Re-Directed to Current Items when want to see Closed Item

[midgeteyeball1]

Within the past week, eBay has made alterations such that when we attempt to look at an auction which has closed/finished, instead of showing us THAT auction, unless you were the winner, it re-directs us to an active auction. It does this EVEN when you use the "Search Closed Auctions" function, in which it should be obvious that the user WANTS to view the Closed Auction.

This is an extremely ill-advised and frustrating change.  People who may want to examine more closely the item that they lost, to figure out ways to search for it that eBay has NOT thought of, too bad.  People who may want to show to friends an item that they won -- well, forget that now.  People have different reasons for wanting to view a Closed auction -- and when eBay's users are making a deliberate attempt to see such Closed Auctions, there are no good reasons why eBay should be stopping that. And plenty of good reasons to allow it. This will reduce your sales, in the long term.

In my case, I keep getting re-directed to an auction I've already known about. I have Searches to find this particular item -- I already found/saw it weeks ago, I do not want to be continuously re-directed to it.

Prior to this, eBay was displaying similar auctions at the top of the Closed Auction. I see no reason why that wasn't good enough to advertise those, and why eBay is now strong-arming people to other, similar items. 

Doug 

[sundriednm]

Simple answer, ebay SUCKS.  They don't listen to their customers very well.  

[pburn]

There have been dozens and dozens and scores and scores of threads on the discussion boards about this new display of sold or completed listings.

You are neither the only nor even the first member to have discovered the wonder of this "enhancement."

[secretsquirrelisnowhere]

You will notice there is a box with the words The listing you’re looking for is no longer available.
The word listing is in blue and is an active point. Click on it and you get the original listing.

[labs118]

Hi Doug 
There is a very large post link below that ebay has been answering on.
At one point this past weekend you could not display anything that was sold from the ebay catalog but now it appears we can see all the sold items (For now)
Look for the word listing in the blue bar & click that.
It will bring you to the sold item instead of to active items

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/quot-The-selected-item-is-no-longer-available-quot-Can-t-view/...

[jason_incognito]

for now.

[mm_rockpile]

Responding to the SPECIFIC REPLY stating that clicking on the blue LINK to see ENDED (completed / closed) item will take you to the actual ENDED listing one is trying to view:

NOT so anymore. Unless the ended auction is so unusual (meaning the title keywords do NOT trigger the system to re-direct to a live item) the fool system indeed DOES re-direct to a LIVE listing.

As so many have pointed out: Buyers / bidders already know how to - and are quite capable to - look again for a LIVE item. (if they were actually looking FOR a live item, they naturally would not be looking at the ENDED item anyway. No matter HOW you slice it, this new policy is incredibly non-productive, time-wasting and makes users upset with eBay. NOT a good recipe for expanding business / market-share / buyer confidence.

I could sy SO much more; bottom line is that this is a horrible move on eBay's part and was clearly arrived at with onlly superficial thinking about a single or specific agenda - without taking into account all the ripple effects and/or ways that it otherwise negatively impacts buyer experience.

[labs118]

---

@mm_rockpile wrote:

Responding to the SPECIFIC REPLY stating that clicking on the blue LINK to see ENDED (completed / closed) item will take you to the actual ENDED listing one is trying to view:

NOT so anymore. Unless the ended auction is so unusual (meaning the title keywords do NOT trigger the system to re-direct to a live item) the fool system indeed DOES re-direct to a LIVE listing.

As so many have pointed out: Buyers / bidders already know how to - and are quite capable to - look again for a LIVE item. (if they were actually looking FOR a live item, they naturally would not be looking at the ENDED item anyway. No matter HOW you slice it, this new policy is incredibly non-productive, time-wasting and makes users upset with eBay. NOT a good recipe for expanding business / market-share / buyer confidence.

I could sy SO much more; bottom line is that this is a horrible move on eBay's part and was clearly arrived at with onlly superficial thinking about a single or specific agenda - without taking into account all the ripple effects and/or ways that it otherwise negatively impacts buyer experience.

---

My screen shot was from a sold listing on my watchlist  & it did redirect me to what I am showing in my screen shot (blue bar ) active bowls instead
By clicking on the blue line and word listing it is taking me back to the sold listing I was trying to display.
So for me it is working that way.

[secretsquirrelisnowhere]

It works just fine for me. I click on a sold item and it redirects with a bar with listing being active. Click on the blue word "listing" and you get to the sold item. Perhaps it's your computer that has the problem, not Ebay.

[7198dave]

I just looked at a couple items I didn't win and it took me to another listing instead.

HEY LOOK!

The listing you’re looking for is no longer available. Check out this similar item we found for you.

I just discovered if you click on listing, it will take you to the ended listing.

Nevermind, I see other posters already mentioned this.

[7198dave]

---

@secretsquirrelisnowhere wrote:
It works just fine for me. I click on a sold item and it redirects with a bar with listing being active. Click on the blue word "listing" and you get to the sold item. Perhaps it's your computer that has the problem, not Ebay.

---

that's why I wish ebay would just stop all the nonsense with these dang makeovers and updates, cause it leaves me wondering is it my computer having problems, or is it ebay that is having problems?

[midgeteyeball1]

Thanks. Clicking on the word Listing in the bar does work.

I will point out that the color of the word "Listing" is barely distinguishable from the color of the other words inside the bar (not helped by the fact that all of the words are inside a color bar).

I had in fact tried clickin different parts of that bar before I complained. (I just didn't by chance click atop the word "Listing").

It also would have been better if eBay had explicitly stated to "Click Here to see the original listing."

AND...   I still contend that the old listing is showing as many as twelve other current auctions above the Closed Auction, on that Closed Auction's page. Forcing people repeatedly into the same one (which I had already found on my own, and didn't care to bother with) is merely going to lose people, who -- not finding their obscure link to the Closed Auction page -- are never going to see those other 11 auctions!

Doug     

[ecolmn]

I nominate eBay for that distinction.

[bootlegpoliceman]

A bigger problem is that eBay's algorithm for making recommendations based upon the originally requested item is horrifically BAD. Depending on the item in question, it redirects you to items that are nothing like the original item.

Additionally, in collectibles categories, especially those rife with fakes (which eBay provides lip service against, yet does nothing since they collect fees from all the purveyors of Asian fakes), buyers get redirected to counterfeit items. Way to go, eBay!

This change, combined with the removal of search wildcards some years back, are two of the most buyer-hostile changes one could idiotically imagine.

It aligns perfectly with eBay's vision of the future: There is no need for search granularity or viewing past listings. If all collectibles and used items are removed from eBay and all you are selling is mass market consumer goods, where the buyer only needs to pick from items that are displayed, these become nonissues.

R.I.P. Selling collectibles on eBay.