eBay

tankedupthreads · ‎02-19-2022

Ebay what is up with the IT tech dept?

We all know that no one that works for ebay (the ones that make tech decisions at least) is also an ebay seller. Why? Because nearly every update there is problems for sellers. Well this time it is two fold...

When listing an item, most sellers search by a similar title and use "sell similar". You with me on this? Cool.

If you are a seller, you know my current beef. If you're an ebay employee, you've already skipped to the next post. Right?

So for the last month'ish, say I search for an Under Armour Mens Polo Shirt XL. How is it that your search bar shows Puma and adidas on the front page? Or a medium and a 3XL besides XL? Is it that difficult to fix this? Is it that difficult to notice this? Does ebay even QA audit after updates? Ugh.

This whole adding Item Specifics is a mess. I have changed and followed filling out ALL of the specifics each time you added them, and have given up. This next change on the 22nd will jack everything up once again.. Welcome to our pain as sellers.

Can you not see people want simple searches now? The majority of buyers want it simple. As well as the majority of sellers. Hence why buyers are going to other platforms for used clothing i.e hercarri and ploshmork.

I am wondering if the Ask Jeeves search programmers are still at ebay programming the search. Yes, I am that old and yes, you are too if you get this.

/end rant. Thanks for listening.

eburtonlab · ‎02-19-2022

So for the last month'ish, say I search for an Under Armour Mens Polo Shirt XL. How is it that your search bar shows Puma and adidas on the front page?

I tried searching using your keywords, and all the results on the first page I saw seemed to have all those terms in the title or item-specifics. I saw one Nike result that also had Under Armour in the title.

Or a medium and a 3XL besides XL?

The problem with using text matching keywords is that if you search for the string XL, any listing with XL in the title will be returned. That includes 3XL and 2XL results as well. That is just how text matching works for alphanumeric keywords. If you search for 33, you will also get 33W or 33N results as well, along with 33.5 or 33 1/2. Text matching is just looking for strings that match using a certain set of rules.

If you ever search for something that has fractional sizes such a O-rings or pipes that are specified by outer diameter, inner diameter and thickness, text matching of keywords produces terrible results. Sellers rarely follow standard naming conventions, and many special characters such as "/" and "." are not distinguishable at all when used in search keywords.

If you are seeing medium results (I did not see any Ms in the titles, but I may have missed them), most likely those listings also have XL somewhere in the item-specifics.

To get around that 3XL issue, try using the size filter options rather than relying on text keyword matching. Using a filter ensures that only results with that particular item-specific are returned. Note you may need to narrow the category first to see all the possible filter options; not all filters are available in every category.

If you limit your search to the Polo category and choose the XL size filter:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/185101/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=Under+Armour+Mens+Polo+Shirt+XL&rt=nc&Size=XL&...