eBay search results are now displaying the generic word 'Seller' instead of the specific Seller IDs

[etonishar]

Hello,

Starting from today ebay Search Results no longer showing Seller ID, only generic word "Seller". Is it a technical issue or intentional change? Is it a technical issue or intentional change?

Thank you.

[ltldpr]

---

@revenue-collector wrote:

From what I posted in a different thread:

This is completely bizarre.

I have:

1. In Chrome (for the second time) cleared cache, deleted ALL cookies, restarted computer, and tried Incognito window from both authenticated (logged in) and nonauthenticated states. Cannot get sellers to appear.

2. Tried in Firefox using a different eBay account. Deleted cache and cookies. Cannot get sellers to appear.

3. In Microsoft Edge (which I *NEVER* use for anything) I can see the sellers, both anonymously, and logged into my primary account.

So maybe this is idiotically predicated upon browser user-agent rather than anything in cookies or cache?

What a mess.

---

I just got the same thing with Edge vs Chrome. Couldn't get the same "items" in the exact same search, but we know that's on purpose for some very strange reason that only eBay knows.

EDGE:

CHROME: 

[readabouthorses]

I'm not seeing the seller ID in Firefox. Checked Edge, which I never use for anything, and I don't see the seller IDs there either.

I did alert Ebay for Business Facebook about this yesterday but all they wanted to do was verify my account. I don't see any input from the eBay people who were alerted either.

[deltilogical]

Folks this is a feature.  You don't need to know from who you are buying.    You might start choosing to not buy from China etc. 

[revenue-collector]

Yeah, the silence from eBay personnel despite being tagged is telling. Another stealth manipulation eff-up by eBay powers that be.

After 26 years on the platform, this may enough to drive me to hang it up. If I can't see at-a-glance who I'm buying from, whom I can combine purchases with easily, and who I've bought from previously, it's no longer worth it.

When you make buying difficult, buyers go elsewhere or just stop buying.

[eburtonlab]

The fact that there are users that can see seller usernames in one browser and not another indicates that eBay is still delivering seller username information in search results, but those usernames are not always being displayed properly.

The fact that some users are able to erase cache and delete cookies, restart a browser and have seller usernames reappear in search means that eBay has not appreciably changed how search works, but something about browser history affects how search results are displayed.

If eBay no longer wanted users searching to see seller usernames in search results, eBay could simply and entirely stop providing any username data in the search, and then no users would see seller usernames from that point on. The fact that this has not happened indicates to me that eBay is not intentionally withholding seller usernames as a planned policy decision, which makes sense, since that would be a monumentally stupid and self-defeating thing for eBay to suddenly do on purpose after more than twenty-five years.

Likely eBay has tinkered with the page layout or format, and as an unintended side effect some users in some browsers are no longer seeing seller usernames displayed properly. Like any eBay change, this may be appearing to different users at different times, or it may be part of a test that only affects certain accounts. Changes may appear or disappear as pages are loaded or as cache and cookie data is erased or overwritten, or as further layout changes are made. eBay may actually be trying to undo recent changes, and this, ironically, may introduce new problems for users that have, up until this point, not experienced this issue.

eBay community team members are tagged far more often than they respond, and when they do respond it is often to say that they are waiting to hear back from some particular department for further official clarification -- so not much of a conclusion can be drawn from a lack of response in this situation.

[maxus-boostus]

I guess it's another case of lets change something so we can substantiate our jobs. Just imaging if they got it right first time they would be off home without any pay.

I've tried google chrome / Brave browser and Firefox. Firefox is the only one that shows Seller IDs for me.

I guess i'ts similar to the youtube removing dislikes so you are blinkered to the full picture.

Shame i'ts all down hill from here. 🙂

[transamcc]

It is also INACCURATE. This listing in search output says 0% positive feedback for seller, but if one goes to the listing they actually are 99.5% positive.

[serf_tide]

It's not in the page response at all it's been intentionally removed on a per account basis as a test or a staggered rollout (I hope it's just a test)  This is literally a case of someone thinking they're running a social media site and optimizing the page for time spent on site vs time to sale conversion. 

Erasing cookies, incognito, logging out and in, changing computers, changing ip addresses, changing browsers, changing physical location has no effect as long as i log in, but if i log out it sometimes shows the old way and sometimes new.  The sad part is the analytics will show my buying has not decreased and my time on site has quadrupled.

stop carrying water for ebay this is not one of their normal screw ups it's in the actual returned base page just like removing the tracking numbers from purchase history pages was and it's cleanly targeted with cache invalidations.

[cressautomation]

It is not on a "per account basis."  I can log into the same account on different computers and get different results. 

This led me to try VPN, but that doesn't seem to make any difference.  I tried four continents and deleted cookies between them.  I have also tried the previous tests mentioned in this thread.  

[serf_tide]

Sorry I didn't mean all cases are per account but mine definitely is it persists across everything but only once logged in before logging in i get either version but after logging in i universally get the same thing on ebay.com

edit: found a way to make it work on one of my machines, set a custom user agent to a nonsense value in firefox, for instance the user agent string "face" just confuses it and sends the original version

this obviously won't last but at least lets me see what i need to see

[cressautomation]

I started another thread before seeing this one.  On that one, eburtonlab suggested deleting the cookies from ebay solely after deleting the en mass as usual.  I tried this and it worked for me.  Reposting here for all those following this thread.  Picture of how to get there on chrome.

[transamcc]

One reason for seeing widely varying results when on a site is the SERVER FARM. I do not know how big it is at eBay but from 50 years of computer experience I KNOW it is not one server but many. Until a software change, patch or update is synced across all the servers, one can log out, log in and randomly come through a different server, which gives normal results because it is not yet corrupted by the ill conceived program changes. We encountered this daily a few years ago  when eBay still admitted they were doing "beta" tests on software changes and even used the term myebay beta in one's logon url page. How quickly people forget when the host site fails to inform us anymore about their intent.

[revenue-collector]

From the screenshot, it appears that you're on a mobile device. It may work there, but same approach did not work (for me at least) on desktop.

[revenue-collector]

After more experimentation, I can confirm that the problem lies with whatever browser-specific rendering they have implemented, as I can turn on or off the display of seller IDs by using a user-agent spoofing extension.

On this computer at least, no user-agents for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Safari, or IE in any variant (desktop, mobile, tablet) display the seller IDs. However, if I select either of the following user-agents, I get the seller IDs back:

Microsoft Edge - (EdgeHTML) - Xbox

ChatGPT-User

I've been able to flip back and forth between showing and not showing seller IDs at will, so it's not tied to cookies, cache, or authentication status.

Somebody on the dev team effed up...

[brandonsvsu]

Here's my rendering comparison (Firefox vs. Chrome) for the same item.  Leave it to ebay to clutter the search results with more words yet somehow still provide less information.  Also, moving the condition (in this case, brand new) from right under the item title to elsewhere is akin to moving a key on a keyboard - I'm so used to glancing there that I feel it takes me more time now to spot that.