eBay

goombaymama · ‎08-10-2022

I chose one of my items to search for:

New PERSANIMALS kitty CAT CLUBS 12" JACQUELINE KENT soft stuffed, sculpted face

$29.00 free shipping

I wanted a simple search that would not have a monstrous number of finds. Used simply "jacqueline kent" without quotes, under 600 items were found which included a mix of product categories. I always flip to Lowest price + shipping. Best Match is meaningless.

My item was not there . It was buried under "We’ve streamlined your search results to show you the best listings. See more results". That is deliberate throttling. Many buyers doing a search are going to miss that disclaimer completely. Several people here have stated unequivocally that Ebay never hides items. I call **bleep**.

I could have looked for "jacqueline kent stuffed animal" and it would pop up, but that's not the point. Ebay should NEVER throttle results. But should is not could. Ebay can make the judgement call without any repercussions except to the buyer and the seller. Yesterday I tried searches over and over. just curious. Never the same results twice. Eventually the persanimal became #8 under the initial Best Match. AI doing its work, but it was fleeting. Today the poor little kitty is back to being hidden.

And before anyone says, "people don't search that way". I do all the time. I search for a favorite brand, then flip to lowest + shipping. Rarely use categories.

Anonymous · ‎08-10-2022

@goombaymama wrote:

And before anyone says, "people don't search that way". I do all the time. I search for a favorite brand, then flip to lowest + shipping. Rarely use categories.

I do think a lot of people search that way (by name vs category). I do it because it's more likely that I will find what I want in the wrong category, rather than what I want by narrowing down the category and omitting items that are not put in the correct category.

I posted in a thread not long ago about my suspicions that the search feature might be messed up and not working as intended. Also keep in mind the addition of promoted listings. You may want to peruse it to see if this may be a similar issue that you are experiencing.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/When-did-word-order-become-critical-when-doing-an-ordinary/m-p/...

stainlessenginecovers · ‎08-10-2022

I think you searched correctly. I just did the same search you did and it shows 691 listings and did NOT have the 'streamlined' thing... but I've seen it before and when I see it and click, the difference is usually less than an additional 5%.

I have no idea why that is done.

goombaymama · ‎08-10-2022

Interesting. If just around 5%, it's makes no sense to have that function. Sellers aren't paying to their items hidden. Plus you got about 100 more items than I did. If 2 buyers search on the same words, the results should be basically the same. The only leeway I'd give Ebay is to move around promoted listings.

goombaymama · ‎08-10-2022

I just searched again. Seemingly all came up on the initial search, but only 590! A buyer would have no idea items were missing. When I changed to lowest+ship, then the streamlined results came up. The kitty was hidden.

zamo-zuan · ‎08-10-2022

@goombaymama wrote:
I chose one of my items to search for:
New PERSANIMALS kitty CAT CLUBS 12" JACQUELINE KENT soft stuffed, sculpted face
$29.00 free shipping

I wanted a simple search that would not have a monstrous number of finds. Used simply "jacqueline kent" without quotes, under 600 items were found which included a mix of product categories. I always flip to Lowest price + shipping. Best Match is meaningless.

My item was not there . It was buried under "We’ve streamlined your search results to show you the best listings. See more results". That is deliberate throttling. Many buyers doing a search are going to miss that disclaimer completely. Several people here have stated unequivocally that Ebay never hides items. I call **bleep**.

I could have looked for "jacqueline kent stuffed animal" and it would pop up, but that's not the point. Ebay should NEVER throttle results. But should is not could. Ebay can make the judgement call without any repercussions except to the buyer and the seller. Yesterday I tried searches over and over. just curious. Never the same results twice. Eventually the persanimal became #8 under the initial Best Match. AI doing its work, but it was fleeting. Today the poor little kitty is back to being hidden.

And before anyone says, "people don't search that way". I do all the time. I search for a favorite brand, then flip to lowest + shipping. Rarely use categories.

I've observed the same thing as you. EBay's "AI" at work.

Don't believe the people who claim eBay doesn't hide items. They've admit they do, directly and round-about. The people who claim they don't will dismiss information they've seen and claim they've never seen it before, then take your entire listing title and put it in search and claim "See, it shows up!".

