Just wondering ----a question about Search

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

I wasn't feeling too well yesterday, so wasn't as attentive as I usually would be, but one thing I noticed at ebay Open was this: It seemed we were being told that ebay is less reliant on "Search" than it used to be....and is probably working to reduce reliance on Search even further.

I really wonder at this point, how many sales are being made from what I'll call "Search Classic" ( the Search Results Page), and how many are being made from the items stuffed into listing pages, how many from new features such as  "Shop The Look", how many from social media links and search engine placements, etc?

I'm certainly not saying Search Classic is going away, nor am I saying that it makes up only a small percentage of conversions....just that I wonder if that percentage has been declining. ebay has been making changes to Search Classic for quite a while now, including of course, the presence of promoted listings, and the algo is frankly more opaque than ever, with ebay "personalizing" Classic Search to such an extent that Buyer A and Buyer B might be shown very different things, even when using the exact same search term. 

Unfortunately, I don't see much on ebay's open agenda to suggest that ebay is going to provide any real tips on how sellers can navigate all this...just the standard "best practices" (good photos, use IS, etc)

Features such as "Shop The Look" are less "search" and more "browse". I have long said that part of the success of early ebay was that it was easy to browse. In the early days, with relatively few listings, I could get up, have a cup of coffee and literally scroll through ALL the newly listed items in a given category before I finished my coffee.  Things like "Shop the Look" are designed for scrolling and impulse buys. As ebay moves more and more into this sort of thing, I strongly suspect great photos---not just good photos---will become much more important. Yet the Shop The Look choices will still be made by bots looking for listing data that matches what the bot wants to see....which means IS will remain very important. 

It would be nice if ebay would do a deep dive into these changes, and what they mean for sellers and seller strategy. 

[fbusoni]

It would be nice if ebay would do a deep dive into these changes, and what they mean for sellers and seller strategy. 

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques 

After reading thousands of posts on these boards since signing up here in April, I've come to the conclusion that eBay does not hold sellers in particularly high esteem.   In fact, I reckon that eBay almost certainly thinks that the vast majority of sellers are just plain dumb, if eBay even thinks about sellers in the first place.

From making design and functionality changes to the platform seemingly without any regard to the impact on sellers, to manipulating various functionalities to force sellers to receive garbage offers from other sellers so eBay can make possibly make some chump change, to failing to answer simple questions posed here to eBay community reps and then finally responding with "we have nothing new to report," the evidence seems to me to be overwhelming.

How many regulars participate here in these fora?  An infinitesimally tiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction of eBay sellers.   

I suspect that some of us are the only ones who are really seeking the deep dive (which doubtless will be replete with feel-good gobbledygook) to which you refer.

I love eBay and do well here, but I have always regarded myself to be wholly on my own.  

Let's hope eBay does not shut down these boards, or its Facebook page, where sellers can still turn for genuine help.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

chapeau is probably right that ebay won't shut down this board because , however small the percentage of actual users, we do function as unpaid customer service agents, so there is at least some return on investment here. Also, ebay uses the Boards as a way to calibrate seller and buyer issues. 

But this thread isn't about how ebay feels about sellers or the ultimate fate of the Boards. It's about how search and browse is changing, and the impact on sellers.

[luckythewinner]

I really wonder at this point, how many sales are being made from what I'll call "Search Classic" ( the Search Results Page), and how many are being made from the items stuffed into listing pages, how many from new features such as "Shop The Look", how many from social media links and search engine placements, etc?

I think it varies greatly according to what you sell.

I sell music and music memorabilia. IMHO most of my buyers on eBay are searching, not "browsing". They have a specific artist, title, format, genre, etc. that they want and they come to eBay to see if it is available.

In my niche, people often ponder purchases before making them. They create a "want list" of items they can come back to, they comparison shop, rather that purchasing the minute they see it. So I think what you are asking is a difficult question in many categories.

