Starting today, my Saved Search emails from eBay arrived with broken image URLs, which means that I can't see what the items are. I have attached a screenshot.
This does seem to be an attempt by eBay to make the Saved Search emails mobile-friendly again - for the past 9 months, it was impossible to decypher them on my Android device. However I hope that someone is on top of this, because I rely on the Saved Searches to buy items, and today, couldn't see if there was anything for me to buy. I have to imagine that eBay's revenue dips with screw-ups like this...
1 BEST ANSWER
Accepted Solutions
The broken image problem seems to be fixed as of today. Mind you, the Saved Search functionality is still barely passable. I would suggest these improvements:
- Stop truncating the item title at 22 characters. eBay allows for an 80-character title, and bytes are virtually free via email. It is often difficult to know precisely what the item is.
- Allow me to have more than 100 searches. I am a heavy buyer, and although I could probably be a little more efficient and weed a couple of my current searches out, I am currently at the limit, and have to get around it by creating a second eBay account to have more searches, which is cumbersome to manage.
- The formatting is still not great. On my phone the pictures are visible, and it is better than it has been the past 9 months, but the images don't always line up properly with the text. See below. Also, on the desktop, the title of the search is in gigantic lettering, which causes me to scroll more.
- Despite being able to see "Saved Searches" in no less than three different places on eBay, I cannot change the name of the search (but I used to in the past, so many of my searches are named - just not the more recent ones).
This could be a really great feature, especially for people who use eBay to look for collectables. I wish that more time and effort went into it.
Ralph
This is now day #4 with Useless Saved Search emails. I wound up deleting all the emails I received today, and as a result, I am currently only bidding on 2 items (which I found via a Saved Search email before they got broken). This is very frustrating because I know I'm missing out on things.
Here's another image of my emails just to illustrate the total lack of functionality of this feature.
Problem #1: Broken images. I have no idea what items the search is showing me.
Problem #2: It is absolutely silly to truncate the description of each item to 22 characters. eBay's item title allows 80 characters - why chop it off at almost 1/4 in an email? Bytes in email are virtually free. Is someone's bonus based on the clickthrough rate of the emails? Because that is what I do when I see something I might like, but don't know for sure.
Problem #3: Over time, ebay has allowed, and then disallowed the "naming" of Saved Searches. Most of mine are named well because I was able to name them during windows of opportunity when naming has been allowed, but this particular search is not named, so the emails I receive have that cryptic search phrase as the "name". Can you please turn the naming functionality back on? It makes the emails I receive a lot more sensible.
Problem #4: For the past 9 months, the Saved Search emails have been unusable on mobile devices, because the HTML is not mobile friendly. Here is a photo of how those look. Ridiculous, right? But this has gone on for NINE MONTHS! Now in fairness, this latest code change, the one that broke the images, seems to be designed to fix that problem, but 10 months ago, the emails were mobile friendly! A change back then broke them. But no one seems to care!
Problem #5: Well, not exactly a problem, but I have two eBay accounts - but the Saved Search images are broken in just one of them. So the issue is that this is not consistent among all users. Is there an option that I can set to fix this?
Help!
-- Sincerely, a frustrated eBay buyer who spends $10k annually on goods.
This is now day #4 with Useless Saved Search emails. I wound up deleting all the emails I received today, and as a result, I am currently only bidding on 2 items (which I found via a Saved Search email before they got broken). This is very frustrating because I know I'm missing out on things.
Here's another image of my emails just to illustrate the total lack of functionality of this feature.
Problem #1: Broken images. I have no idea what items the search is showing me.
Problem #2: It is absolutely silly to truncate the description of each item to 22 characters. eBay's item title allows 80 characters - why chop it off at almost 1/4 in an email? Bytes in email are virtually free. Is someone's bonus based on the clickthrough rate of the emails? Because that is what I do when I see something I might like, but don't know for sure.
Problem #3: Over time, ebay has allowed, and then disallowed the "naming" of Saved Searches. Most of mine are named well because I was able to name them during windows of opportunity when naming has been allowed, but this particular search is not named, so the emails I receive have that cryptic search phrase as the "name". Can you please turn the naming functionality back on? It makes the emails I receive a lot more sensible.
Problem #4: For the past 9 months, the Saved Search emails have been unusable on mobile devices, because the HTML is not mobile friendly. Here is a photo of how those look. Ridiculous, right? But this has gone on for NINE MONTHS! Now in fairness, this latest code change, the one that broke the images, seems to be designed to fix that problem, but 10 months ago, the emails were mobile friendly! A change back then broke them. But no one seems to care!
Problem #5: Well, not exactly a problem, but I have two eBay accounts - but the Saved Search images are broken in just one of them. So the issue is that this is not consistent among all users. Is there an option that I can set to fix this?
Help!
-- Sincerely, a frustrated eBay buyer who spends $10k annually on goods.
The broken image problem seems to be fixed as of today. Mind you, the Saved Search functionality is still barely passable. I would suggest these improvements:
- Stop truncating the item title at 22 characters. eBay allows for an 80-character title, and bytes are virtually free via email. It is often difficult to know precisely what the item is.
- Allow me to have more than 100 searches. I am a heavy buyer, and although I could probably be a little more efficient and weed a couple of my current searches out, I am currently at the limit, and have to get around it by creating a second eBay account to have more searches, which is cumbersome to manage.
- The formatting is still not great. On my phone the pictures are visible, and it is better than it has been the past 9 months, but the images don't always line up properly with the text. See below. Also, on the desktop, the title of the search is in gigantic lettering, which causes me to scroll more.
- Despite being able to see "Saved Searches" in no less than three different places on eBay, I cannot change the name of the search (but I used to in the past, so many of my searches are named - just not the more recent ones).
This could be a really great feature, especially for people who use eBay to look for collectables. I wish that more time and effort went into it.
Ralph
