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Ebay Search is the WORST

why is it that I search on Ebay and get limited and sometimes NO results then search on Google and find things that are listed on Ebay that Ebay search does not show?

 

what a ridiculous set up to limit what shoppers see on Ebay search and make it seem like Ebay does not have what they want

 

soooo dumb that Ebay limits search this way!!! really dumb. and incredibly annoying/frustrating/exhausting as a shopper.

 

seems to me that Ebay would want customers to come here and STAY ON Ebay (without having to search Google and possibly shopping / spending $$ elsewhere) !!!

Message 1 of 53
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Ebay Search is the WORST

Ebay search has been good for me. The only thing i dont like is that you cant save your search settings, such as USA only. Always have to scroll down and click USA

Message 2 of 53
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Ebay Search is the WORST

I find at least Amazon's and Target's searches to be much worse than eBay's.
Message 3 of 53
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Ebay Search is the WORST

@streetfighter007  so you shop a lot here and search for unique things?

 

Ebay search is terrible when searching for unique vintage items...and what really bugs me is I search here...maybe find a listing or two (if I'm lucky) but then search on Google and find all kinds of listings online with some taking me right back to Ebay - things that (using the exact same search terms) didn't come up on Ebay search.

 

exhausting and stupid. customers should be using their energy to BUY the things they find instead of SEARCHING over and over all over the internet, right? 

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Ebay Search is the WORST


@kelekt wrote:

why is it that I search on Ebay and get limited and sometimes NO results then search on Google and find things that are listed on Ebay that Ebay search does not show?

 

what a ridiculous set up to limit what shoppers see on Ebay search and make it seem like Ebay does not have what they want

 

soooo dumb that Ebay limits search this way!!! really dumb. and incredibly annoying/frustrating/exhausting as a shopper.


Can you give us one example of a search that shows no items on eBay but shows active listings on Google? 

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Ebay Search is the WORST

@luckythewinner  um...pick anything - seriously...choose a subject / item and search on Ebay. then go to google and search. I use general Google, then I go to Google Shopping then I go to Google images. 

 

I find the MOST on google images but it takes longer to do it that way since you are likely to find things that already sold or just posted on Pinterest. but Google general & shopping will often show many results and many of them take you back to Ebay (things that did NOT show up on Ebay search)

 

pretty much ANYTHING I am looking for this happens. this  morning I was looking for a vintage teak trivet (something I saw at a friends house and love...from the 60s) I just used "vintage teak trivet" and got an assortment but not the one I was looking for. . . then I went to google, searched the same way "vintage teak trivet" and found a couple of listings that took me right back to ebay. 

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Ebay Search is the WORST

We must be searching differently.

I searched for: vintage teak trivet. No quotes, just the three words. I got 62 results on eBay. Google Shopping showed me 40--I think. (I had to count them, since it didn't show me how many items were in the search results, which would have been helpful.) Not one of the results was from eBay. Lots from Etsy, but none from eBay.

How did you search, exactly?

Message 7 of 53
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Ebay Search is the WORST

I've had that happen many times. If there is 10,000 of something, sure, they can't show it all, but if there is 10 or 20, or even 500 hundred of something, yea, I want to see them all.

 

Example, right now, I did a search for "Criterion boring head"  There is 202 results. There are other boring heads that have these words in the search title that are not coming up. I put in "Criterion automatic boring head", I get one listing that is actually a Criterion automatic boring head, mine, but did not come up in the "Criterion boring head" search, and I get other non automatic boring heads.  I put is "Criterion 3F-HB, and now I get 4 other boring heads that have both "Criterion boring head" and "automatic" in the title that were not in any of the other searches. 

