Sort by Highest Price and then Lowest Price give radically different results

[pgh_pen]

Search for Morgan Dollar in Coins-US, and check the box "uncertified".

Sort by highest price first, get 80,000 results.

Sort by lowest price first, get 2 results.

[eburtonlab]

The "Price plus shipping: lowest first" sort order provides filtered results -- often drastically filtered. And the option to "see more results" may not always be shown as it should. The filtering may vary depending on the keywords used.

If you encounter a drastically filtered result for a keyword search using a desktop browser, you should be able to use the "Feedback" link in the lower right corner of the search results to provide feedback on your search to eBay developers. The more users provide info, the more likely something is to be done about the over-filtration problem.

You can avoid that problem entirely by using a different sort order.

If you have few results, try sorting by "highest first", then starting at the end of the results, scroll up instead of down. This also avoids the problem of variation listings with low-cost variations appearing at the top of the lowest-first sort.

If you have a bookmarked or saved lowest-first search that you use a lot, you can avoid the filtration by adding the following to the end of the search URL, then saving the resulting search:

&_blrs=recall_filtering

[pgh_pen]

Sorting should not affect the number of results, is my point.

[selsa84]

130,000 in best match and I got 1 result when sorting by lowest. And it just happens to be a mega seller. Interesting. 

[eburtonlab]

Sorting should not affect the number of results, is my point.

Tell that to eBay.

[pgh_pen]

This shows I found over 80,000 items, but sorting by lowest price only returns ONE item.

Someone suggested just scroll to the last page of sorted by highest, but that is over 350 pages down.

  

[eburtonlab]

Someone suggested just scroll to the last page of sorted by highest, but that is over 350 pages down.

Try limiting your search to auctions by price range to get a reasonable number of results (less than 10K results, which is all eBay will display), and then scroll to the end (page 42 if there are around 10K listings at 240 items per page).

https://www.ebay.com/sch/253/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=morgan+dollar&Certification=Uncertified&_dcat=394...

If you want BIN listings instead of auctions:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/253/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=morgan+dollar&Certification=Uncertified&_dcat=394...

Or edit the page address to disable the filter and then save or bookmark the search, if this is a search you intend to do more than once.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/253/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=morgan+dollar&Certification=Uncertified&_dcat=394...

[pgh_pen]

Your links give me what I want, but I still say there is something wrong with how eBay is displaying the results without "disabling the filter".  Thank you.

[eburtonlab]

Your links give me what I want, but I still say there is something wrong with how eBay is displaying the results without "disabling the filter". Thank you.

You are welcome.

I agree, the filtering is not working correctly, and users encountering drastically filtered results should report that directly to eBay using the feedback link on the search results page.

[a_c_green]

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@eburtonlab wrote:

The "Price plus shipping: lowest first" sort order provides filtered results -- often drastically filtered. And the option to "see more results" may not always be shown as it should. The filtering may vary depending on the keywords used.

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The option to disable "streamlined" search results in the Lowest First order appears to be offered in the Mobile app only. I have not seen it in the desktop version.

Exactly how listings are screened in the "streamlined" sort results is unclear and unexplained. When you disable that option (in the mobile app), the listings that are uncovered include those are even lower than what was presented before, so "streamlining" seems to defeat the purpose of the sort order in the first place.

[eburtonlab]

The option to disable "streamlined" search results in the Lowest First order appears to be offered in the Mobile app only. I have not seen it in the desktop version.

The option should appear in the desktop version of the page, and it sometimes does -- depending on the exact keywords used.

Unfortunately the situations where the results are excessively filtered are often the same situations where the message and unfiltered link option do not appear at all.

[a_c_green]

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@eburtonlab wrote:

Unfortunately the situations where the results are excessively filtered are often the same situations where the message and unfiltered link option do not appear at all.

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Realistically, when the option is labeled as "Sort," that's all it's expected to do. The Search itself has already occurred; the Sort is simply acting on the results. There's no expectation that it should also be throwing out some of the results, unless somehow they don't conform to an additional restriction imposed during the sort.

In the case of Sort by Lowest Price First, there is an undisclosed additional restriction imposed, for that Sort option only. The mobile app does offer to turn this "streamlining" off, but there's no explanation of what it was doing in the first place.