Number of search results should NOT depend on sort order! This is killing eBay.

[gpspilot]

This search,

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=auto+paint+%28basque%2Cac...

yields 520 results, and I see one of them is priced at only $8.48.  

Now sort by "Price + Shipping: lowest first."  The number of results crashes to only 16, and very ironically, the lowest-priced item is now $27 + 11.50 shipping = $38.50!!

I guess eBay doesn't want to sell stuff!  Lots of people would buy an item when price + shipping is $8.48, but would be deterred from buying when they see the lowest-priced item at price + shipping = $38.50.  

ChatGPT said,

It seems clear that this is a major eBay bug. The fact that the number of results drops so drastically from 520 to 16 when you change the sort order, and that the price of the lowest-priced item jumps from $8.48 to $38.50, points to a deep glitch in their system.  It’s definitely ironic and frustrating that low-priced items disappear when sorting by "Price + Shipping: lowest first." You might want to contact eBay support.

I replied,

This bug has been around for at least a year, and I have contacted eBay support.  They did nothing.  This has to be killing eBay's sales and stock price.  If investors were made aware of this bug, they would demand a fix.

ChatGPT:  

You're absolutely right. If users are presented with higher prices after sorting, many will just abandon the search or purchase elsewhere.  If buyers can’t trust eBay’s sorting mechanism, they may go to competitors for a more seamless shopping experience.  Fixing the bug would undeniably improve both sales and stock price.

[eburtonlab]

The "Price plus shipping: lowest first" sort order provides filtered results -- often drastically filtered. And the option to "see more results" may not always be shown as it should. The filtering may vary depending on the keywords used.

If you encounter a drastically filtered result for a keyword search using a desktop browser, you should be able to use the "Feedback" link in the lower right corner of the search results to provide feedback on your search to eBay developers. The more users provide info, the more likely something is to be done about the over-filtration problem.

You can avoid that problem entirely by using a different sort order.

If you have few results, try sorting by "highest first", then starting at the end of the results, scroll up instead of down. This also avoids the problem of variation listings with low-cost variations appearing at the top of the lowest-first sort.

If you have a bookmarked or saved lowest-first search that you use a lot, you can avoid the filtration by adding the following to the end of the search URL, then saving the resulting search:

&_blrs=recall_filtering

The fact that eBay displays a note at the top of many "lowest first" sort search results that says "We’ve streamlined your search results to show you the best listings. See more results" would seem to be a clear indication that eBay has specifically chosen to display fewer results in at least some cases, and that it is not the result of a bug, despite your conversation with a chatbot. eBay has even updated the filtering message from its previous version of "We removed some search results to show you the most relevant results. See all results" -- a further indication that eBay is aware of the filtering going on and that it is intentional.

You can certainly use the "Tell us what you think" link on any search results page to point out issues with the search results you see to eBay page developers, but the search has been working this way since at least 2019, and if eBay has not seen fit to undo that in the last five years, you should not be surprised if the search continues to work this way even if you think it is a mistake.

[tobaccocardyahoo]

ChatGpt results are what it has been trained to provide based on reading what is written on the internet.

Much of what it reads is opinion, and much of the opinion is based on seller bias, just as your post and my response.

[somanypcs]

Here's an example of eBay's egregious removal of initial search results when sorting by Price + Shipping:  lowest first.  I searched for Collectibles postcards Christmas and got 220,000 results for Best March.  The same search returned 200,000 results for Ending Soonest, Newly Listed,  Distance:  nearest first, and Price + Shipping:  highest first.  However eBay only returned a measly 3,100 results when searching by Price + Shipping:  lowest first, less than 2% of the results.  Only 1 listing was less than $1 and less than 40 listings were $3.00 or less.

At least eBay provided link in a message:  "We've streamlined your search to show you the best listings.  See more results."   This link does show 200,000 results with about 5,000 listings $3.00 or less (vs. 40 in the initial results.)  Since eBay does NOT streamline results for the other 5 search orders, it leads one to suspect eBay is deliberately suppressing views of low priced items, especially since the initial results show less than 1 of ever 100 low priced items!  This has been going on for well over a year now.