Seller Hub > Research Products is Stale
Summary: fourstar77 and other participants are discussing issues with the eBay Seller Hub's Research Products tool, which has not been updated with recent sales data since June 12th or 13th. fourstar77 mentions that this tool is crucial for accurate pricing decisions. Some participants speculate on the data's value, while others confirm missing or incomplete data during the mentioned dates. There is also a discussion about the removal of a feature that allowed users to exclude specific terms in search queries, which has restricted searches and caused frustration among users.
Anyone know why Seller Hub > Research Products is not being updated with the most recent sales?
https://www.ebay.com/sh/research?marketplace=EBAY-US&tabName=SOLD
Seems like it hasn't been updated since about 6/12 or 13.
It's a real bummer because it is a great tool for seeing how various similar products are selling. Feels like you're flying blind without the most recent sales flowing into the tool.
ilovethesmellofbiddinginthemorning
·2 months agoHey have you also noticed we can no longer exclude terms when we search in the research products section?
Example, you used to be able to do this:
iPhone -case
which would return listings with "iPhone" in their title but not "case"
Now when you try and run the above when you click search it strips the minus and your search string becomes:
iPhone case
Exactly what I don't want, lol - anyone figure out how to exclude certain words in your search?
jonathanbrightlight
·2 months agoThat must have just happened in the last day or so, I thought I remembered using that feature 2 days ago but you're right, it's stripping that out now. It still works in the main eBay search, though.
gurlcat
·2 months agoHey @jonathanbrightlight -totally off-topic but I was looking for you anyway, and I see your reply here is pretty new. Have you noticed that the 'Messages' panel is no longer displayed on the left of the screen? I remember you were the first to point out when it appeared on day 2 of this forum. It stayed there for a couple days (albeit empty, useless), and now it is just gone again. I sure wish there was a way to find out if we're going to have PM'ing ever.
jonathanbrightlight
·2 months agoI hadn't until I saw this comment.
fourstar77
OP2 months agoYes, this is also a big problem. You can exclude a SINGLE TERM by using this format
"-TERM
where TERM is the term you want to exclude. But you can only exclude ONE term.
We used to be able to exclude up to like hundreds of characters of terms. You could exclude compound terms like
-"Blue Bike"
But now it's limited to a single word. Also, you cannot do a space and do another term to exclude; you can only choose one. No idea why they would take away the more powerful search that was working just fine and replace it with this.
Glad the data is no longer stale, but this search downgrade is maddening...
ilovethesmellofbiddinginthemorning
·2 months ago · EditedSo just to confirm, are you saying you can still exclude single words by doing this?
"-TERM"
With the quotes?
fourstar77
OP2 months agonope, its odd. It has to look exactly like this (but swap TERM for some other single term). And you can only exclude one thing. You cannot do multiple.
"-TERM
"Term" would be excluded. Only use a single double quote.... no end double quote.
ilovethesmellofbiddinginthemorning
·2 months agoDoesn't seem to work properly for me - when I do this it either removes a lot of sales or still shows things it shouldn't. I hope they give us some way to exclude certain words. They should have an additional "exclude these words" input field.
ilovethesmellofbiddinginthemorning
·2 months agoIt seems to have been updating as usual from around the 15th onwards. But it appears that sales between the 12th and 14th are missing/sparse
fourstar77
OP2 months agoI check this data every day. There are generally thousands of sales in the section I check every single day, and have been for years. Then, all of a sudden, it drops to literally 100 sales showing in the research tool for a like period. That's not just a fluke; that's a failure in some process that normally feeds sales into the research tool.
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 months agoI assume the updates are deferred because Ebay does not see any need to update this data of questionable value in real time.
The data is valid for seconds or minutes, and is not a predictor of future performance.
This is not the Ebay of 30 years ago, which provided a major portion of the entertainment on the internet.
adamcartwright
·2 months agoThe Research tool isn't for entertainment, but for checking actual sales prices.
What do you mean by "data of questionable value" or that "[t]he data is valid for seconds or minutes?
Am I missing something here?
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 months agoEbay sales results are totally dependent on who visited the site to buy and do not reflect whether the sale prices are high or low based on how intelligent or stupid the buyer, the seller or both are.
With exception of a small number of desirable items, most auctions struggle to get two bidders, which further makes intelligence, and the starting bid the key.
In the past 6 months I have sold some items for as much as double the terapeak high. Which did not mean that I could reach that price again with another example of the same item.
All data is not useful. Ebay price histories rarely are useful because all buyers, sellers and examples of a given item are not equal.
gurlcat
·2 months agoIf you don't find it a useful tool, why even comment about it? It sounds like you're calling the OP a fool for caring about it. Do you realize that?
fourstar77
OP2 months agoCan call me whatever he likes. I know my market, and I know the importance of accurate, complete sales data. When you're talking about tens of thousands of data points in a given day, it plays a very important role in proper price setting. Arbitrary one-off examples are arguments of fools.
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 months agoIt sounds like I am calling many of the buyers and sellers whose transactions are included in the database fools. Which many are.
gurlcat
·2 months agoWell I won't argue with that. I think anyone is a fool for spending $4,000 on a handbag just because it has some designer logo on it, or for a piece of jewelry just because it's made of something called "gold."
But what people are willing to pay for something -that's how much it is "worth" whether it's foolish or not. And the database is where you can find how much people are paying for things. It may not be useful to you but it is to many other sellers.
adamcartwright
·2 months agoOkaaaaay
eburtonlab
·2 months ago · EditedI am seeing results from the 15th, but very few for the 14th or 13th compared to the 12th.
gurlcat
·2 months agoWouldn't it depend on the item searched??
eburtonlab
·2 months agoI tried a very broad keyword search with lots of results ("test")-- about a hundred per day on a typical day -- though it is possible that there was some variation based on the day of the week. But it seemed to be consistent with the reports of missing transactions since the 12th or so.
fourstar77
OP2 months agoYeah, now when I check for just sales from 6/15, we are back into the thousands of sales for the category and search terms I search. But 6/12 is spotty, and the sales are essentially non-existent for 6/13 and 14.