Search completely broken?

[soniadelaunay]

Hi:  I've been reading complaints about eBay search at eCommerce Bytes for ages, but didn't figure it affected me too much.

A) I don't sell on eBay any more

B)  I only run a few regular searches.

 But just yesterday I ran a search for something I'm occasionally looking for.  ''US only'' was the only filter I added.   I got 467 results.  Looking at the first 40, about half were made of melamine and I wanted the ceramic version, so I reran the search as before but adding '' -melamine''.  And got 876 results!  

Something is SERIOUSLY off with eBay search. No wonder sellers are complaining about drops in sales.

[art_primo]

my brother lives in honolulu so he and his wife shop on-line quite a bit. i'm always promoting ebay, have a store etc.,  and i always tell him try ebay first. recently his son's bicycle was stolen in front of his home so he decided to get a small bike rack for security. he knew exactly what he wanted, has seen them before and assumed he could find it on ebay. 

he types in exactly what he wants, has the search words very specific and what comes up? everything except what he serched for. he told me "what's going on with ebay"? he said it now looks like they are selling their own stuff like amazon, everything that was apparently a promoted listing came first so he thought it was ebay putting thier own stuff up first because they wanted to sell items now too.

after scrolling through 6 pages of listings of products that didn't match his search query, that's hundreds of listings, he finally found the item on page 6 and another on page 8. Those listings matched exactly what he was searching for but by then he was agitated and felt like ebay was trying to steer him to buy their own products first as opposed to that of some independent seller. he felt like he was being scammed. it just raised a bunch of red flags. so he decides to turn that project over to his wife who went to the river and bought it there. no problem finding the item and this rack cost nearly $1k, self installed. it's from italy. 

unfortunatly buyers are getting dragged around and steered to promoted listings instead of what they are actually searching for. people today are pretty sophisticated in searching for things on-line. They're both university professors. but they felt that they were some how being scammed and the whole experience turned them off from shopping on this site. unfortunately i think we lost them for good.

[berserkerplanet · Accepted solution]

Run both variations of the search again. Carefully note the left navigation area and what category each search is throwing you in.

I suspect "implicit category navigation" is occurring in the first search and you are landing in a subcategory, and the use of an exclusion search term in the second search short circuits that and shows you items in all categories.

If above is true, the l lesson is: always use an exclusion term in your searches (even a nonsense one that won't affect anything like -florplgnorf) and problem solved (credit to eburtonlab for divining that workaround)

[soniadelaunay]

beserkerplanet. 

Brilliant, thanks so much!  It kicked me into a category that only had new items when I was looking for vintage or antique.  Not clear at all however from the side bars that it was doing this.  It looked as if it was searching the entire site, (all the categories were showing "blue").  

What a perfect pain eBay has become.

Cheers

Sonia

[berserkerplanet]

>>my brother lives in honolulu

In addition to the implicit category navigation behavior I mention in the reply to the OP, your brother will probably also be seeing a severely reduced number of results because he lives in Hawaii due to the HATA (Hawaii, Alaska, Territories, APO/FPO) bug.

He will likely* only see search results from US sellers for items that ship worldwide - any items that only ship in the US will not appear.

*The HATA bug seems to always occur for Alaska, Territories, and APO/FPO, but Hawaii is an odd duck. It was the first location to be affected by it (or at least the first that came to light I'm aware of), but it is hit and miss with Hawaii. For some users in Hawaii (or those that change their zipcode to one in Hawaii) the bug occurs, and for others it doesn't. Alaska zips seem to be always affected. It has been a known bug for close to 2 years now and no fix is in sight.


Try it yourself.

Do a search for something where you get a good number of results (100 maybe and for items that are likely to ship worldwide - clothes, vinyl LP's, etc - not things like sofas), and note the number.
Now change the view filter on the search to "Price+Shipping: Lowest First". That enables the location option.
Change the zipcode to 96801 for Honolulu. Note that the number of results will probably be severely reduced.
If you look at some of those results in detail, they should all indicate "ships worldwide", and all the domestic shipping only results will have disappeared.

The workaround is for your brother to do preliminary searching with a mainland zip like 90210. Calculated shipping amounts will be wrong in many cases, and he will temporarily sneak past the Hawaii/Alaska shipping location exclusion that some sellers may have in place, but he can change to his real Hawaii zip in the individual listings to see the real situation. (use of multiple browsers, or multiple tabs and cookie profiles, etc can streamline that process a bit)

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Use-Caution-When-Shopping-Ebay-From-Alaska/m-p/292079...
https://community.ebay.com/t5/My-Account/Please-help-me-There-is-something-bad-wrong-with-my-account...
https://community.ebay.com/t5/My-Account/I-need-some-help-with-this-situation/m-p/29144805/highlight...
https://community.ebay.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?filter=authorId&q=hata&sort_by=-topicPos...

[berserkerplanet]

>>Brilliant, thanks so much! It kicked me into a category that only had new items

You are very welcome.

There are ways to work around it happening. The first already mentioned is to just add a nonsense exclusion term to your search terms.

