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confused by price ranges when searching on ebay
I am confused about the price ranges when searching for an item on eBay. When searching for iPhones I'll see a result and it will say something like "$200-250" for the item, because there are multiple configurations you can select. However when I click on the actual item listing, you will never be able to select any option that gets you the lowest price (color, carrier, storage). It's all higher numbers. This seems like some sort of bug in how the price ranges are calculated.
Note that in order to get the listings, I was selecting certain filter options for the phones on the left to drill down the search results. So it might be that those were not being taken into account when calculating the ranges although I'm not sure. I think it isn't a good experience overall.
eburtonlab
Mentor8 months ago@eliot1785
Try sorting by highest price instead of lowest. Set a price range to keep the numbers of results reasonable, then jump to the end of the results and scroll up instead of down. That way the results are sorted by the highest priced variation in your price range rather than the lowest.
eliot1785
OP7 months agoI don't get it, why would that help? If I sort by highest price instead of lowest and then I go to the end of the list and scroll up, is that not the same thing as sorting by lowest price and scrolling downward?
The point is that I think all of the listing ranges either lie completely (i.e. there is no possible configuration showing the lowest number), or they are technically correct but the configuration that matches the lowest number does NOT match what I was searching for.
For example I see a listing that is $210-376. If you go into the listing, the $210 amount is for an iPhone from some carrier that has gone out of business, that's why it's cheaper. HOWEVER I already said that I wanted "network unlocked." But instead of showing me the range for just network unlocked phones, it is showing me the range for all phones in that grouped listing. Due to the prevalence of grouped listings for things like phones, this effectively makes it impossible to drill down your phone search.
eburtonlab
Mentor7 months agoIf I sort by highest price instead of lowest and then I go to the end of the list and scroll up, is that not the same thing as sorting by lowest price and scrolling downward?
If you sort by lowest first, you may be seeing filtered results, so you may not see the full results.
Also, if you sort by lowest first, your listings will be sorted by the lowest priced variation -- which is often unrelated to what you are actually searching for, as you have found.
Try sorting by highest first and see if that provides better results.
eliot1785
OP7 months agoI tried what you said (sorting by highest first with a range and going to the end) but I believe I am still seeing the same problem. The last entry has the lowest price but for a variation I didn't want.
I think you are right that "if you sort by lowest first it will be sorted by the lowest price variation", but if you sort highest-to-lowest and go to the end, you're just reversing the sort. So whatever is at the end will be the lowest price variation and likely unrelated to what I was searching for. That's why I don't think that changing the sorting will help. Am I missing some part of your tip?
I don't know what you mean by "you may be seeing filtered results." In a sense that is what I want, filtered results, and the problem is that the actual results are not filtered because of the grouping.
eburtonlab
Mentor7 months agoif you sort highest-to-lowest and go to the end, you're just reversing the sort.
No. You are also sorting by the highest priced variation in the listing -- the lowest priced variations are ignored. This matters because some sellers purposefully include an irrelevant low cost variation to get their listings to appear at the top of the lowest priced sort.
I don't know what you mean by "you may be seeing filtered results."
Try sorting both ways and see if you see different numbers of results -- if the total is above about fifty results, at least.
The problem with eBay's filtering is that it may not be filtering out the items you do not want, and it may be leaving in items you do not want.
eliot1785
OP7 months agoI see what you're saying. I don't think that highest-to-lowest sorts by the highest price in the group. I'm not sure what it's sorting by, but it isn't that. The top numbers look all over the place from the results I'm seeing. Thanks for your help though.
eburtonlab
Mentor7 months agoI don't think that highest-to-lowest sorts by the highest price in the group.
It is sorting by the highest priced variation within your price range if you are searching using a price range.