Cannot permanently change the default sort order for "sold items"

[aj_chicago]

Funny thing happened. I was looking for other people who thought this was a problem  and I came across a thread that was EXACTLY what I am talking about. Yes! Turns out it was my question from a year ago that got absolutely zero responses. Lol. Hard to believe that others don't find this very annoying... which leads me to wonder if this is just MY problem.

- On an active item search results list, I can "customize" the sort order to permanently change it from "ended recently", to "price + shipping: lowest first."
- On a sold items list, my eBay provided default sort order is "ended recently." I can manually select "price + shipping: lowest first" from the drop down menu and the list is reordered like I want.  I then select "Customize" and then change sort order there from the drop down menu to "price + shipping: lowest first" then select APPLY CHANGES to make it permanent, but instead of applying this PERMANENT change the sort order immediately reverts back to "ended recently" instead of "price + shipping: lowest first," and it says so at the top.

WHAT THE HECK? This is a permanent failure for me. I cannot permanently customize sort order to "price + shipping: lowest first" for sold items. Can anyone help or attest to "this is just the way it works"? Doesn't make much sense that you can customize sort order for "live" items, but not for "sold" items. I have tried deleting all ebay related cookies. It didn't work. I switched from Firefox browser to Chrome. It didn't work. It seems to me like this is the way it works, but I want to know if anyone else can customize their search order for sold items. Thanks.

[eburtonlab]

I have noticed that the search customization does not always "take", particularly if you make many changes at once, so if you have trouble getting your new settings to stick, try this:

What has worked for me is to delete eBay cookies in my browser or try another browser, then sign back in to eBay. Run a search and set up the view, sort and items per page that you want. Then go to customization and set the picture size and settings to include and match your current settings, and apply changes.

Reload the search and check if the defaults have been applied correctly. Make the necessary changes if not. After a few rounds of this, your default settings should be correct and not need any further changes.

That should allow you to set the default sort order.

For "sold" items, try bookmarking a sample search, and then use that bookmark as the basis for further searches. So long as you start from that bookmarked search results page and just keep adding new search terms, your settings should be maintained.

If you use the eBay app, it is possible to enable settings locks which can allow you to set up your default sort order and filter settings including the "sold" and "completed" filter toggles. That option does not exist for browser, though.