Another way is to use the Redirector addon in Firefox, Chrome, or others with an appropriate redirection rule to handle it, or start searches with a custom bookmark or bookmarklet that has appropriate parameters embedded to bend eBay search to your will.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Bidding-Buying/is-there-a-way-to-stop-ebay-from-automatically-changing...
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Bug-found-when-clicking-on-See-Other-Items-or-Seller-...

[etrusca]

For the past few days I have noticed when I try to search for something the "best match" with items ending soonest no longer is at the top of the page - it isnt until you get into a list of items that it might reappear

Althought i dont think I am in any kind of beta test I do find it quite interesting that another page definer

is how many items box at the bottom of the page LR - For years I have had a random switch where sometimes

it shows 50/100/ 200 or 48/96 so on - I wasnt out of seller hub nor in classic view - I dont know how Ebay can flop me around like this - its most discouraging - I felt like it was tied to the awful search results I got today where little of what I asked came up - as if it totally didnt understand a simple search - it asked to take words out like silverplate?? !!!! We're done for - my work around is now to go to the lefthand margin and click on the actual category I want (or each) and hope that it is better matched within it - God only knows what I am missing as a buyer let alone all my buyers not being able to find my own items - this certainly accounts for all of our low Sales

I wish you would submit your and Burton's brilliant observations to Ebay and really get them to take this seriously as I get the distinct impression you all understand it better than the paid techs 🙂  I have been patient since the late spring but I am at my breaking point ! Thanks for all your thoughtful sharing and wisdom.

[eburtonlab]

@etrusca

where sometimes it shows 50/100/200 or 48/96 so on

The only time that I have seen 48 items per page is when category browsing -- if you just choose a category but don't actually enter any search terms and hit "search". In that case many of the search filters won't be available, though I still see the sort by "best match" or "lowest price" options just above the listings.

When I set up a search that works for me, I usually bookmark it so that I can run it again. It's possible to customize your search options so that your default is "newly listed" or "ending soonest" etc, and up to 200 items per page. After you run a search, click on the "View" link next to the "Sort order" -- you should see a "customize" option that gives you a popup with some choices.

Sometimes when you do a lot of searching at once it is possible to set some obscure filter such as  "refurbished items only", and not notice it. Then future searches may not be showing what you intend. If you go back to the main eBay page and enter new search terms in the search bar, that should reset all your filters. Or else get in the habit, after running each search, of checking your category and sort order, and scanning the row above your search results where the filters such as price ranges and item condition are listed.

[berserkerplanet]

>>where sometimes it shows 50/100/200 or 48/96 so on

50/100/200 List view
48/96 so on Grid view

[eburtonlab]

@berserkerplanet

50/100/200 List view
48/96 so on Grid view

Ah, I never use Grid view, thanks. I suppose that if most folks use Grid view to browse categories, then the default of 48 items per page makes some sense, then.

[berserkerplanet]

Yeah, I only recognized it because I got plonked into a grid view while looking into something a while back, and was annoyed at the 48 per page.

Seems like I'm seeing it more often lately.

I hate grid view and get peeved at websites that default to it, and then revert back to it when you change some other filter.

[etrusca]

thank you very much Burton for your thoughtful detailed reply - feel like an idiot - been staring at these screens too long - I think I knew the difference once upon a time but like our friend mentioned its switching on its own - I dont actively seek grid view - instability in site.  When I tried to actual do a general search top of Community Forum page in main search window the Categories are locked - so had to get out go back into my Ebay and start anew

Clearly there are some roadblocks here and there but I do have the defaults set they just dont always hold or do when I dont want them as it did "lock in" my previous search to a defined category even when I didnt want it.

I tried various angles and then subsequent searches wouldnt keep the filters. Finally got it to work but it did add more items in that werent showing before - thank you for reminding me I really have to double check all the settings when viewing the results. This old dog can learn new tricks if she sits long enough to look and not keep barking !:) I just dont think like a computer I am too literal & pragmatic - I was never good at word problems I knew the answer but didnt like explaining the math! I have Selling Mgr Pro still as an extra on purpose- I dont know if that could possible influence my computer's behavior - I do know that it is irritating to still have Classic view accessible as yet another version yet this is the only way to preserve the watch list so for that I am grateful. 

[etrusca]

see reply below - definitely happening to me a lot yesterday.
thank you both for your asute observations - you'd think after 20 yrs on Ebay I would get it
but my brain is on overload trying to keep up with different versions as my normal brain just expects one fully functional streamline system which clearly this is not - too much to remember to evoke full functionality in my humble opinion.

[berserkerplanet]

I've been on eBay for almost 20 years and I don't get it - especially recently. There are a dozen variations of search running around that seem to depend on category, and other things I haven't puzzled out yet.

You can start searches from bookmarked base searches to mitigate some of it. If a bookmarked search has &_dmd=1 tacked onto the URL, it will mostly stay in list view. Mostly. Add &_sop=15 and it will stay "Price+Shipping:Lowest first". etc

[smdfreightco]

This is the 2nd day in a row I cannot list on ebay. I continue to get "Fix connection" problems. Now I cannot sign in. I had to google search to get this page.. 01/14/2019... I will close the door on my way out of this mess.