Search function has gotten WORSE along with Terapeak

[asset_liquidators]

Ebays search for both active and completed listing has gotten considerably worse over the last couple months.

Also, now that they have taken over Terapeak it has gotten to be a HORRIBLE tool.

Search ebay completed listings and terapeak, no results. Do the same exact search on Google and find a sold listing ON ebay from less than 30 days ago. Shaking my head at the ineptitude of this company.

Some companies have the Midas Touch where everything they touch turns to gold.

Ebay has the Outhouse Touch where everything they touch turns to, well, you know.

[evelyb30]

I had a tough time finding my own listing the other day, from my own Active Listings page.  The search tool didn't cough it up.  I think it only searches by the first word in a listing, so if you search for a Widget holder the search doesn't turn up the Pink, Purple or Green Widget Holders.  Go figure. 

[uniwarehousewares]

I love eBay but i would say from last few months specially since covid start and since ebay start made changes in policies, in many areas many old features disabled and new one is not working properly, its a worse change ebay has made this year, example in bulk shipping tool its bunch of glitches are there i notified ebay and nothing happened so far. new automated return process is worse then a nightmare  i have faced many situations where you are not able to refund the buyer and every time i have to call ebay to issue refund to buyer. 

As far as about Tera peak, its really a worse tool, it was good tool before but now its algo is so weak. if it is suppose to be very powerful tool, ebay was not going to make it free for store subscribers. 

i hope ebay should take it seriously and should hire more effective people in testing team. every day experiment is not good on business.

[mycheaperstuff]

You guys aren't kidding! I agree that terapeak data is TERRIBLE.

In search - sometimes does and sometimes doesn't "accept" Boolean qualifiers such as "earrings" versus "earrings -lot". 

Sometimes provides category drill down, sometimes not.

Only maximum 50 records per page! No download option!

My conclusion is I'll take the factoid it gives me, so long as I don't have to pay for it.

 BUT what about eBay? Since that data has started popping up in various places (e.g. listing frame, best offer review), I wonder if eBay will use  an item's price relative to the tera peak "average" around the site?

For example, does the Best Match algorithm consider it?

[siamjane8]

Search has been effectively getting worse for 2 years now with the over manipulation and trying to guess what the buyer is looking for by ignoring what he/she actually typed into the search box. Ebay is trying to force the buyer into certain listings and promoted junk for some reason and rarely shows relevant results anymore. Its baffling. Case in point - just an hour ago I searched for a samsung galaxie s8 plus Otterbox case.   Do you think it showed me actual otter box brand cases. NOPE. nothing but chinese knockoffs and promoted listings for the whole first page. Cut and pasted from ebay's search box into AMAZON and what did i find- Actual Otterbox brand cases. Guess where i purchased from?   Sad thing is I know that there are probably hundreds of real otterbox listings on ebay but the search is so screwed up or weighted to imported junk that it drives our customers to other sites. Me included

[eburtonlab]

@siamjane8 

I typed your search terms into a general search, changed the category to phone cases, then selected the phone model number filter and otterbox brand filter.

Here is the resulting search:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/20349/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=samsung+galaxie+s8+plus+Otterbox&Compatible%252...

Any knock-offs in those results are there because the seller has included the wrong brand name in the title or item specifics.

You can limit the search to new items listed in the US to filter out some of the knock-offs. If you select the individual type of case, you can filter out the clips and covers and other accessories.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=samsung+galaxie+s8+plus+Otterbox+&_sacat=20349&LH_Tit...

If you know or can find the part number of the model you are interested in, searching for that should eliminate all the knock-offs and let you compare identical offerings. For example:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=77-54614&_sacat=0

As long as eBay allows sellers to write their own listings, some sellers will try to cheat by including brand names in their unbranded listings. You cannot really compare eBay to Amazon in that respect. One is a classified ad page, and the other is a glossy catalog. If you expect the classified ad page to look like the glossy catalog, you will be disappointed.

[siamjane8]

@eburtonlab 

    Thanks for looking into and I agree that Ebay and Amazon are different and they should be- the problems arise when ebay copies Amazon policy like they have for so many years. It does not work well on ebay.

   Realistically though- what you described to do do get mildly better results took 5 or 6 steps and Amazon worked on the initial search.   That is why Ebay will never be able to compete on new items- but trying to has ruined the searchability of the unique items that people actually come to ebay for.

      I also agree that sellers can manipulate the item specifics- it has become a huge problem here- unfortunately it has been a result of other policy copying that stifled search results so sellers are scrambling to get site visibility back. 

       I realize that the part # is a powerful search tool but 90% of sellers do not- search engine functionality must be designed to work for the searcher- you cannot train the customer to search the way you design the search engine. 

      Search is the reasons that ebay has been in a decline for years. Technology is great when it works- and when it doesnt- its ebay lol.

  I do appreciate you looking into it though and hopefully it will help others to navigate the ebay search

Unfortunately- result is the same at the end of the day- a sale was lost on the site through no fault of any of the sellers- it was the ebay designed AI search algorithms that chose to show me a set of results in exchange for the words that I searched for.  That is ebays job and responsibility to get right for the fees we sellers pay. Sink or swim - that is on ebay. hope it improves

[ittybitnot]

I typed your search terms into a general search, changed the category to phone cases, then selected the phone model number filter and otterbox brand filter.

You can limit the search to new items listed in the US to filter out some of the knock-offs.......

If you know or can find the part number of the model .....

OR

You can just go to Amazon and find what you want in ten seconds??? 

[zamo-zuan]

As soon as they acquired Terapeak, even before they integrated in to eBay, they started ruining it's capabilities. Feature after feature was removed, as they claimed to be "improving it".

They even made absolutely silly, worthless changes such as trying to "mask" the names of sellers, for example we were 'z***n'. As if you couldn't click our seller name on Terapeak and check one of our listings to see our store name anyway...?

As time went on, they made less and less of the total sold listings show up, removed research features, made it harder to compare items in categories, made it harder to measure trends. 

Most alarmingly, it's how I used to find and report many bugs or problems found in eBay's system. I used to also regularly publish changes on the "Top Seller Market Share", and (un)ironically soon after I was posting how the market share dropped by more than 50%, they removed the ability to check by category, and made the market share statistics as inaccurate as possible. It seriously comes off as if they don't want sellers being aware of the damage they've done to certain categories.

When they made deals with other sites to sell on eBay as well, such as the major acquisition in shirt listings, they claimed it was "helping the entire category", which not only denies any logic, but removed the ability to compare them to the rest of the category. 

It used to be the most valuable 3rd party tool to sell on eBay, and it used to be an excellent tool for troubleshooting and debugging. Now it's basically worthless.

As much as they claim to be trying to improve insight with Terapeak, eBay seems intent on removing all ability for sellers to research statistics. They removed the old traffic pages that would allow you to research listings by impressions, track changes in impressions, and help figure out what problems might be going on (such as the recent Promo Listings issues).

Now, we have no way to filter our listings, no way to check for changes in impressions on a listing level, no way to assess which items in our inventory might be having problems. 

EBay literally removed the statistics, filters, and the ability for us to research. Not only researching items others are selling, but we can't even filter and sort our own items anymore!

Sellers are slowly losing information and control. I only hope that some of this functionality will be restored eventually. But it's extremely worrisome as the trend seems to be taking away functionality rather than adding.