Even if I knew the exact path a user took to purchase my item, that may not be the same path he used to find my item. Because the discovery of my item may be separated from the purchase of my item by hours, days, or weeks. And there could be a watch list, a bookmark, or an email from a friend in between.

My most recent purchase as a buyer came from seeing a post in a Facebook collector group. It was a record I had been looking for for 25 years.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@luckythewinner  I agree that search will always be around, and many people do come here with a particular item (sometimes, a VERY particular item) that they are searching for. 

And I agree, some categories are almost certainly more search driven than others. 

But my impression from yesterday's session is that ebay, which had pulled away from browsing during Wenig's obsession with his "Catalog of Everything" , is now putting more focus on browsing, in part because the younger generation tends to shop that way for a lot of stuff, and ebay wants that younger generation to shop ebay.

[gurlcat]

Is fora really the plural of forum?  

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@gurlcat  Fora and forum are both acceptable. Forums is the more commonly accepted word when talking about forums such as this. Fora would be more common if talking about the forums of ancient Rome, for example. But either one is OK.

[monroe67]

"Is fora really the plural of forum?"

In the original Latin, yes.  
In today's standard American English, forums  is more easily understood as "more than one forum."

[redlinear]

eBay cannot make the basic/classic search function work as it used to.  You know, where you type in words and it finds listings with those words in the title.  
They are beyond that. 
They have Too much invested to go back to what most would agree is an Accurate Search Function.
In order to do that, eBay would have to do away with Promoted Listings and other gimmicks designed to keep us guessing, and keep us paying more thinking it might help.

[trip98]

Thank you for the thread. Seems to fall in-line with my feeling something as been up with the search for several years now and that has escalated in the last year. It seems to me that it will even more difficult to run a successful auction unless the seller has  large base of followers in a dedicated buyer category. I can think of a one seller in a category I sell in that does incredible well with auctions,,, she sells in one  niche category and has  thousands of followers.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@redlinear  Yes, search has changed, but my point is really that conversions are (probably) less dependent on search than they had been in the past, because buyers are finding items through other means...such as from a listing page, or something like "Shop The Look"...., So, it's still important to be seen in Classic Search, but it is also important to be seen elsewhere on the site as well.

[redlinear]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@redlinear  Yes, search has changed, but my point is really that conversions are (probably) less dependent on search than they had been in the past, because buyers are finding items through other means...such as from a listing page, or something like "Shop The Look"...., So, it's still important to be seen in Classic Search, but it is also important to be seen elsewhere on the site as well.

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TIme for Offsite Promotions...ugh

[fbusoni]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

But this thread isn't about how ebay feels about sellers or the ultimate fate of the Boards. It's about how search and browse is changing, and the impact on sellers.

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In the final analysis, almost EVERY thread on these boards is about how eBay regards sellers.

[tobaccocardyahoo]

IMO the search to buy  vs browse to buy question is more relevant to the types of sales that Ebay is losing to other sites and marketplaces.

That which is well suited to browsing by shoppers is more likely to be purchased on sites which are selling products through authorized sellers who are bigger and better capitalized than many of the Ebay sellers who are selling them, and where the manufacturer's warranties are likely to be in effect.

Although Ebay top management is aware of the limitations of the site's business, it is not clear that the middle management and worker bees are other than clueless. I believe the search changes are not strategic but are being made by developers who care copying the competition's searches.

We can certainly be sure that the input they are receiving from sellers is not consistent with their top level manager's strategies.

For those of us who truly no longer have an alternative to Ebay, we have to count on our buyers being smarter than Ebay, and hope the search works well enough and our buyers follow our stores.

[fbusoni]

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@gurlcat wrote:

Is fora really the plural of forum?  

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@gurlcat 

I recently met someone at a bookstore and the topic turned to music.  She asked what my favorite musical era was, and I said the 80s. 

She said, "Oh, cool, so you like Van Halen, Queen, and Metallica?"

I said, "sorry, I meant the 1680s."  😊