 

Yea, come on cheerleaders, tell me how the search is not broken. That is beyond broken. I have a small repair business I do, I have a small shop with a lathe and a mill, and I come to eBay a lot looking for tooling when I make a one off part for something. I don't want Chinese tooling, it is so poorly manufactured that it does not work. Some of the Taiwanese stuff is very good, but most of what is for sale here is China junk. I can't use tooling that is made out of inferior materials, it does not work. Showing pages of it in the search results is not going to get me to buy it. I'm looking for other people like me who buy tooling at estate and yard sales, and sell it here. Having to run 10 different wordings of the same search to hopefully find what I'm looking for, only to find it in a Google search for sale on eBay is maddening, and makes me not even want to bother. Seriously eBay, you want me to buy, show me what is for sale; show me what I'm looking for. 

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Ebay Search is the WORST

@pburn   I didn't use quotes on the search.

 

and I use both Safari & Google Chrome 

 

and my results showed SEVERAL from Ebay that were not shown to me ON Ebay.

 

every time I search for ANY specific item I know that going to Google will give me the best results these days - and yeah, sure...Etsy might show more results sometimes but it's a shame that Ebay probably has what I want but doesn't shown me when I search here 😞  it's too bad for the sellers with the hidden items and a loss for the seller and Ebay

 

 

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Ebay Search is the WORST


@hotspotauctions wrote:

 

Yea, come on cheerleaders, tell me how the search is not broken.


Insulting other posters who have different experiences from you probably isn't the most direct route to encouraging civil discourse, IMO.

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Ebay Search is the WORST

@hotspotauctions  amen. exactly. 

 

Ebay wants people to buy, right?!...uh...show them that Ebay has exactly what they are looking for.

 

I want to see EVERY listing. even if there are 500. When I shop on Ebay I am usually looking for vintage items and I DON'T want to see a page of sponsored listings (mostly cheap imported junk) that are NOT related to what I searched for or have to go outside of Ebay to find things ON Ebay lol

 

is that too much to ask?!

 

 

Message 11 of 53
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Ebay Search is the WORST


@pburn wrote:

@hotspotauctions wrote:

 

Yea, come on cheerleaders, tell me how the search is not broken.


Insulting other posters who have different experiences from you probably isn't the most direct route to encouraging civil discourse, IMO.



And gaslighting people into believing everything is fine is not either. 

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Ebay Search is the WORST

@kelekt 

 

Interesting that we come up with different results in Google Shopping. The fact that you see results from eBay and I don't would seem to suggest that the Google Shopping search isn't that consistent [read: reliable] either.

 

When I've done a product/item search in Google for "All" (not just Google Shopping), I've seen eBay results come up across the top of my results screen. When I've gone to some of those eBay results links, it's resulted in an item that's already been sold, and the eBay page is showing me something similar, something I might like instead of what they showed me in Google that's actually already been sold. That's not too helpful for a buyer, either.

 

 

Message 13 of 53
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Ebay Search is the WORST


@hotspotauctions wrote:

@pburn wrote:

@hotspotauctions wrote:

 

Yea, come on cheerleaders, tell me how the search is not broken.


Insulting other posters who have different experiences from you probably isn't the most direct route to encouraging civil discourse, IMO.



And gaslighting people into believing everything is fine is not either. 


I didn't say everything was fine, did I? My posts are suggesting that individuals are getting different results from different kinds of searches, whether they be from eBay or Google Shopping. And I presented that in a way that did not resort to insulting the OP.

Message 14 of 53
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Ebay Search is the WORST


@pburn wrote:

@hotspotauctions wrote:

 

Yea, come on cheerleaders, tell me how the search is not broken.


Insulting other posters who have different experiences from you probably isn't the most direct route to encouraging civil discourse, IMO.


Heh, I'm a quasi-cheerleader and even I'll tell you that search is borked lol

 

But everyone's search results on any search engine (here, Google, anywhere) are going to be different because of the history those engines have on the searcher.  Searcher A is apt to pull up totally different search results than searcher B.

 

As to civil discourse, in this day and age I don't expect it anymore, sadly. If you're not part of the vocal minority and you're not in lockstep goosestep agreement, your opinions don't count and it's best to keep them to yourself , lest ye be branded some sort of -ist. I just keep my  mouth shut and let my actions speak. I got no time to get in a back and forth with closed minded folks.

The easier you are to offend the easier you are to control.


We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did. - Thomas Sowell
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