Sorting by lowest price first makes listings disappear

[debbimitchell-hickma-0]

I searched for a specific motorcycle part, and there are 257 search results. When I choose list cheapest items first, it jumps down to 47 items. And, when sorting through the unfiltered, larger results, I saw many that were cheaper than the cheapest on it showed me when I sorted by cheapest first. And this is not a "streamlining issue" There was no message that they streamlined my results as they do when you get like 35,000 hits for something. And besides, why would they streamline the search when I pick a filter of cheapest first? This is kind of lousy. Yes, when I am buying a 50 year old bike part, I will tend to go with the cheapest item that fits my needs. The price variation in that market is crazy. This really amounts to some sort of social engineering. Maybe they'd rather I pay more so they can take more from the seller huh? Who knows its just annoying to have to sort highest first and then run through pages of listings to get to the cheap ones. (Yeah, forgot to mention, no other filter reduces the number of results, only the cheapest first one)

[safan80]

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Even using  quotes "muffler" as an example will cause results to do this. I've seen other search options do this as well. Try opening a different browser like Brave or firefox where you are NOT logged and stayed logged out and go to ebay and do a search and you see different results vs your normal browser. Clear the browser cookies and cache not normally used for ebay or else your results will start to become limited. I have seen this issue for months and it's not limited to ebay motors.

@debbimitchell-hickma-0 wrote:

I searched for a specific motorcycle part, and there are 257 search results. When I choose list cheapest items first, it jumps down to 47 items. And, when sorting through the unfiltered, larger results, I saw many that were cheaper than the cheapest on it showed me when I sorted by cheapest first. And this is not a "streamlining issue" There was no message that they streamlined my results as they do when you get like 35,000 hits for something. And besides, why would they streamline the search when I pick a filter of cheapest first? This is kind of lousy. Yes, when I am buying a 50 year old bike part, I will tend to go with the cheapest item that fits my needs. The price variation in that market is crazy. This really amounts to some sort of social engineering. Maybe they'd rather I pay more so they can take more from the seller huh? Who knows its just annoying to have to sort highest first and then run through pages of listings to get to the cheap ones. (Yeah, forgot to mention, no other filter reduces the number of results, only the cheapest first one)

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[soutrikdd-2008]

This is a very critical issue - removing the ability to search by 'lowest price first' definitely will stop serious shoppers (collectors of trains, stamps, comics, such as me) from using eBay as the go-to site to shop/auction/list items.

eBay has clearly done this by design - I tried a workaround of searching by 'highest price first' and then going to the last page and working backwards. Seems they blocked that too - after page 44 or so the screen blanks out with a message saying 'We're unable to show you more than 10,000 results. Please refine your search to narrow your results'.

It's super annoying and frustrating. eBay has become greedy(ier) and have taken a chapter from Amazon's books. Amazon is the first site to block searching by lowest price.

I preferred shopping on eBay when they didn't try to pull such scammy stunts. Seems I will need to find other sites to shop from.

[eburtonlab]

I tried a workaround of searching by 'highest price first' and then going to the last page and working backwards. Seems they blocked that too - after page 44 or so the screen blanks out with a message saying 'We're unable to show you more than 10,000 results. Please refine your search to narrow your results'.

eBay has long limited searches to 10,000 results -- this is nothing new. Very few users have the patience to sort through so many results.

You can get around that limitation by narrowing your search first, or by splitting your one large search into smaller, non-overlapping searches. For instance, by setting price ranges. eBay even provides default price ranges that split the results into three roughly equal sized ranges.

There are often multiple ways to accomplish any search. If one method does not work, there is likely another method that can be used to achieve much the same results.

Searching by multiple methods is also a great way to determine if there are any blind spots that a particular search technique is subject to, and to potentially find items that other more casual buyers may be missing out on.

[bademu42]

The eBay search algorithm is following in Amazon's crappy footsteps by being only vaguely related to what you typed in. It's a little better in that you can still use -foo to weed out stuff that's absolutely not what you wanted, like for instance I was looking up Verizon Xcover Pro, and they kept putting in ATT results in. I accidentally bid on one, fortunately it was a way low bid, and I got outbid, but still, I had to go back and put -att, -715A, etc. 

I don't even mind them putting a few sponsered listings on top, just make sure that's big and bold, and doens't take up the whole first page.

[bademu42]

I think I can still sort Amazon by lowest price, but they ignore what you typed, and won't let you search for only cell phones, say, and not accessories, or if they do, they lump it all in anyway, and they choke you with pages of 5 dollar cases. And they won't even be the right cases, even.

[j2774]

I noticed the same thing!!!!  It drives me positively doolally!!  I noticed long, long ago that etsy does this, but eBay never used to do until relatively recently.  It seems VERY unethical to me, and yes, I think you are right that there is some sort of profit motive in it.   Some items I search for will turn up as many as 7K listings.  Who can wade through 7K?  So, of course I try to order the listings by least expensive first, and boom!  Suddenly, now there are only perhaps 520 listings to look at!  

[j2774]

ravensbeak I feel the exact same way.  eBay is copying etsy on this.  I have yet to figure out exactly why they have done this, but I suspect it is to increase profits.   All it does it turn me away from eBay.

[j2774]

vbwiz2000, this is the most astute analysis and explanation I have read.  Thank you.  I agree with you 100%.  I am so disgusted with the things that some people can get away with here that they could not get away with in other countries.....

[j2774]

Exactly!  This is highly unethical and immoral in my opinion.  Who would shop at a brick and mortar store who did the equivalent?  I did not realise Amazon did this, but I know etsy was doing it a long, long time ago.  eBay is actually late to the party on this one.  

On the other hand, maybe it is exactly this sort of behaviour that is going to force consumers away from on-line shopping and back to brick and mortar stores.  What do you think?

I am so disgusted with on-line shopping these days.  eBay was a great site in the early years, but it is not now.

Another thing I noticed that changed some long while back was that you could not post questions, answers, or comments on the forums anymore without registering with something/someone.  I had no idea who it was even, but I gave up using the forums because of it.  I only just looked at the forums today for the first time in eons.  What was that all about???

[j2774]

I am going to try this.  Thank you.

[simba6]

That has been going on for some time now.

[kh-laura]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.