eBay

siamjane8 · ‎09-07-2023

As usual I was looking up a part that I want to list. ZERO results on eBay so I cut and paste to Google and the very first result is an actual active eBay listing that is exactly what I had! eBay search can not find anything that is on eBay so how can we expect buyers to find them and buy?

This happens hundreds of times a day just in my searching so imagine how many she's are lost across the platform because of this terrible search engine!!

Proof is in the pictures.

just wanted to post for the cheerleaders that always say it's not true. Here is an example

siamjane8 · ‎09-10-2023

That was not wrong. Both are accurate part numbers one was for the kit and one was for the individual left or right side bracket.

AND AGAIN....GOOGLE FOUND THE LISTING PERFECTLY! If the info was not in the listing then Google could not have magically find it either. It's not magic- Google has just programmed there search to work better and with accuracy. I'll we are saying is..... Wouldnt it benefit enay and is sellers and buyers to do the same so people can find what they want to buy?

siamjane8 · ‎09-10-2023

@laststopgeneralstore typing that in Amazon would likely get zero results and that is what a buyer would expect because Amazon is not a known website for vintage car parts. eBay is... So when you get zero results on eBay.... Then you and the must not be any available..... Even though there are. That is a fail of a search...... Proven but the fact that when you search google- you get eBay listings showing up.

Nothing is perfect of course but if this is by design why doesn't eBay proudly tell the share holders? Why not brag about how it works?..... because it does not work and the sales and gmv pattern of steady decline are in pay because of it. You can't sell what ebay tells people is not there.

american-photography · ‎09-10-2023

I would agree with what the OP is saying.

The proof can be seen in one's own traffic statistics.

I am definitely seeing more page views coming from off Ebay than on the Ebay site itself.

How come Google and DuckDuckGo can find more Ebay listings than Ebay itself?

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎09-10-2023

@american-photography wrote:
I would agree with what the OP is saying.

The proof can be seen in one's own traffic statistics.

I am definitely seeing more page views coming from off Ebay than on the Ebay site itself.

How come Google and DuckDuckGo can find more Ebay listings than Ebay itself?

@siamjane8

@american-photography

Pre all the item specifics tinkering and promoted push I routinely saw 5 to 2 ratio my items being found with ebay search vs off site. Going forward it has done a complete flipflop. Now seeing 2:3 with 1/3 the sales I had years ago with more items listed now. eBay search has been broken for awhile. It's just more broken now than it ever was. Almost starting to miss the bot views. Felt when those were included I was getting traffic.

To add my observations to the OP, clicking on a promoted listing from an eBay search will often get you more related results than the original eBay search. No guarantee the promoted ticker are even close to what the buyer is looking for. To my eye they look more like suggestions. Similar to going thru the checkout, looking at gum and getting a magazine.

One other recent experience (noticed a similar report of this too from another seller) in putting my store on vacation mode for 4 days and LEAVING items visible. Ship on return if something were to sell I had minimal traffic during that window. When store turned back on traffic resumed.

As far as I know and have read it is NOT supposed to work that way.

-Lotz

tobaccocardyahoo · ‎09-10-2023

I am not surprised that your minimalist search term does not work on Ebay, nor that it works on google.

Nor am I surprised that you get non-relevant results on both Ebay and google.

siamjane8 · ‎09-11-2023

@tobaccocardyahoo I don't think that the item part number or identifier plus a defining word such as "bracket" is minimalist..... the whole world catalogs and searches parts by their part numbers. eBay requires in many categories that a part number be input into the item specifics.

Again, is not like this is the race to the moon..... search parameters have been well established for many years. This is not a new area of research and development. The search on eBay used to be great... Then they gradually made changes that made it less and less reliable and relivant. Google has also made changes over the years BUT Google still finds good active eBay listings even when eBay shows none.

Ecommercebytes just released an article noting how eBay may be putting sellers in "tiers" depending on how desirable their listings are and boosting some or throttling those "less likely" to move quickly. Assigning sellers an alignment of sales depending on their tier also accounts for the sporadic on again off again sales patterns and bizarrely inaccurate search results.

An interesting read as we all are just searching for answers while eBay remains silent. Although the article states that eBay did admit to a problem with the search from April until Aug 31 of this year, but eBay claims the problem is fixed now. Does it seem fixed to you?

tobaccocardyahoo · ‎09-11-2023

@slamjane8

It is not surprising that you fail to realize that an ecommerce search is not the same as a search engine search. Most people who have never designed computer systems are equally unaware.

Ecommerce searches are not dealing with strings of characters where the meaning is not important to the search. They are designed to match buyer input with products to be purchased. They are designed to generate results in the shortest possible time, and lead to purchases in the shortest possible time.

All data is not created equal in ecommerce. The data a normal buyer would enter is more important. The brand is more important than the part number. The part number is ambiguous and as clearly shown in the Google example on the thread, likely to match some other product.

Ecommerce systems may not use the same indexing in all categories. On many sites auto parts are located by a fitment system, which requires specific input for the application. On other sites portions of that system are hidden and the results without key information are useless.

Ebay requires different fields in different categories, and it is not surprising that a string of number which you know to be a part number are simply noise to the search.

