Where's my Search Bar?

[hartungcards]

So yesterday, I noticed that the geniuses in the eBay tech department rolled out a "new and improved" version of my items for sale, and everyone else's I would assume.  It seemed to work ok, which was a little surprising considering their track record.

As of today, the search bar has vanished on my own listings, although it was there yesterday.  I still see it on some other seller's listings, but it's gone to eBay technical heaven on mine.  This is at the least  annoying, and at the most, a major hindrance to finding something in my own inventory.  Oh did I mention it's a serious problem for both me and anyone trying to find something in particular to buy in my inventory?

Thanks again eBay, for your hopeless technical incompetence and for making life more difficuct for sellers and buyers alike.

[wastingtime101]

OK, thanks. As these threads keep appearing we'll have to tell people to report the problem.

Was confused initially because the alert # matched the one posted on the CA site, but didn't match the issue.

[reabus]

Yep same here. I sell/list 150 to 300 items month no store. About 5 or 6 days ago I lost the option to go to my items listed page and click the top search bar and search only my listed items. It now takes me out to Ebay world of thousands of items. This is a big problem I have had one buyer tell me he couldn't search using a keywords just for for my listed items. I called Ebay's so called support 4 times and finally the person who had no idea what I was trying to get fixed because they have never even been on Ebay told me she would create a work ticket. Then I ask for the work ticket number then she hung up on me or cut me off. This is driving me Crazy! HELP!

[krazzykats]

If you list over 250 items a month, why don't you have a store? 

I see several complaints from sellers here that have over 250 items listed, without a store.  Why?

Insertion fees

Every month, you get up to 250 zero insertion fee listings, or more if you have an eBay Store. Learn more about how zero insertion fee listings work, including the terms and exclusions for those listings.

Selling fees | eBay

[pjcdn2005]

@wastingtime101 

I guess that I am just naive but I really don’t understand why things work as they do.   This problem was reported at least a week ago.   I would have thought that if it is something that was changed by mistake that they would fix it without people having to report it.  Whether or not it is reported by xx amount of people, it affects a huge amount of buyers and sellers.   

Has it even been confirmed whether or not this was an intentional change?

[wastingtime101]

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:

1. I would have thought that if it is something that was changed by mistake that they would fix it without people having to report it.

2. Has it even been confirmed whether or not this was an intentional change?

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1. I agree!

2. No, it has not. We've asked a few times but nothing 'firm' other than advising us to report the issue. But if the change was intentional then reporting is a waste of everyone's time and CS resources.

So ... 🤷

[buyselljack2016]

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@reabus wrote:

Yep same here. I sell/list 150 to 300 items month no store. About 5 or 6 days ago I lost the option to go to my items listed page and click the top search bar and search only my listed items. It now takes me out to Ebay world of thousands of items. This is a big problem I have had one buyer tell me he couldn't search using a keywords just for for my listed items. I called Ebay's so called support 4 times and finally the person who had no idea what I was trying to get fixed because they have never even been on Ebay told me she would create a work ticket. Then I ask for the work ticket number then she hung up on me or cut me off. This is driving me Crazy! HELP!

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And there in lies a big hole in the "report this problem" for many things on eBay.  All you are going to get is "off-shore CS", and as this is not an known issue with an "eBay approved CS scripted response", it is like _ _ _ _ _ _ _ in the wind.  You will just get whatever response has worked in the past to get on to the next call. "Create a work ticket", "I will make a note on your account"  and "please wait 24-72 hours" are probably the top 3 CS responses to get a buyer/seller off the phone.

Not the  off-shore CSR's fault. In many instances, they are not at the level to be able to assist. Have no authority/ability to correct anything even if thy understand the issue. They are sometimes not provided with the information needed to assist. I am quite surprised that it took 4 calls before getting that "ticket" response. I am not surprised that the call somehow got disconnected.

Until there is an actual ticket # created/shared with us, reporting borders on uselessness.

[buyselljack2016]

There are many things that those CS folks can be helpful with, but the "glitch (IT coding issue)  of the day/week" is generally an unproductive call.

To note.........................  a ticket" has been opened from the "blue" end, but we are not given the # that it seems would be the ideal spot to provide buyer/seller #'s that would justify the issue rising up a bit in the "priority" chain.

[buyselljack2016]

Has it even been confirmed whether or not this was an intentional change?

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One has to believe that this was unintentional. It can have very little in the way of positive results for eBay, and absolute zero positive for buyers/sellers.

eBay making a change such as this intentionally would fall into the deep abyss of utter foolishness.

Search can already be problematic.

The lack of this ability to search can only complicate things more.

Off go the buyers to other venues where they can find things. Perhaps sellers leaving as well.

I always say there are more sellers with stuff to sell than buyers to buy, but if you poke enough holes in the barrel, .................................... eventually the water level gets low.

[reabus]

As of this morning 1/21/23 Still NO WAY to search my listed items other than using the "Advanced Search" Page. This method is OK for me to use just to clean up items or make changes, but a buyer or just someone browsing will not go through the trouble. I did a live chat with CS again yesterday and they told me they put in a ticket for it again. I guess everyone needs to report it. Maybe the Squeaky Wheel will get some grease!

[frank.krieger]

Hi folks,

Yes, this removal of the "sub-search bar" for searching specific sellers is a pretty big disaster.  Basically, if you don't have an eBay store, you're buyers end up using the main search bar which defaults back to searching all of eBay.

