EBAY IS JUST PLAIN " BROKEN " AND ITS OBVIOUS

[**selling**stuff**]

What is ebay going to do about this fiasco.  It's unbelievable how sales just dropped off overnight a few weeks ago, and they have not gotten any better.  I've been very successful here on ebay over the years, always have been one to just sit back and accept the changes, but it's very clear that everything is broken with this site.  Too many issues to even start naming them, but my biggest one is that of my close to 1500 listings, in a 24 hour period, by their chart, and the views my listings are getting, i'm averaging 300 views a day on all my listings, that means that only 1/5 of my listings are even being looked at each day which is just pathetic. It's never been like this, and sales are just horrible.  This is clearly an ebay problem, And not some **bleep** economy related issue. This has never happened in 20 years for me on here, and i've never been one to come here and complain at all, but something has to be done.  

[inhawaii]

---

@siamjane8 wrote:

@inhawaii No problem. here is the very first thing i tried.     search : vintage ford emergency brake handle

Ebay bay shows me 27 results- about 20 of them are actually emergency brake handles (although the # 1 spot goes to a pair of new brake rotors for a 20011 hyundai!).   I have no problem with the 27 results EXCEPT that it does not show ebay listing #275029699426.     I do not know that seller and it is not my listing but it is exactly the the e-brake handle i was looking for and it showed up on google as an ebay listing. It did NOT show up in my search results on ebay so I would have no idea it even existed for sale even though its what i want to buy!

If you want more examples - i come across this about 30x a day.

I did notice that the listing is promoted so is that the problem- the poor guy pays ebay MORE money to promote and then ebay shows me promoted brake rotors instead of his emergency brake handle? i dont know- i just know that i di not  have a chance to buy it on ebay because ebay chose not to show it to me.

Another point- there are far more than 20 vintage emergency brake handles on ebay as well

---

Poor example. Your search only contains 3 words in the title of that item number.

3 words. Of course it might not show up.

A ebay search for "1940 ford emergency hand brake" (5 matching words) brings it right up.

Knit picking. If you truly believe ebay is preventing your customers from finding/buying your items, so be it.

I'm not going to be able to change your mind.

Again, we'll agree to disagree.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

[ekmadonna]

I have ALL my photos on my computer set by oldest first. Strange how a grouping of photos and listings from a day say 5 years ago will all sell in a matter of 1 or 2 days on Ebay after sitting collecting dust for 5 years! To me that smacks of ON again OFF again search placement. sometimes lights out for long periods of time! And again like I have previously stated recently No matter what I search for doing research for new listings has been appearing in my searches even when I know there are at least 50 or so.

[siamjane8]

@inhawaii 

    Thank you - you so so eloquently proved my point. So it not ebay's fault its the buyers fault for not knowing how to search.. Perfect.

      Of course with the exact same search- the ebay item comes up on google? huh.

The point is - i did not know it was a 1940 brake handle or i could have put that info in. 

     So your position is that Google designs their search engine to find what the person searches for  but Ebay needs the buyer to match up the exact title description for an item to be found?    That kind of defeats the purpose of a search engine doesn't it.

    I would love to hear from other users if they think the search should work for how people search or if the people need to guess at least 5 matching words in the title to find anything........ of course that does not explain all the times that I get zero matches on ebay and the in the "similar items" there are exact matches to what i typed in!!!

   I know- maybe we should just type in the item # of the what we want!.......but how would we know that without a search lol- thats why its called a search engine- to help us find what we want to buy lol.

I say again- Ebay is broken.

[sakic92710]

I have no idea what you are talking about.  I could do a search for a Joe DiMaggio collector's plate & end up with 100s of listings that they consider a match because of 2 words - Joe DiMaggio.  So why wouldn't the item he seeks show up if just 3 words were a match?   😛

[americana-images]

Correct, the viewable new listings have been broken for a few weeks. I think it goes back further.About a year ago, there were 1 million+ listings for Collectables>Photographic Images/slides/negatives, now it's down to a few hundred thousand and dropping. In 2021 eBay re-did the category structure for those items and messed them up good. So when you list an item under one of those categories, then go look at the live listings, the categories are entirely different terminology (which isn't even accurate). If you search by category, the structure is the same as when a seller lists it. But in the item descriptions, they are entirely different. Also if you search by category under Collectables, there's a "Photographic Images" and "Photographs" subcategories. I sell photos, and if someone could explain the difference of those  to me, that would be awesome. No wonder buyers struggle to find what we're selling.

