Categories? POOF

[mrgoodlite]

What fresh hell is this mess.  the categories are gone, everything is broad, no more specifics.  i sell most in collectibles/holiday seasonal/christmas/vintage pre 1946/then a category.  this is all gone today and so will the buyers,  collectors will not sit there and search or read 20,000 listings.  everyone reads newly listed.  period.  WE ARE DOOMED

[skeletonstore]

There is no magic available for that.  All periodicals had a date and certain other unique item specific characteristics that are now essential to filtering things out.  All that is gone.  Unless all the dates were the same there is no solution and that's just for 1 crucial item specific.  Basically all our items have now been rendered,  not as described.  

[skeletonstore]

I noticed now for my Halloween Horror props I can list them in bereavement aids or something.  That should be interesting.  Seeing as how the search engine is not even close to functioning normally if it ever did.  

[skeletonstore]

I have some glass eyes available(animal)and I now have the option of listing them in holiday&seasonal/funerary appointments

[yuzuha]

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@coffeebean832 wrote:

I did wonder if the change to books was intended to clean up the cookbook category mess. Instead they'll have just one Books category with subcategory designations moved into item specifics.

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Yeah, I notice they did something similar to a bunch of my categories and it's a huge improvement-- for example, I sell a lot of Hello Kitty-related stuff and the categories for that used to be an absolute nightmare. Do I list it under the Hello Kitty section of the Sanrio category? Do I list it under the Hello Kitty section of the Collectibles/Animation category? Or the Hello Kitty section of the toys category? Which one is the "proper" category to get it in front of the most Hello Kitty buyers? It was a mess.

Not to mention that it actually made things a lot harder for buyers, too, as a lot of the categories weren't intuitive.

[myboardid]

katzrul15 - Those are "additional" item specifics, not even recommended and definitely not required.  If I were you I would change them slowly or not even bother to fill them out at all.

[katzrul15]

Agreed on some, but when you go to the listing, even the "brand" drop down box is empty.

It no longer says Hallmark - have to re-choose it.  All my bundles - empty description boxes.

Series - nothing to choose from that is even the norm or makes any sense.

Tried to revise an action figure.  Wants to know what rapper or if Spike Lee applies.  Yes, on this G1 metal transformer, sure.

Hopefully the idiots ebay employs do not moonlight as air traffic controllers. 

[skeletonstore]

Customer is going to start a SNAD by indicating he did not think the Sea Monkey advertisements found in comic books were erotic enough.  

[iart]

I think you understand it exactly.

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@gibsonbk wrote:

I have been convinced for a long time that all these changes are psychological war on the sellers.  If you spend 3 hours fixing your listing on ebay that is 3 hours you do not spend listing your items on any other site.  This latest change is a great example.  Nothing but frustrated sellers and ebay seems to like it that way.  I understand their business plan less and less lately. 

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[katzrul15]

No sheet!  That is too funny.

The 1pm e-bay discussion pinned at the landing page should be lively today.  Lmao!

[brittanie@ebay]

Hi @coffeebean832 -  Taking a look into this, this isn't a tech issue. The items that are appearing under 'Skeleton' in the search results when 'All' categories is selected have the 'skeleton' keyword in the title.

In this case, there are several watches that are sponsored that have the keyword, and that's why they're appearing in those sponsored slots.

When buyers search for a very broad search term like this, using the categories and other parameters on the left side are going to help them narrow down what they are actually looking for, because the keyword search is going to return anything with the keyword in it.

[coffeebean832]

brittanie@ebay- Thanks, but I wasn't taking an issue with items appearing in search results. Please re-read my post- the issue is a typo that needs to be fixed in the left hand category filters. It says PROBS when it should say PROPS. There's a screenshot in post 27 with the typo circled.

[deanb]

I collect comic books. Among others, Superman from the 1940s. This used to fall under Collectibles/comics/golden age comics. On any given day I could find around five or six issues I was looking for. Same search with the new broad categories and I get over 14,000 things. Not just comics, but things related to comics. 
Essentially, the same search could be done without the categories and get a similar result. 
The thing that seems to be lost is that the whole concept of categories is to limit the results to what you are looking for. Some people who don’t use or need them may not care. But if you want a specific item the are profoundly important.

the way it is now is like typing “Superman” into a google search hoping to find that one comic. Not at all likely to work.

I cannot use eBay in its current form to collect old comic books. I suspect most other collectors are in a similar predicament. 

[coffeebean832]

@deanb- There's an Era search filter on the left column. I found 488 results for Golden Age and Superman.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/259103/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=superman+comics&rt=nc&Era=Golden%2520Age%2520%...

[lantern80]

Plus they added that nonsense that they tried a couple of years ago. Identifying comics as 'NEW, LIKE NEW, Etc.' when listing. That is just not how comics work. 

[skeletonstore]

I think that was directed at me.  Last night that's what i was seeing.  It looks different now.  There were very few relative items available last night.  Filters?  Left hand side?   Most people will be shopping on a cellphone.  On the iphone i'm testing the filters are just below the 1.5m results for "Halloween"(current test). Condition is curiously the 1st visible filter and then price.  Halloween does have a 2nd hand/vintage market. It's pretty astounding what people will pay for some things.  Last thing you want is for them to start budgeting.  I would change that layout and get the buyer to where they want to be. They're searching for Halloween in this instance and people will abuse that keyword in non Halloween categories. So you have to go over to the right and click filter or all filters. Redundantly there is condition and price. Then finally Category-all categories. Now it says 2.9m results. All categories mentions 8 out of 9 non Halloween categories before it finally reaches Holiday and seasonal....PROBS(still haven't fixed the typo). I know it's not the fall but people who love Halloween shop all year long and even celebrate the half way point and host movie watch parties etc.  If someone went on Ebay looking for Halloween(they're not necessarily going to enter a specific term)they're going to get lost.  I bet I could do this with other terms not even related to my specialty but I think I've made a strong argument Ebay's design is killing sales.  Not just my sales but everyone's.  Right now i'm poorly stocked and I'm trying to sell some other things to raise money for raw materials. I'm seeing the same problems in those collectible categories that saw our item specifics deleted.  Good luck to the buyer looking around.  I can only hope going top rated in a week will get me there but I now have my doubts.  Many of my listings and others are now not as described if item specifics/condition has been tampered with.