eBay motors searching by part number has changed

[shostang]

In the past few days I have noticed that the search function in eBay motors has been showing many more results. In the past I could search for a specific part number (such as F75B-14B205-MB) and only results with this specific number (an exact match) would be found. I did a search a few moments ago, with 167 listings shown. The problem is that most of these listings are not an exact match, only a portion of the part number matches. This creates many, many more listings to search through to find a match. If I search for the same thing in quotation marks "F75B-14B205-MB" there are only 14 listings shown, and only listings which are an exact match are shown. I sell on eBay Motors and suspect that this is costing me sales because potential buyers are confused by the plethora of search results. Is anyone else experiencing this, or possibly found a resolution?

[dobry1974]

I'm a used auto parts re-seller and I too have noticed when I search for either my items or identical items to price out market value, I get all sorts of other vehicle make / models.  Even if I put in specifically 2006 acura TL driver door mirror I get everything from 1999 to 2011 models year results and other models such as TSX, RL, MDX.  It's absurd and my sales have dropped the last month too.  Ebay needs to fix this.  And - this is with all my listings having vehicle compatibility specifically listed.   EBAY FIX THIS 

[shostang]

I am having the same issues as you. Oddly enough, I discovered that the issue does not happen on the eBay mobile app. I just searched on my PC for F75B-14B205-MB, with 157 results, most of which match only a portion of the part number. On the app, the same search shows only 15 results, with all being a perfect match.

[eburtonlab]

@shostang 

eBay may have changed some aspect of the search, or changed the way that keyword substitutions work. There does seem to be a large uptick in search complaints lately.

When I search for "F75B-14B205-MB" (without quotes) I get 167 results, most of which appear to be only partial matches.

If I search "F75B-14B205-MB" (in quotes this time) I get 15 results, which appear to be exact matches.

So if you are seeing many results which are not exact matches of one of your search terms, try putting that term in quotes.

[shostang]

Yes, I realize that the quotation Mark's will narrow the search. My concern is that prospective buyers do not know this, and are seeing far too many results that are not a match, and I suspect I am losing sales because of this.

[eburtonlab]

@dobry1974 

The problem with the search for "2006 acura TL driver door mirror" (without quotes) seems to be related to the year -- other non-2006 years are included in the search results.

By searching for:

"2006" acura TL driver door mirror

with the year in quotes, those non-2006 entries are eliminated. However, with the exact match you will miss out on listings with only "06" in the title, so a better search might be:

("2006","06") acura TL driver door mirror

which will match either 2006 or 06 in the title. Of course sometimes model years are listed in ranges (like 04-06), so if you are searching for an 05 you have to take this into consideration -- perhaps search for ("04","05","06","2004","2005","2006") in that case.

[eburtonlab]

@shostang 

Yes, I realize that the quotation Mark's will narrow the search. My concern is that prospective buyers do not know this, and are seeing far too many results that are not a match, and I suspect I am losing sales because of this.

That is an entirely reasonable concern.

The fact that the search differs between browser and app makes me think that this was an unforeseen and unintended effect rather than a planned result. Perhaps eBay will correct it.

[dobry1974]

thanks for the discussion guys / gals.

I agree - expecting users to use quotations to narrow down their search function is not going to happen.

I'm going to try to call ebay today and see if they can't get their technical people on this, or at least be aware of this and reference this thread that is now going on

[sellyouritem]

yes, I'm getting exact problem and I called eBay customer service and I describe problem to them but unfortunately they said "there is no problem in our search engine" please everyone should call them and keep pressure on them till they fix problem.

[used.autoparts]

I called them yesterday and basically got nowhere with the customer service rep.

This explains why I was selling 25 items a day and now I am lucky if I have 3 sales a day.   And my return rate is up crazy too.

[industrialsolutionsauthority]

This exact anomaly is not limited to ebay motors. The same problem is happening in the industrial side as well. When I search for a specific part number it will generate hundreds of results, most of which are NOT the exact part number. This problem just started on Monday 5/13/19. I check exact part numbers every day during the week and this is the first time in years that I cannot get exact matches. Any ebay associate that tells you there is not problem with this is either ignorant or it is a scripted response. None of my customers can find exactly what they are looking for and sales have been affected. This hurts ebay as much as us, if not more. I expected the issue to be resolved by now without having to call and point this out to them. I may have to do just that. 

Of course you can click on advanced search and get exact matches by clicking on "exact words, exact order" or "exact words,  any order" That helps me but 99.9% of my potential customers do not know this. This needs attention ebay.

[shostang]

Just spoke to an eBay rep who gave me all kinds of excuses as to why this is happening. First she told me that many of the mismatched search results show up because the sellers have chosen the "Promoted Listings" options, which of course costs more for each listing. She basically implied that if paid more to use this options, buyers could more easily find my listings. What a bunch of **bleep**!! She then said that the problem happens because many sellers have listed their items under the wrong category. Again, a bunch of **bleep**, all of these search results appear under Car and Truck Parts, as they should. When asked why the eBay desktop app shows 177 search results while the eBay mobile app only shows 15, her response was that the two apps are different and that there is sometimes some latency when updates or changes are made. What?? The problem is mis-matched part numbers showing up when searching for a specific part number. I tried to explain this multiple times, and received the same responses. I asked numerous times to speak to a supervisor and was brushed off, but finally the rep told me that her supervisor was currently busy and would call me back within 30 minutes. Will let everyone know what happens. 

[industrialsolutionsauthority]

Are you using Internet Explorer? I just switched from IE to Chrome and it brought up the correct number of results as it used to. I do remember seeing that Ebay no longer supports IE and this could possibly be a fallout issue from this. Im hoping that not many of my potential customers are using IE because there is no way they will figure out this issue on their own. I think I saw that 10% of ebay users use IE.

[eburtonlab]

@industrialsolutionsauthority 

I just switched from IE to Chrome and it brought up the correct number of results as it used to.

I think eBay has changed the behavior of the search substitutions back to the way it was before the last update; I just checked the part number from the original post and came up with 15 results in Firefox and Chrome. Microsoft Edge gave me 177 results until I cleared the cache and ran the search again: then 15 results.

[shostang]

I use Chrome exclusively. I was able to speak to an eBay supervisor earlier today who was very helpful. She did witness the exact scenario I described and created a trouble ticket for the issue, which she said would be sent to eBay's IT department. No solution yet, but at least this person understood the issue and seemed willing to help. She told me to expect an answer by Monday. Will see what happens.