Saved searches are not working
Summary: motnot reported an issue with saved searches on eBay not displaying results for several months, despite complaints to customer support. The problem reappeared briefly in December but has since persisted. eburtonlab suggested that changes in eBay's search system or keyword treatment might be affecting the searches, and recommended creating new searches. automatedsearches_com advised using a third-party service for real-time alerts instead of relying on eBay's saved searches.
About a year ago, saved searches that I have used for over a decade stopped displaying items that they would find. I put in a couple complaints with customer support at the time, but there was never any follow up from eBay. Then in December, the searches magically started displaying again, but this only lasted for about 2 months, and it has been another 4-5 months with them not working.
This is not an intermittent issue, where the issue comes and goes randomly, it is a consistent case of searches not displaying results. It is not just the eBay app, my searches do not work correctly even if I use a browser window to look at them.
Since I can’t easily find the items I might want to buy, my purchases have dropped a great deal, which is good for my wallet! But I really wish there was a way for my eBay usage and purchases to go back to how it was for so many years. I was happy being able to easily find and buy items I wanted.
I have seen other instances in the Community where eBay employees are able to help users, and I have plenty of specifics and/or screenshots I can provide if my issue can actually be reported to a department that can look into it.
kathiec
·3 weeks agoWhen eBay dropped hundreds of categories most of my saved searches stopped working. Then it was a matter of reconfiguring the searches to use the new categories and the new filters. It sounds like that's what you need to do with yours -- reconfigure until they produce the results you want then resave the search.
And btw, no one who responds in the Community is an eBay employee. This is a member-to-member forum.
automatedsearches_com
·3 weeks agoYou are better off using a third-party service like ours. You can get real-time alerts instead of waiting 24 hours for eBay's saved searches. You can even import your saved searches and sellers into our system.
motnot
OP2 months agoThanks for your perspective, you’ve given me the idea of creating new searches and see if I get can what I am looking for that way. But it’s odd, because it’s pretty much that ALL of my searches stopped displaying. They all still seem to find results but just don’t actually show them to me.
And I don’t think it’s an issue of how eBay treats keywords. Because some of my search have keywords, and some do not and literally are “show me everything in this category that is new.” And those don’t work either.
eburtonlab
·2 months agoYou are welcome. Can you provide a link to one of your searches that does not display any results?
eburtonlab
·2 months agoOver time, eBay changes many things about how searches may work. Categories are reorganized, the way certain keywords are treated by default can change. Keyword substitutions change; sellers adapt how they list. Searches that worked fine years ago may no longer work the same way because of those things, and others.
While it is possible that there is a particular technical problem that eBay might address given enough reports and examples, ultimately you may be better off figuring out how to perform your search to get the results you want using the system as it currently exists.
If you want to give an example of the sort of search that has worked in the past and how it is no longer working now, someone may be able to offer some suggestions one way or the other.