Best Match is certainly discriminatory

[nirv_australia]

I have been having a major problem with Best Match for a while now. Our fixed priced listings, some of which used to rank in the top 10 on page 1, are nowhere to be seen in search results. I have contacted Ebay countless times. On the phone they tell me nothing’s wrong with best match. When I email, they don’t reply.

So, today used one of my old ebay accounts to list a PC. I haven’t used this account in years. Low and behold, this item is ranking high on page 1. I then listed the exact same item under this account I’m using now. That item is nowhere to be seen on the first 20 pages. The two listings are identical in every way. So, according to ebay, out of these two listings, the ‘Best Match’ for a customer looking for a PC is the one from a seller who has sold nothing for years, has a feedback rating of only a hundred or so, is not a Powerseller or a TRS. The other listing is all of these things with a solid and consistent sales record for the past 6 years. How completely insane is that??

[tackledfishing]

I understand EXACTLY what you are talking about it!! Today was probably my 5th phone call to " customer service " to get told.. " Sorry nothing we can do about it!"  We had atleast 40 listings on page 1 and 2 for 2 consecutive months and then BANG... NOTHING visible! We now find one of our products on page 11 with best match search. We also have the ebay premium service badge on ALL our products! I cannot express how annoyed and frustrated I feel. I spoke to one representative last week about this issue and I asked if we could please have our account reviewed again, she said she will organise it and informed me that I will be notified via email within 24 to 48 hours. Well 48 hours past so I called today and the man on the phone spoke to the previous representative about it and she repied " I never told her I was going to request a review, plus they cannot review an account manually!" If it could not be done initially, why lie to me on the phone and make it out that everything will be investigated!

Absolute joke!

[*crikey*mate*]

what sort of listings are making best match top ranks?

I can't put my finger on the thought process to join the dots, but it goes something like this.

If it the hong kong/chinese listings getting preference, then this might be some kind of trade off to keep them listing now that their postal service has changed. eBay would want to keep making things seem viable for them as a lot of people would probably now start trying to avoid these sellers.

but eBay can't tell us that, but one scenario is that their algorythim is manipulated to appease certain demographics. and on eBay Aust, the OS sellers are disadvantaged, with their postal service, exchange rates (now that our $ has dropped so much) postal times etc.

eBay have to do something to want to keep trading here. If their listings weren't ranking, they'd prolly leave and just stick to their own vcountries sites

[clarry100]

I just think it's very unethical of eBay to allow these OS sellers to take priority over us in-country sellers, when ALL our profits stay in country and benefit our own OZ economy.

Might be one for my local federal politician to take a look into.

Or maybe even the media. 

[davewil1964]

Isn't 'best' match supposed to be tailored? In that you, clarry, would get a different list to me, if we used the same keywords.

That was my impression, anyway. Given that even eBay can't/won't explain the algorithm we're all just peeing in the wind.

[*crikey*mate*]

*stands upwind from Dave*

[ozstockman]

---

@clarry100 wrote:

I just think it's very unethical of eBay to allow these OS sellers to take priority over us in-country sellers, when ALL our profits stay in country and benefit our own OZ economy.

Might be one for my local federal politician to take a look into.

Or maybe even the media. 

---

I do not think ebay really cares where money stays as long as they have their own profit. However Australian media and politicians may be able to help with it. 

[clarry100]

Oh I'm very sure you are right. And I'm just as sure they are not acting illegally either. It's just that I believe their actions to be highly unethical. And that's what I feel like exposing.

They are getting too big for their boots and really need to be taken down a peg or two.

I'm just not really sure how you tackle such a juggernaut tho. Public pressure would be a key.

What we need is some wholesome competition but how do you do that?

[clarry100]

3-days ago I wrote yet another rather lengthy letter to eBay asking for the letter to be elevated to management levels. The letter goes into great detail about the comparison between our two stores and how inconsistent all this best match stuff is. When you have two stores with pretty much identical goods and listings (all 100% compliant) and such vastly different search results its easy to see there is some kind of weighting against one of our stores. And both of our stores have equal very high rating standards.

So far nothing back at all.

On the plus side tho. Over the last couple of days (strangely since my letter) one of our stores has almost come back to the sales levels we had prior to Sept 17th. The other is barely making a sale at all. Down at least 60% on what it was prior to Sept 17th.

We have even tried out Google Adwords to see if that works. But have to say very disappointing results. Lots of clicks (we pay for) but even asking the few buying customers we have not been able to attribute a single sale to a Google search result.

We are about to engage someone to develop our own website. Something we originally thought we might do next year. Try to get that up & running sooner than we had planned.

[crazy-technology]

have u got any reply for this issue

[clarry100]

Not a peep back from them yet.