From a desktop computer, I know there is the option of using advanced search, and then clicking on  "by seller", and then checking off "only show items from" and "include" and then typing in the seller ID.  But, I would think very few buyers would ever bother doing that.

I wish I could offer some helpful advice, at least maybe I can offer some "techie advice".

If you want to search records for a specific seller ID, you can use this "standard" URL.

I'll use my own ID as an example:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?&_ssn=frank.krieger

To explain, for the seller ID, eBay is using the HTML search tag of "SSN" ... the ampersand plus underscore [&_] is used to link different search parameters.
If you want to add a specific keyword to this search, eBay is using the HTML search tag of "KW".

As an example, if I want to search for my own listings which contain the keyword "tarzan" here is what I would add to the original search URL above:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?&_ssn=frank.krieger&_kw=tarzan

So, to summarize, start with the basic search URL:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?

Then, add search tag connectors using "&_" appersand + underscore
ssn will be your eBay ID
kw will be your search keyword (or parameter).

There are more tags for sorting and number of items per page, but I don't want to make it too complicated for folks.

[dhbookds]

devon@ebay 

sheila@ebay 

@wastingtime101 

Isn't this a bit ridiculous?  You've got a glitch/anomaly that is easily reproducible by ANYONE, simply by checking a non store seller..........one that has been reported on the Canadian board and has a "ticket".  You've got a Tech board on .com that has reports that are useless.......because a phone is necessary to CS to get a ticket?  What is this board for............it's totally  useless........in fact it's probably a deterrent to people because they THINK posting here does some good to get something done........so they DON'T call CS.......

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devon@ebay wrote:

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

I'm confused devon@ebay because the item on the tech board with ALERT 14287 appears to be completely unrelated to the issue at hand.

This thread (and at least a dozen others I've seen) are about eBay removing the seller-specific search option for non-store accounts. Yet the info posted on the pinned thread says:

Member unable to find the item using keyword in search (January 18, 2023)
Reference ID: ALERT14287

Provide Member ID:

Provide Item number:

Can you check to see if there's either:

a) a ticket that relates to the issue being discussed in this thread or 

b) check with the appropriate eBay team to find out if this is an intentional design change or a glitch?

Thanks in advance for whatever info you can find out.

FYI @pjcdn2005  @dhbookds 

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@wastingtime101 I went through all of our reported sitewide tickets and posted the newest ones that have been reported. There has not been any open for the search bar issue and I have opened a ticket on my end for this. I recommend all members that are running into this to reach out to customer support to have a ticket created for their account. The more tickets that are created for this issue, the higher the priority it will become and will have a sitewide ticket I can share with everyone here. 

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[reabus]

At this point I would just like to know if it intentional to try to push everyone to a store. I am the person a store has no benefit for me. I understand we are all different. I may list 100 items I may list 250. I get those FREE and don't have anything else to worry about. I would have to use a starter store and i really see no benefit in it for me! Hey, I got a GREAT solution just fix it back so it works for everyone!

  With that said it all worked just fine up until this month so why or what have they done this for. No way to search my items but most important no way for a buyer to search is not cool at all.

 Everyone it effects just keep calling it in not doing anything will never get any result from these people.

[wastingtime101]

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@dhbookds wrote:

Isn't this a bit ridiculous?  You've got a glitch/anomaly that is easily reproducible by ANYONE, simply by checking a non store seller..........one that has been reported on the Canadian board and has a "ticket".  You've got a Tech board on .com that has reports that are useless.......because a phone is necessary to CS to get a ticket?  What is this board for............it's totally  useless........in fact it's probably a deterrent to people because they THINK posting here does some good to get something done........so they DON'T call CS.......

I had this working theory @dhbookds 

- If the change was unintentional and a direct result of the recent update to that page’s layout, eBay would fix it on their own and it would be a waste of our time and CS resources to report it. (I was holding out hope this was the case and @eburtonlab's confidence this was not an intended change helped.)

- If the change was a deliberate part of the recent update to that page’s layout, perhaps we were being told to report it to CS because a certain number of complaints might get eBay to add it back? Yeah, that theory is thin but not baseless..

- If the change was one of the usual glitches caused by something unrelated to the page’s layout then eBay might not take action unless enough reports generated a site-wide ticket because even though it’s an important feature, it’s not “essential” in the way something like inability to checkout or buy shipping labels would be.

Like I said, just a working theory and not based on anything too concrete, but since Devon never confirmed whether it was a glitch, intended change or unintended change - all he said was report to CS - we were in the dark on this.

But now I’m leaning towards that first part of my theory being not so far off base, because the search bar is back on non-store accounts.

Also - that ticket number posted on the .ca board we later discovered was not related to this issue.

@pjcdn2005 I know you've been tracking this and @hartungcards this was your OP so wanted to make sure you were alerted to the search bar returning.

[dhbookds]

@wastingtime101   thanks for posting....... good to know.   I would also point out that the option to hide a price on packing slips (gift option) seems also to be working now.  Incorrect SALE date on emails is still incorrect.  Neither of those posts on this (tech) board ever received an acknowledgement......  much less a ticket........

 The technical Issue reporting "process" still needs to be rethought, in my opinion. 

[reabus]

All good I got a "my listed items search bar" last night. Thanks to all.