Same as you shouldn't believe those who say "people don't search that way". Here's a trick, go in to the Promoted Listings Advanced section. You don't even have to actually activate one of the campaigns, just pretend you're putting one together. You'll see examples of the exact phrases people are searching. And if you wanted, you could even bid on a keyword to get proof that people do indeed search by that phrase.

goombaymama · ‎08-10-2022

I searched on "jacqueline kent " and "kent jacqueline". The order of the items was totally different and the number of items differed by 9. So 9 listings would be ghosted with kent jacqueline. If not more.

onefootflipper · ‎08-10-2022

So, are you thinking someone personally decided to hide your item?

Or is it more likely that the overwhelming majority of people who search for Jacqueline Kent are not looking for the persanimals line and don't click on those?

I think it is probably the second one.

Most people don't search by categories, and most sellers are bad at putting items in the right category in the first place, at least 1/3rd of the time I get comp prices for items I am listing the comp item is in the totally wrong category.

stainlessenginecovers · ‎08-10-2022

Well, you are searching 5 hours later; for all we know- many could have 'ended' by then?

onefootflipper · ‎08-10-2022

By the way, it is the second one. People searching Jaqueline Kent by itself probably want the normal dolls and don't tend to click on the persanimals so ebay ranks them low. The first persanimals don't even show up until 200 items in with best match and those are promoted listings.

yuzuha · ‎08-10-2022

If the brand is Jacqueline Kent and the product line name is 'Persanimals,' wouldn't it make more sense to list it as 'Jacqueline Kent Persanimals Kitty Cat Clubs 12" plush'? I would imagine most buyers searching for those particular plush would search for either 'Persanimals' or 'Jacqueline Kent Persanimals' rather than just 'Jacqueline Kent,' because it looks like she has multiple lines of plush dolls.

onefootflipper · ‎08-10-2022

It is simply a specialty item within a larger brand that probably doesn't appeal at all to most who search for that brand. They look incredibly different than the other lines which casual fans and casual sellers might not even know the name of in the first place.

In collectible cards they have these things called "artist proofs" that get sent to the artist or card designer, usually they have something to distinguish them from the regular card (often a blank back).

I have an "Astral Cornucopia Artist Proof Signed Aleksi Briclot Magic the Gathering" listing. When I search for the name of the card (Astral Cornucopia) my listing is about 55 down the page of 160, despite the fact that I normally rank really well in that category. When I search for Aleksi Briclot my card comes up 9th out of 1200 listings. When I search for Artist Proof Aleksi Briclot my card comes up first out of 7 listings. (All searches done on my wife's account since I have found my own listings tend to rank higher when I search from my account).

Why is this you ask? Normal person searching for that card doesn't want an Artist proof. Person searching for the artist name has a pretty good chance of wanting a signed card or a proof, thus mine goes from being page 3 material to top 10 results. When you search for artist proof and their name then it only returns the 7 actual artist proof results and ranks me highest because I guess I am somehow better than the other 6 guys with various proofs since all 7 listings had the keywords used properly.

coolections · ‎08-10-2022

@goombaymama wrote:
Used simply "jacqueline kent"

600 items were found which included a mix of product categories.

It was buried under "We’ve streamlined your search results to show you the best listings. See more results". That is deliberate throttling.

You are very confused on how search works. Using a simple term will always result in thousands of listings. Of course, Ebay is going to give you less results, but it also gives you an option to spend hours searching through the rest. NO deliberate hiding at all. If you want a streamlined search for YOUR item stop using just a two word search and tell the search engine what you want. It is not a mind reader. Nothing hidden, if people want your stuff they will buy it. No it is NOT deliberate.

goombaymama · ‎08-19-2022

No. you miss my point. I chose a brand that would have limited listings. Not 1000s. So why hide any items when the option Low +ship is chosen? It is definitely deliberate. Ebay's code chose to hide items when just the sort was changed. All were shown before changing the sort. There was zero reason to hide any items at all. Your certainty is making me laugh. Thanks for that! Ebay's AI likes to think it can read minds.

goombaymama · ‎08-19-2022

SORRY. this was NOT a solution. Ebay won't let me change it.

I did change the order of the wording in the title while I was testing. I tried everything I could think of. It made no difference. Of course I know I can be more specific while searching. That was not the point.