Someone please give me a solution to "throttling"

[jason_incognito]

100,000 people list the exact same item. 

How do you weigh a program to pick the top 200 that will return in a search?

Let's say that the average views for all the items that sell are 20, do you count how often a buyer or potential buyer was shown a single item?

Let's say there is one in particular that has 300 views and not a single sale? Do you keep showing it?

You want the buyer to buy. Do you show them the lower priced items or decide to only show them the expensive ones? Knowing that if all they see are the overpirced, you loose that buyer to another site....

[myjunqueyourtreasure]

Allegedly those listings following "best practices" (or as recommended by ebay) should be higher in the pick than those which don't, but as we've seen too often that seems to have no bearing whatsoever on actual placement in search results.

[weschurch]

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@jason_incognito wrote:

100,000 people list the exact same item. 

How do you weigh a program to pick the top 200 that will return in a search?

Let's say that the average views for all the items that sell are 20, do you count how often a buyer or potential buyer was shown a single item?

Let's say there is one in particular that has 300 views and not a single sale? Do you keep showing it?

You want the buyer to buy. Do you show them the lower priced items or decide to only show them the expensive ones? Knowing that if all they see are the overpirced, you loose that buyer to another site....

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Get rid of best match, done!

[weschurch]

But what you are talking about isn't even throttling

[jason_incognito]

Oh, please explain what you think is throttling.......

If it is what I'm guessing, that is mostly because eBay is trying to weed out stuff people don't want.....

[reallynicestamps · Accepted solution]

Most buyers will use the Default "Best Match".

There have been hundreds of posts guessing what goes into a Best Match.

• newly listed
• about to close
• nearest to buyer
• Top Rated Seller/Powerseller
• seller recently sold similar items
• possibly price
• item specifics used
• catalogue used

Any of which could change the rating by Cassini.

From recent complaints, it looks like if a buyer Searches for a particular item, then without buying, repeats the Search, she gets a slightly different mix of items, perhaps because she is deemed to have rejected the first bunch.

The best answer to me as a seller is not to offer anything that 100, 000 other sellers are also selling.

[jason_incognito]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

Most buyers will use the Default "Best Match".

There have been hundreds of posts guessing what goes into a Best Match.

• newly listed
• about to close
• nearest to buyer
• Top Rated Seller/Powerseller
• seller recently sold similar items
• possibly price
• item specifics used
• catalogue used

Any of which could change the rating by Cassini.

From recent complaints, it looks like if a buyer Searches for a particular item, then without buying, repeats the Search, she gets a slightly different mix of items, perhaps because she is deemed to have rejected the first bunch.

The best answer to me as a seller is not to offer anything that 100, 000 other sellers are also selling.

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Absolutely. I do not in the least bit understand someone listing the 9,000th widget...... Plus then asking some ridiculous price.

Like a $25 copy of a Harry Potter DVD that goes for $3.29......

Even in smaller searches, like for a pattern of dishes. Can't people look and see that in the last 3 months nobody has bought a single piece in that pattern, that there are currently 3 people selling the coffee pot, one is $20, one is $26 and one is $34..... Then they list theirs for $379?

[m60driver]

I have no idea what "throttling" is on Ebay, but it is what I think should happen to anyone who lists something that lists an item that "100,000 people list the exact same item".

[sharingtheland]

Most buyers will use the Default "Best Match".

I might have to disagree (mvho).  I don't use Best Match on any other site; I always use the filters/drill downs.

[reallynicestamps]

My own Search is Highest Price+ Shipping.

My reasoning being that it cuts out all the counterfeit and mis-described caca and that it is faster to drill down to my price point through a few dozen items than to slog up through a couple of hundred.

Also being in Canada, the cost of shipping is very important to me.

But that's me.

Because Best Match is the default, most new members and a lot of experienced ones will not have noticed they have choices.  So most will just keep using Best Match.

I suspect the second most popular is Lowest Price. (And not Lowest +Shipping.)

[tunicaslot]

I too use the filters to find things rather than best match as I've often found the exact item I'm looking for is further down the page under other results similar to what you're looking for.

