Another search non-improvement

[a-lotta-stuff]

Notice that last night. What once was this:

Is now this:

Apparently the search mismanagement team - Laverne and Curly  - decided that removing the ability to presort by categories was an improvement.

[theteamsetguy]

@a-lotta-stuff ,

Use the item specifics boxes on the left side of the screen to hone in on your searches.

[a-lotta-stuff]

Yes we know that's there on the other side of the search box, but why didn't they take that away and leave the one right next to the search button.

Or more importantly why are they wasting time with this when yesterday a search - with a 'small' brand name and the words 'coffee mug' in the terms and set to collectables - brought back coffee mugs ... and t-shirts and hats and playing cards and a car door handle and just about everything but a live duck.

Eventually after removing coffee and a few clicks on the left it showed the six mugs with only a few wrong returns.

AND it's only showing like this on the firefox main browser page and not the private window one.

[toomuchstuffagain35]

So I assume with this new (unannounced) non improvement a search will go to ALL categories first? Or will they direct to it the category they deem most "relevant"?

[valueaddedresource]

This seems like something that could possibly be a browser or display issue.

It's normal for eBay to switch to that display when the browser is changed to a smaller size as part of the dynamic design of the page.

For example, my current view when logged in on Firefox with browser window full size:

And with the search bar truncated/not showing category selection when reducing the window size:

Your pictures look like the browser is the same size in both, so I understand your situation is different, this is just to illustrate that the search bar appearing that way in some situations isn't new.

I'm not able to to replicate getting that view in a full size browser window in either FireFox or Chrome, testing both logged in and incognito.

If you haven't tried the usual clear cache and cookies and restart the browser advice, I'd start there. 

If it continues after that, it's possible eBay may be doing A/B split testing to see how often users preselect the category in the search bar vs using the other filter options.

[toomuchstuffagain35]

I have it in FF and Chrome as of last night and I've changed no settings.

eta: ofgs, now it's changed in FF - all I get is the blue search button and the advanced has vanished.

[diannew7777]

I've got the same problem and trying to figure out why it changed.

[hartungcards]

The tech department couldn't find anything else to "improve" this week.

[tobaccocardyahoo]

I still have ability to search by category at the top. Using the latest Firefox.

Perhaps the problem is being rolled out to everyone, or perhaps it is an A-B test.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@a-lotta-stuff wrote:

Notice that last night. What once was this:

Is now this:

Apparently the search mismanagement team - Laverne and Curly  - decided that removing the ability to presort by categories was an improvement.

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@a-lotta-stuff 

When you click on advanced does it give you the option to select all categories? Just tested mine and it is available. My current view is all categories in Chrome.

-Lotz

[jitterbug2003]

Mines not. I can get to music but it's not there. I wonder how many people are going to assume the music category is gone?  Actually I get tired of looking for vinyl and no matter what I end up in cd's.

[valueaddedresource]

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@toomuchstuffagain35 wrote:

I have it in FF and Chrome as of last night and I've changed no settings.

eta: ofgs, now it's changed in FF - all I get is the blue search button and the advanced has vanished.

---

I'm now seeing it in FireFox incognito, but still also have advanced option.

[toomuchstuffagain35]

I tried reducing the screen size down to 75% and advanced is definitely not there.

I've been having issues with having to scroll across ever since they changed the page sizes to not totally fit the screen anymore. Oh but they DID give them all rounded corners, that was quite the improvement (not).

Why don't they go find something that's actually broken and fix THAT? Shouldn't be hard, there's plenty of broken stuff to go around on this site.

[blurryrobot]

I am pretty certain that Ebay is doing lots of  screwing around with code over the past several days.   Lots of strange behavior.   

[wastingtime101]

I noticed the change this morning on 2 out of 3 browsers tested.

For me it's a temporary visual distraction until I get used to the small blue dot surrounded by white. Function for me isn't seriously affected because typically I default my search to all categories, then narrow down on the left. I do have a few saved searches that are category-specific to save time on things I look for more regularly.