A normal customer will usually type a make, model and year along with what part it is to find a part. They probably will not have a part number. The search is built for them, not for you a seller to use.

joliztoyco · ‎09-11-2023

@tobaccocardyahoo wrote:
I am not surprised that your minimalist search term does not work on Ebay, nor that it works on google.

Nor am I surprised that you get non-relevant results on both Ebay and google.

You really think that buyers that come on here are capable of anything more than a "minimalist search" to find items they want?
You and I have been here for years. And we've developed the ability to navigate (well,,,sort of) eBays wonky search engine.
eBay's casual buyers have ZERO idea how to do it. But that "casual buyer" did come up with a part # and thought " All I have to do is put in this exact part number and BOOM, there it is! What could possibly go wrong"?
What could go "wrong" is that this is eBay's crap filled, promoted listings search engine, and after looking at several pages of absolute garbage that's NOT what they were trying to buy, they get frustrated and think: "Why don't I just go to Autozone.com and enter my part #"?
Which they do. And their exact part shows up. And they buy it.
eBay is trying to grow their auto parts sales and they have a search engine that has problems recognizing part numbers???
And you think that's okay?
Because I'm still laughing at the sheer incompetence of it all.

joliztoyco · ‎09-11-2023

"Ebay requires different fields in different categories, and it is not surprising that a string of number which you know to be a part number are simply noise to the search."

Again...eBay is trying to grow their sales in auto parts. And if you have a "search" that was designed so poorly it can't recognize part numbers?
Someone needs to be fired.

siamjane8 · ‎09-11-2023

@tobaccocardyahoo

"Ecommerce searches are not dealing with strings of characters where the meaning is not important to the search. They are designed to match buyer input with products to be purchased. They are designed to generate results in the shortest possible time, and lead to purchases in the shortest possible time."

What you said does make sense in many ways but i would argue that to achieve the desired result above that you mentioned - the best way would to have your search engine show people what they search for. That is the problem with ebay- it does not do that. it shows preference to unrelated promoted items and who knows what else.... but rarely actually what a buyer searches for- to find something on ebay takes allot of effort and tinkering with words and order of words and trying more words then trying less words....... that is the opposite of what an ecommerce search engine should do.

I actually believe 100 percent of what you said about the complexity of different types of search and that all makes sense- I am just saying that ebay has failed at their attempt to manipulate the search into something that works for us / buyers and sellers. Part of the issue I'm sure is the diversity of the products sold here, the long tail vs short tail items, used vs new, and the list goes on- its very complex...... but a steady decline in sellers/ GMV/ and buyers seems to be striking evidence of serious issues-and many users think that one of the larger issues is the search.

tobaccocardyahoo · ‎09-11-2023

@siamjane8 wrote:

I am just saying that ebay has failed at their attempt to manipulate the search into something that works for us / buyers and sellers.

I believe you and Ebay and most other marketplaces have a different goal for the search.

The goal is optimizing the number of sales on the site. Not your sales, and not to help you list and manage listings.

And on the whole, I agree with the marketplaces. I try to anticipate how a buyer will try to find an item to buy, and use the words that help the search succeed. Which does not mean I can always understand how someone finds my items.

Discussion of site searches has gone on for years. Some search engines are really much worse than Ebay. Etsy was noted for the poor quality of searches, and many sellers spam their listings with keywords hoping to get seen. Unfortunately, that often makes the problem much worse.

Amazon's search takes into account what buyers who did the same search bought, and features that product prominently.

psfhobbies · ‎09-11-2023

I notice sometimes when I cant find my own listing (after my face turns back to flesh color) I tend to see that my search was put into only one specific category and not "search all of Ebay" when I click that then my item appears....frustrating because the ones I saw still show up in both...first one too..

siamjane8 · ‎09-12-2023

@tobaccocardyahoo

Again I do agree with what you said.... and if eBay was doing great and growing and sales were improving(across the platform, not just me) then what you say would make sense.... but it's the exact opposite for eBay as a whole. So whatever they are doing is hurting themselves not just the rest of us. If they are "optimizing" the search to main maximize sales for ebay... Then it still has failed at that.

Search relevancy is good for eBay/buyers/ & sellers alike.

You are right every is optimizing the search to promoted listings thinking that the extra fees is a nice source of revenue.... problem is most people are finding out that PL are not worth it. It's a bad value because the way eBay is implementing them, they don't improve sales that much if at all.

So the search is geared toward a product that people hate and does not improve the shipping experience or help sellers grow.

i like to keep it simple.... if ebay's fancy over thought search algorithm were working well... then the company would not be losing buyers and sellers and gmv and there would not be any discussions like this one.....

All in saying is... This is not working so why not try and go back to the basics and see if that helps-just show people what they searched for and see if it improves

natoman777 · ‎09-12-2023

With so many posts about slow sales it makes me wonder if this is a pretty significant reason this is happening. The economy is having a huge impact, but depending on what you are selling, the search engine is hindering sales. Whenever I am searching for items that I am sourcing to sell I often have to go with my gut and experience now because I can't always find comps. eBay has to get the search engine fixed!!!

coolections · ‎09-12-2023

Unfortunately Ebay is not an auto parts store so just putting random numbers into the search bar will never work correctly. When you search use WORDS not numbers. You'll get the hang of it eventually.