If anyone had the algorithm figured out - we'd all be millionaires but they change it frequently it seems. I think I get it figured out and something changes and sales tank again. I don't think we are throttled but have a set placement in que due to the algorithm used at the time. I've said before it's like being on a roller coaster or ferris wheel - your item reaches the top where you have the best visibility but if it's 2 am on a Tues - by the weekend - your item will be buried and buyers won't see it

[3eyedfishcatcher]

Use good descriptive key words in the tittle and properly identify the item when ever possible so in a refined or key word search it will be locatable. Also long time users tend to sort by either newest and oldest when searching categories they regularly fallow so they can avoid looking at items they already have seen on past searches. Also fill out item specifics as best you can so buyers who are using them to refine searches will get your item included in search results.

[ittybitnot]

Just posting to the end of the discussion.

In ebay terms common to this discussion board "throttling" is in reference to suppression of visibility in search results, thus a lack of sales.  This is indicative of a manual manipulation of the search engine, and one of the reasons that it is employed by the venue.  eBay was recently taken to court in the EU for "throttling" and readily admitted they did this.     

Anyone who watches, reads, observes, knows that in most instances the listings or items that show SALES are rated the highest.  The seller can have nasty feedback, a few baskets of red donuts, low seller ratings,  etc. and still hold the highest place on best match.  They even have some amusing "blunders" as well....buyers of doll clothes for the brand American Girl were presented with pages of blow up plastic sex dolls from China.  The search was tweaked forthwith. 

Though the ebay user agreement states that they do not have to show your item in either search or browse, ebay for some reason does not like us to use the term "hide our listings".  They prefer "elect not to show" them.  

[weschurch]

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@ittybitnot wrote:

Just posting to the end of the discussion.

In ebay terms common to this discussion board "throttling" is in reference to suppression of visibility in search results, thus a lack of sales.  This is indicative of a manual manipulation of the search engine, and one of the reasons that it is employed by the venue.  eBay was recently taken to court in the EU for "throttling" and readily admitted they did this.     

Anyone who watches, reads, observes, knows that in most instances the listings or items that show SALES are rated the highest.  The seller can have nasty feedback, a few baskets of red donuts, low seller ratings,  etc. and still hold the highest place on best match.  They even have some amusing "blunders" as well....buyers of doll clothes for the brand American Girl were presented with pages of blow up plastic sex dolls from China.  The search was tweaked forthwith. 

Though the ebay user agreement states that they do not have to show your item in either search or browse, ebay for some reason does not like us to use the term "hide our listings".  They prefer "elect not to show" them.  

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Yes so you may be paying for items that Ebay "elects not to show". 

Thats disturbing and disgusting

[ittybitnot]

Yes so you may be paying for items that Ebay "elects not to show". 

Thats disturbing and disgusting

Yes, but eBay reality.  eBay always denied the "suppression"  or the "electing not to show"....until they were faced with it with screen shots, etc.   It was a few years ago in the weekly chat and the infamous "frying pan" issue, that the ebay staff "blues" sort of stepped on their own tongues. 

I lost the link, but I know people have it here someplace.  It went like this:

Frying pan Brand A.

Do a search for Frying pan A. 

Only NEW in box Frying pan A listings are shown.    

Basically Frying Pan A has been around for a couple of decades, and there are vintage Frying Pan As out there. Ebay SEARCH produced NONE of these.  Changing word order, changing to "used", changing to whatever variables were available at the time, did not produce and "vintage" Frying pan As. 

Explanation from eBay staff:   "Ebay shows those that have produced sales in the past"...... (like the seller's of vintage and better made frying pan A's should be happy about this). 

Granted, at the time a group of sellers were doing 'experiments' on our own.   Five people in a room, some on the WiFi, others on data, using tablets, laptops, PCs, Phones  using the EXACT SAME SEARCH words, all got different results.  .......like duh?     The new "Dawning of the Age of internet Aquarius" and our first views of AI and manipulation that was also device dependent.  

Ebay Search is manipulated.  You can try to "game" it, but it is best to move to China.  LOL.