eBay

tweetyboyd1971 · ‎06-05-2021

So I like to shop the newly-listed in the buy-it-now search, but now see that ebay is purposely hiding some of the results, and gives you the option of showing all results. Then I discovered some of my items were in the "hidden area" and now know why my sales have been so slow for the last two weeks. Isn't this like shadow banning? How does ebay know what I want to see, and know what's "best" for me to see and buy from their manipulated listings? Ebay should just outright say that they only want Wal-Mart and Target selling on their site and stop playing these irritating games to drive sellers away

points13 · ‎06-05-2021

I have seen the reduced search before. I don't think its that new. I thought when that happens they weed out the ridiculous and or higher priced, some similar and or duplicate items. Well never for sure know or be told I'm sure. Is it right wrong IDK. I do know I have never flipped through 35000 listings. I would be lucky to get to 300. i would be more likely to add a word or two and narrow the search.

as for your item maybe it was hidden just from you as they figured you wouldn't buy your own item.

fashunu4eeuh · ‎06-05-2021

Hi, i did a little more digging and found this post from a very knowledgable long time poster “eburtonlab” in the forums:

“...eBay has been adding that to many searches performed using the "Price + Shipping: lowest first" sort order for a long time -- at least since 2017.

If you want to see all results, either choose another sort method or use the "View all results" link seen above. If you have saved or bookmarked a search, unsave the search, use the "View all results" link, and then save or bookmark that search to bypass the intermediate step.”

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying-Selling-Basics/Is-anyone-else-upset-by-quot-We-removed-some-sea...

tweetyboyd1971 · ‎06-05-2021

I certainly appreciate everyone's replies. Apparently this is not new, just new to me, and the 1st time it happened to me. It does seem really unfair that sellers may list their items for sale and have no idea that ebay is sending their listings to "ebay's corn field" until someone ASKS to see it. By the way, my own listings were never hidden from me before as I shopped. I will just have to pick SHOW ALL every time I do my searches.

coolections · ‎06-05-2021

They do that because your search is too vague. NO ONE on the planet wants to see 1,000,000,000 items when they just put a single word into the results. Try typing exactly what you want and you will see the results you are looking for and be so happy that you will never have to hit the "see more results" link again.

coolections · ‎06-05-2021

@tweetyboyd1971 wrote:
Vintage Barbie BIN, and it shows 12 thousand results with their censoring, but when I click to "View All" then it shows that there are really 35 thousand listings.

Who in the right mind would ever want to see 35,000 Barbies. Like I previously already pointed out, you have to be more specific at what you are looking for.

moondogblues · ‎06-05-2021

"I always select newly listed buy-it-now when I search my favorite categories and have for YEARS. Now, at the top of the first page in that category, there is a box that says "we have removed some search results to show you the most relevant listing. Click her to show all listings". First time this has ever happened. Nobody can see 'certain" results that ebay says are NOT relevant unless you click the box. What is this all about?"

This has been happening to me for years. If there aren't too many I click on 'see all'.

moondogblues · ‎06-05-2021

""ebay's corn field"

Awesome reference to Jerome Bixby's short story.

moondogblues · ‎06-05-2021

Hey cool...not that I'd want to wade through that much but almost every day I search Art Nouveau. Just that. And I am soooo happy when I find a treasure that I can make mine with the wave of my PayPal wand.

moondogblues · ‎06-05-2021

Would we all really want to go through a Flea Market with all the same stuff on every table?

postingid7659 · ‎06-06-2021

As a test this week I purposely ended an auction listing and restarted it. It had run for 6 days. The relisted item has as many hits in a day and a half as it had gotten all week.

I noticed this after a Buy It Now bandit ended a listing and then immediately cancelled during the week. It had been up about 10 days and when I relisted it, that one also got as many hits in about a day as it had in the prior 10 days.

So I am thinking if your items are not showing up, maybe the thing to do is end some and restart them manually.

Whatever it was that was hiding these things seems to get cleared out when you do.

coolections · ‎06-06-2021

@postingid7659

No one is hiding anything. The reason why you got a bunch of hits upon relist is many buyers do not want to wade through a million items in an oversaturated category. They change the default to newly listed.

Anonymous · ‎06-06-2021

@tweetyboyd1971 wrote:
Yes! That's exactly it. Thank you for posting that Popblox. That is how I have been searching for over TEN years and never had this happen before. I listed an item for sale in Vintage Barbie tonight, and then when I went SHOPPING in that category, I noticed my item was missing, not being shown for sale UNLESS I click to VIEW ALL. Ebay is hiding over 50% of items for sale. Shoppers will not see the item I just listed unless they click VIEW ALL. I have found some really good buys in the past this way and ebay should not start limiting results

readabouthorses · ‎06-06-2021

@coolections wrote:
They do that because your search is too vague. NO ONE on the planet wants to see 1,000,000,000 items when they just put a single word into the results. Try typing exactly what you want and you will see the results you are looking for and be so happy that you will never have to hit the "see more results" link again.

But sometimes you are just looking and don't know exactly what you are looking for. Do you never go into a store and just walk around looking and suddenly you see something you didn't even know you wanted?

On eBay for example, postcards. Sometimes I just want to look at postcards from Ohio or postcards from North Carolina. I'm not looking for anything in particular or any particular subject, just looking and then suddenly I see one I just have to buy because of a good memory attached to the place on the postcard.

In the olden days of eBay we just cruised categories without searching.

whatnots2like · ‎06-06-2021

I'm sorry, but I disagree that eBay suppresses listings because of the amount of results.

Here's my search criteria:

vintage doll ("blue hair", "pink hair", "purple hair", "green hair", "orange hair") -(jem, barbie, troll, stuffed, cloth, cabbage)

It recently returned 318 results,

when I click on 'show all' it returns 430 results.

Not a big difference or an overwhelming amount. So I don't think amount returned is part of the algorithm.

Also, when you search for newly listed, you are not slogging through 350,000 listings anyway - only the new ones. At least for us who seach regularly.

There are two sides of the coin

1) buyers who only want to see specific items and are irritated by extraneous results (personally I like to browse and strongly believe more sales could be made when more results are shown - on the theory that people are like crows. If it's shiny, they are attracted to it even if they didn't know they wanted it)

2) sellers who want more people to see their listings. Good luck to you!!

sakic92710 · ‎06-06-2021

A buddy of mine, who lives 40 mins away, did a search for an item at the same time as I did. For both current & sold items, we got different results! eBay & their games with people's hopes of advancing in sales!