Most importantly , sellers like me routinely watermark images. We are, in-fact, selling the value of literal images. Why would I want to upload a nice 1mb photo image only to de-value the item I'm trying to sell because several potential buyers might be happy with simply saving the digital image to their computer of what I'm trying to monetize? There are still some listings with watermarks, but I can't get any of my new listings to show up in search results. I refuse to watermark my photos and give them away for free. I'm 100% sure that's the primary problem with sellers like me in those categories.

[**selling**stuff**]

The search is totally screwed.. I was trying to locate a Netflix board game today... Go ahead, search for it.. Search Netflix board game.. NOTHING COMES UP, no go to google, and search it... WOW, what a coincidence. This is getting out of hand, and ebay needs to fix this nonsense. 

[**selling**stuff**]

Not that i  need to prove anything to you, because i know this system is broken, but go ahead and do an ebay search for - Netflix board game -  I'm waiting.. It brings up a bunch of nonsense that is not netflix board game.. Now go to google and search it... Wow.. There it is, slapping me in the face.. This is a joke. 

[americana-images]

Oh, and for the issue of waiting for new listings to register with servers: why even have a scheduled start time in the listings? I always schedule my listings to launch at the optimal time of day that I've determined to be best for my category. If it takes up to 24 hours for a listing to register, that obliterates any justification for a scheduled start time.

[nocoolnamejane]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

what about all the technical and search problems - they are not caused by the economy

---

My point was that OP is adamant the slump in sales has ABSOLUTELY  nothing to do with the current over inflation.

Im not saying it’s 100% related to the economy, but for non essentials such as video games, the economy sure plays a PART.

[johnrj1226]

Spot on inhawaai.  once upon a time in the  late 1950 - Wham-oo  a famous  high quality sling shot company (I had one) came out with a thing called the Hula Hoop - sold  like gangbusters for 3 years everybody had one or more, even my Mom, then sales died the death of a rag doll.  Wham-oo came out with an other  hot seller called the Frisbee yep everybody had one.   This is what good sellers do.  You won't catch a lot fish if you fish where all the other fishermen & women are fishing and if you snag one or two your lucky if it is big enough for a snack or long enough  to be a keeper.  In my  career all in the same industry - we called those seller - me too sellers - their main feature was I'll beat anyones price - a monkey can do that.

[nocoolnamejane]

It’s not registering, it’s indexing. They can’t index listings before they are live, and with the millions of new listings being created each day, it’s normal that it takes a while.

[1tuna]

I just did a search for that board game and 132 results came up here in PA

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=netflix+board+game&_sacat...

[goldrushfinds]

I sell mostly clothing, and one of my favorite Ebay search failings is when I am trying to sell a pair of shorts. For instance, if you search Mens Tommy Bahama Shorts, it will give you many listings for short sleeve shirts. How dumb is their search, as I ask for "SHORTS" not "SHORT". Since when do you refer to a shirt as a Shorts Sleeve Shirt. 

[siamjane8]

@inhawaii 

   Not to beat a dead horse here but after i walked away from my computer I realized that you said that I only used 3 words( that were in the title).... Vintage Ford Emergency brake handle is 5 words by my count- and i would say very descriptive- and if a buyer knows the title word for word we would not need a search engine at all.

vintage- I want to see old stuff not new things

Ford-narrows it down to a brand vehicle

emergency- describing a type to follow

brake- algorithms should be able to paint a picture of a category by now

handle- self explanatory

All that is not enough for you?

Proving my point further- the search engine did show me old emergency brake handles so it did know what i was looking for- but it threw in brand new promoted listings that have nothing to do with it AND it did not show all the vintage emergency brake handles that are currently on ebay- it chose to show only 27 listings when there are hundreds of actual listings fitting that description- thereby hiding the one I actually wanted to fine- hence having to go to google to find it. And there is the problem

To address your other point- you cheated by looking at the item first and added more qualifying keywords like 1940 and hand. I gave you a real world example like you requested and you ignored it and twisted it. I could give you hundreds more but I think you have now exposed your reasoning to everyone on the boards now.

    A shopper does not have the luxury of knowing the whole title of the item they are looking for before they search.

All we want is for ebay to recognize an issue and fix it- 

[**selling**stuff**]

YEAH, 132 Listings that are not that board game.. that's what im saying.. None of those results are the netflix board game.. ugh hello.