How to END the scourge of multiple-price listings, and fix "sort by price" in one fell swoop!

[kmartind]

Sick of searching for a particular buy-it-now item, sorting by price, and ending up with hundreds of listings at the top that have multiple options with different prices, and the cheapest option (which eBay has sorted to the top because of the low price) is "empty box" or something equally useless, instead of the actual product you were looking for?

This deceptive seller practice ruins the user experience for all buyers.  It has frustrated me so much with certain products that I've given up and purchased elsewhere instead.

The worst part is, this has gone on for years and it would be such a simple fix.  All eBay would need to do is: When sorting by price, always use the highest priced option in each multiple-price listing to determine the sort order.

That's all it would take to largely eliminate all abuse of this feature.

I would recommend that anyone else who is bothered by this also contact support and complain about it, as the more customer feedback they receive, the more likely they are to (finally) do something about it.

[kmartind]

I've reported some especially egregious listings as "search and browse manipulation" and then noticed later that they went away or got changed, but it was never clear whether eBay actually took any action because they were reported, or if the seller just happened to remove the listing or make changes coincidentally.

I still think if eBay could just modify their sorting method to always sort using the highest-priced option for each listing it would: A. Make things much easier for buyers, and B. Over time, cause sellers to stop creating misleading multiple-price listings because it would largely eliminate the advantage of doing so.

If I knew someone inside eBay I'd ask them to submit that idea through whatever channel employees have for making suggestions, because the company certainly doesn't listen very well to suggestions from individual customers.

[hanhunk]

Here, just put this together

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ebay-filter/bldoicimcoafdgnogapghnbcmnhcgmee

[dtexley3]

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@kmartind wrote:

I've reported some especially egregious listings as "search and browse manipulation" and then noticed later that they went away or got changed, but it was never clear whether eBay actually took any action because they were reported, or if the seller just happened to remove the listing or make changes coincidentally.

I still think if eBay could just modify their sorting method to always sort using the highest-priced option for each listing it would: A. Make things much easier for buyers, and B. Over time, cause sellers to stop creating misleading multiple-price listings because it would largely eliminate the advantage of doing so.

If I knew someone inside eBay I'd ask them to submit that idea through whatever channel employees have for making suggestions, because the company certainly doesn't listen very well to suggestions from individual customers.

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My thought is that they could  use the average cost for all the variations that have a qty > 1 and that would be the "low price" for those listings.  To me that would be a more accurate representation of "value" of the listing content.

[kmartind]

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@dtexley3 wrote:

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My thought is that they could  use the average cost for all the variations that have a qty > 1 and that would be the "low price" for those listings.  To me that would be a more accurate representation of "value" of the listing content.

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I was thinking about that, but couldn't the listing-abusers then just get wise to the new method and create several different $1 options for an accessory/empty box/etc with >1 available for each, and only one option for the actual product at the real price?  That would still allow them to artificially drive down the average and game the system.
If eBay used only the highest priced option, period, for sort order, then I can't think of any way sellers could abuse that to make their listings show up first in a lowest-price-sorted list.  It would strongly encourage them to stop creating frivolous mutli-product listings.

[reallynicestamps]

Search by Highest Price +Shipping first.

Then slide down a few dozen items to find your price point.

Faster than slogging through hundreds of misdescribed and possibly fraudulent listings to fine something acceptable.

I assume that any seller using those misleading listings will cheat his customers in other ways too, and so should not be patronized.

[hanhunk]

Added some options and now can see items being offered in results to reduce the need to click

[hanhunk]

I just implemented the sort order option so now it lets you sort by either high or low price of the price range of the items being offered, in addition to seeing what items are being offered in the search listings. As a bonus, it's also helpful when searching by relevance or ending soonest, as it will sort using the prices of the results for that page for easier browsing. It may make ebay more useful in the results they present, and giving more options for sorting and filtering is always better to empower the shopper.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ebay-filter/bldoicimcoafdgnogapghnbcmnhcgmee