Do you change your categories?

[tamaralea]

I've been trying to sell an item for over a year.  I finally changed the category and it sold right away.  If eBay didn't feel the need to add a category when someone searches key words, this wouldn't be an issue.  When I'm buying, I hate that I always have to manually put in "all categories" every time I search.  I doubt most buyers do this, so changing your categories may help on some items.  

[rockusone]

That's odd, my search bar is always set on 'all categories' by default. Don't know it could be changed as a default.

[mam98031]

@tamaralea 

What do you see when you look at your search bar?  Is it different than the pic below?

[luckythewinner]

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@mam98031 wrote:

@tamaralea 

What do you see when you look at your search bar?  Is it different than the pic below?

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The problem does not happen before you search .... it happens after you search.

Go to a blank eBay page with "All Categories" selected and type the word "doll". You will see that the category is no longer "All Categories" because eBay switches it automatically to "Dolls & Bears > Dolls".

If your item is not in the same category that eBay chooses, most buyers will not notice and thus will not see your item.

[tamaralea]

Thank you, lucky.  You described it perfectly.  Maybe sellers aren't noticing it either.

[coolections]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

@tamaralea 

What do you see when you look at your search bar?  Is it different than the pic below?

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The problem does not happen before you search .... it happens after you search.

Go to a blank eBay page with "All Categories" selected and type the word "doll". You will see that the category is no longer "All Categories" because eBay switches it automatically to "Dolls & Bears > Dolls".

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I just typed doll.   "ALL" categories shown before hitting search.    "ALL" categories shown after hitting search. The results showed 1.5 million dolls. It gives me options under the heading to narrow it down by choosing sub categories if I want.

[mam98031]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

@tamaralea 

What do you see when you look at your search bar?  Is it different than the pic below?

---

The problem does not happen before you search .... it happens after you search.

Go to a blank eBay page with "All Categories" selected and type the word "doll". You will see that the category is no longer "All Categories" because eBay switches it automatically to "Dolls & Bears > Dolls".

If your item is not in the same category that eBay chooses, most buyers will not notice and thus will not see your item.

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Seems like this is not a glitch, but a "feature" as it doesn't happen on every search.  I did get the same result you did when doing "doll" in the search.  But I tried other things to search for and it didn't.  

That is completely annoying to say the least.  It appears I haven't noticed it before because whatever I'm searching for hasn't qualified for them to push me into a specific  category before.  

[eburtonlab]

@coolections 

I just typed doll. "ALL" categories shown before hitting search. "ALL" categories shown after hitting search. The results showed 1.5 million dolls.

Make sure the page is loading completely and check the category again. When I search doll from the main eBay page, I wind up with 1.5 million results in the "Dolls & Bears > Dolls" category. If I change the category to "All Categories" and search again, I get 3 million doll results in all categories.

At one point this was known as "implicit category navigation", but now it is just under the general "search expansion" feature. Here is an old page from eBay Singapore about how "search expansion" is supposed to work:

https://www.ebay.com.sg/pages/help/search/expanding.html

Adding an exclusion term, using quotes or using parentheses to search conditional terms (this "or" that) in your search will bypass the "search expansion" feature entirely. So if you want to avoid being steered into a particular category, try adding a nonsense exclusion term to your search, like -octopus.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

Two thoughts. First the one Mam already covered. We have been talking for a couple of years now that Ebay funnels buyers into specific categories when they search. That is why we always recommend sellers go incognito and see where Ebay throws them on a keyword search for their item.  Buyers think they're searching all categories but Ebay changes the category in the middle of the search, they're helpful that way. It's called Intelligent Navigation or something like that. Part of the dumbing down of America where they think buyers cannot mentally process more than a few results.

Second and new is the whole Marketplace Facilitator thing. Ebay is charging sales tax according to the first category used on the listing. So if you list golf shorts under sporting goods>clothing, the buyer will be charged sales tax even if clothing is exempt from taxes in their State. I would avoid putting clothing anywhere that isn't a clothing rooted category.