What happened?

[rightrear0]

For nearly a decade ebay used to be my go to when looking for specific items and I'd always receive so many options I'd never get through them all before making a purchase. It is mind boggling how the site went from how it once was to now being not fit for purpose. The search has been rendered unusable and serves up either nothing or products that are not even remotely related to what you're looking for.  If you happen to get lucky and it returns what you're searching for the item will always be based overseas and shipping will cost more than the product itself, not to mention the 6 to xxxxxx week wait

I have no idea  who you've allowed to have a go on the coding, algorithms or whatever else used to make site run perfectly but it may be an idea to start having a word them. Little late for that now I'm guessing..

[*sons_and_daughters*]

It's up to the buyer to check where the item is coming from. Just because the description gives a vague location, like "Sydney", doesn't mean that's where it's coming from. Click on the seller's feedback number and have a look at where they are registered. If it says China, chances are, that's where the cheap and nasty item is coming from. 

If you want to buy closer to home, use the distance option to search. Yes, you will still get Chinese items show up because they have stated they are in Sydney, but as I said, check their feedback page to see where they are registered. Also check any feedback of any seller you plan to purchase from. It's not hard to filter out the garbage and buy from someone reputable if you're willing to put in the time.

I should also mention that you aren't talking to ebay here. This is a member forum, so have no knowledge of coding, algorithms, or whatever else used to make the site run perfectly.

[eburtonlab]

The search has been rendered unusable and serves up either nothing or products that are not even remotely related to what you're looking for.

What are you searching for and how are you searching? Most likely there are some relatively straightforward things you can do to find what you are looking for and filter out unwanted listings from your results.

Often a couple of minutes spent refining a search can save you many minutes of combing through hundreds of unwanted results, particularly if you use the same search over and over.

[earthdreamer]

There does seem to be a problem with search at this time.

For example, I was looking for a Sterling silver dragon pendant listed in Australia. The search came up with around a dozen or so dragon pendants, none of which fit my requirements.

Then I used the Terapeak research tool in the seller hub to search for the same item, and so many dragon pendants came up that I gave up counting. In the results, there were at least 10 very nice pendants located in Australia which simply did not show up in the normal eBay search. 

On looking deeper into this anomaly, I noticed that the pendants that did not show up in the general search for a Sterling silver dragon pendant were listed under more specific categories, for example,  men’s jewellery or vintage jewellery. 

I doubt that sellers realise that refining their category listings results in being eliminated from the general searches. 

Maybe the thinking behind this for eBay is they hope sellers will choose a second listing category and pay the extra dollar?

[eburtonlab]

I doubt that sellers realise that refining their category listings results in being eliminated from the general searches.

eBay has been steering searches into particular categories based on the keywords used for many years.

Sellers should try searching for their items the way that potential buyers might search to see where those searches wind up, and then use that information to choose which category to list in.