

I've seen lots of sellers not bother with any of the "other" item specifics--and even the megasellers seem to be able to work around filling in the item specifics which are required but that might be because ISBN fills them out? 

Anyway, it does make more sense from a buyer's position. 
I use all the item specifics although I try to stay away from adding those which aren't usually in the menu.