Search Result Manipulation - I'm sick of it. I'm done.

[listerandthecat]

I'm sick of how sellers that sell multiple items in a single listing will add an extremely cheap item that has nothing to do with what I am searching for - ie, my past searches that were sorted by "Price + Postage":

1.) "Thermal Label Printer" - Top result: AU $5.20 to AU $157.90 (they added 20 sheets of a roll as a sample). If you sort by "Best Match" then you'll get "AU $29.99 to AU $245.99" or "AU $18.99 to AU $219.99" because they added replacement rolls... add those to your description then!

2.) I wanted to buy an ink-jet printer a few years ago but when I sorted by price the top results were sellers adding a $5 - $10 power cord to their list to manipulate the search results.

3.) I wanted to buy another counter top dishwasher to replaec mine that broke around 3 years ago & the top results, when sorting by "price + postage", were sellers adding a $5 microfibre cloth or a $1 suction-cup hook to hang your kitchen item.

I have save A LOT of money though! EBay was my goto whenever I felt I was missing something... Oh, I just remembered today's straw ("camel's back"...):

4.) "long leg trunk mens" - top 20, or so, sorted results are around "AU $7.45 to AU $29.79" or "AU $7.79 to AU $28.99" ...

 - ONE the cheap items is for a woman AND has NOTHING to do with "long leg trunk mens"...

 - ANOTHER of the cheap item is labelled "not for sale / sample(2cm cloth)" for AU $7.79 each!!!!!!!!!!!

 - the 3RD is labelled "blue,1 PC / Sample fabric" !!!!

WHAT!?!

I'm done with ebay ... K-mart here I come.

[listerandthecat]

That is what I do for items over $30 but for cheaper items there is no real resolution on my end: ie, 2 or so years back I bought 17 pairs of long leg trunks for under $8ea, I have 5 left so I want to buy more.. my seller no longer sells these so my search results that are $7 to $11 are fake spam that actually sell the items for $25 (those are the examples I have in my OP)

[davewil1964]

Bricks and Mortar. A real shop with a physical presence.

Your comment is, at best, unrelated to the subject of this thread.

[springyzone]

Yes, it is very annoying.

It mainly seems to happen with some types of items, usually small, mass produced things.

Setting realistic price filters might help a bit.

Tedious as it is though, you have to open an ad and check, you can't just go by the lists of ads and prices.

I fell into the trap once, was looking for something small (to do with baking) and looked own the list and saw they seemed to be going quite cheaply on ebay, yet at the market they were about double or triple the price.

Then when I got home and checked further, the cheap price wasn't for the item but for a cake tester or something much smaller.

If I were you, I'd still use ebay but maybe not for the sort of stuff like that, which you can easily pick up at a local shop or supermarket.

[listerandthecat]

Hi  davewil1964, I am the OP of this thread.

I'll quote YOU here: "Bricks and Mortar. A real shop with a physical presence."... I'll paste the last line of my OP: "I'm done with ebay ... K-mart here I come." (K-Mart is a "Bricks and Mortar. A real shop with a physical presence" in Australia)

[listerandthecat]

No, i am SPECIFICALLY REFERRING to multi-listings where there are 3 or more items but the cheapest has NOTHING to do with the search terms - i gave examples in my OP... try them out.

[listerandthecat · Accepted solution]

[edit:] looks like you know what I mean .. "Then when I got home and checked further, the cheap price wasn't for the item but for a cake tester or something much smaller." - EXACTLY!!

There are at least 3 ways to FIX THIS - I've given these ideas to eBay over the past 6 years:

1.) maths - if several items are $200 but the last is $5 then "flag" the listing;

2.) filter search results that ignore "$x to $xyz" so that ONLY "SINGLE UNIT" listings are shown in the search results;

3.) maths again - if several items are MASSIVELY differing in price when mean vs average vs median vs mode is calculated then "flag" the listing ... it's NOT difficult.

[davewil1964]

Lucky you. You have access to B&Ms. A lot don't, which why they buy online. You obviously didn't know what a B&M was before my comment.

[countessalmirena]

OP, it is misleading to mark your post (about what you think eBay should do) as the solution.

eBay won’t do what you’ve suggested. There are various reasons for that, but primarily (in my opinion) it’s because the majority of the sellers misusing listings with variations are registered on eBay.cn.  eBay China won’t do anything to prevent Chinese registered sellers from reaching as wide a pool of potential buyers as possible (including by luring them with the variation option). eBay Australia (to the best of my knowledge) either hasn’t the authority / ability to prevent this, or wouldn’t want to risk getting eBay.cn offside by doing so.

The three suggestions you proffer fall right into this murky situation, and like matter or light or hope, they will fall into the black hole of eBay’s workings to be crushed into that dark heart, never to be seen again.

[sandypebbles]

eBay do not take requests, regardless of how much you yell

You are free to use the tools available to you correctly or not

The rgeular members here are very well aware of what multi listings are, how they work and they are permitted by eBay

No. it's not difficult, and it would take you far less time than posting on here telling other members you don't like it

I don't like it either, but I use the search tools and the price range together so I don't have the problem

That is also not difficult 

Marking your own post as the solution only shows you are not interested in the actual 'solutions' available 

[springyzone]

You are probably right in that there are ways ebay could easily put a stop to it or at the very least cut down on the worst examples.

Or hit sellers who misuse it with defects.

There are in fact lots of other things ebay could do to improve things too, but they don't.

That tells us something and I think what it mainly indicates is what countess covered.

A lot of these sellers, the worst offenders, are often Chinese & ebay doesn't intend to stop them.

Ebay gets commission from sales so (just about) anything that gets a customer clicking into an ad is a plus in their book.