topic Re: How do I search for a percentage (%) in listings ? in Selling

How do I search for a percentage (%) in listings ?

five_eyes — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 23:05:21 GMT

Was not sure whether to put this in Buying or Selling, but there seem to be more Ebay gurus here.

I would like to search within a particular category for a percentage when it is used in the heading or the body of the listing, (e.g. 75%).

No matter how I do it, the search results come back with EVERYTHING that has 75 anywhere in the listing, so the great God Cassini is ignoring the % and I get multi thousands of results, none of which have the specific term 75%.

Putting "75%" in quotation marks does not work. I have tried searching for 75% or "75%" in combination with a number of other words which would almost never be used in that category, but with the same unuseable results.

Any help will be much appreciated.

Re: How do I search for a percentage (%) in listings ?

pennyforum14 — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 23:09:31 GMT

Try 75 + %?

Nah, that didn't work either. Not sure about this one.

Re: How do I search for a percentage (%) in listings ?

pennyforum14 — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 23:10:58 GMT

What is the context of the 75% you are searching for, 75% off or 75% strength, etc?

Re: How do I search for a percentage (%) in listings ?

collect247 — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 23:14:56 GMT

75% off?

Re: How do I search for a percentage (%) in listings ?

twyngwyn — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 23:16:12 GMT

try: 75 percent

Re: How do I search for a percentage (%) in listings ?

rocket2retro — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 23:31:10 GMT

Forget the %. Just type- 75 off.

Re: How do I search for a percentage (%) in listings ?

justajunk — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 23:59:59 GMT

Have you tried using subtraction signs (hyphens) to eliminate some options?

e.g. 75% -subtract -every -irrelevant -term -that -is -not -useful -in -your -search

Re: How do I search for a percentage (%) in listings ?

digital*ghost — Tue, 29 Mar 2016 00:03:48 GMT

As far as I know, all symbols / characters (that aren't search instructions) are treated as blank spaces by ebay, so it's impossible to conduct a search on them (you can confirm this by conducting a search on just the % symbol, you won't actually get any search results, ebay will just take you to the "all categories" list).

Try a search via google, that might work - you can instruct google to only search eBay AU, like this

site:eBay.com.au "75%"

You can add the category-specific URL to that to narrow it down, as the main URL will search all of eBay.

Re: How do I search for a percentage (%) in listings ?

five_eyes — Tue, 29 Mar 2016 00:25:52 GMT

Thanks to all for your help so far,

No, it is not 75% off or minus 75% or similar,

The listings I am searching for will have the simple term 75% somewhere in the listing (relating to the percentage of one ingredient in the compound).

Re: How do I search for a percentage (%) in listings ?

five_eyes — Tue, 29 Mar 2016 00:34:37 GMT

Thanks digi,

I have tried the Google search with your string and do get a small number of hits, but only one in the category I am after.

By adding "-off" I eliminate the results where the 75% is a discount.

Maybe little old me will have to accept that Ebay's search structure hates me...

Re: How do I search for a percentage (%) in listings ?

digital*ghost — Tue, 29 Mar 2016 03:03:25 GMT

You might have to try the google search on each specific site, or the other two main ones (eBay.com, and eBay.co.uk - if you have the patience and inclination), as I don't know whether or not items listed on other ebay sites, but show up on the AU one with an eBay search, will come back in the google search.

Re: How do I search for a percentage (%) in listings ?

cathyjoyjoy — Tue, 29 Mar 2016 03:21:08 GMT

This is very interesting to understand that the sign for percent % & it seems other symbols, cannot be filtered by eBay search.

Pehaps you may need to consider a "word" unique to what you are looking for, to use in addition to the number 75 in your search.

Re: How do I search for a percentage (%) in listings ?

collect247 — Tue, 29 Mar 2016 03:42:21 GMT

If I put in say 75% off clothing,it does show in search results

Re: How do I search for a percentage (%) in listings ?

five_eyes — Tue, 29 Mar 2016 03:43:51 GMT

cathyjoyjoy,

Ah, if only it were that simple.

Any of the other relevant words will increase the number of returns massively, and still not give me results with 75% in the listing.

I sorta remember I could do what I now want to do many years ago, but maybe I'm dreamin' ( thanks to Darryl).

Perhaps when DumbBay killed the ability to search using wildcards way back then, they also vanished the use of symbols in a search.

Ebay logic at its finest...