Listings Appearing At End Of Search Results

[arb_games]

Copy and paste of my email to Ebay Support tonight.  I'm tired of all my listings appearing way down search lists, my customers have also advised me that this is happening with my listings.

Maybe someone here can shed a light on it too as to a solution to this problem, which I strongly suspect is the main reason for sales to be so low.

Email below:

I have been trying to work out why I am not selling the amount of items that I usually do, which has been a major problem for the past 6 months or longer.  I just logged out of my Ebay account and then pretended to be a potential customer and did a search for 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles.

I have around 800 jigsaw puzzles of 1,000 pieces listed, yet when I do a general search, out of the 34 pages of items, ALL my puzzles are in the last few pages.

I have done searches for other items that I sell and the problem is similar right across all the categories that I sell.

Can you please explain why all my items are appearing so far down on the searches.

This is totally unacceptable considering that I pay Ebay $500 per month just for my anchor store alone, my feedback record whilst not perfect, is not bad either with only 25 negative feedbacks against 5,000 positive feedbacks during the past 12 months.

I am beginning to question the wisdom of investing over $20,000 per year in fees with Ebay, especially considering that all my listings appear well down the search lists.

It would be appreciated if someone with advanced knowledge explain what in the hell is happening here.  I do not want any copy and paste standard answers, I want my account representative or their superior to explain to me correctly why my items appear so far down search lists.

[thesoulyearns]

This may seem like a dumb answer but I did notice something in your listings that differs from virtually every other listing when searching for "1000 piece jigsaw puzzles."

You list it as "1,000 piece" whereas 99% of other sellers list it as "1000 piece." The difference being the comma. This may not be it at all but it may be worth removing that comma.

As a side note, eBay has little helpers that finish off the search for you. I started typing in "1000 piece..." and they finished off the rest of that sentence. I started typing in "1,000 piece..." and they didn't have any answer for that.

[austeam]

There is something seriously wrong with the search result. I couldn't find your listings at all on eBay and when I did a store search in your store for 1,000 piece I got absolutely no results even though I can manually search through your listings and find plenty.

You should call eBay and ask for a solution PLUS a refund for insertion fees.

[thesoulyearns]

The OPs listings are showing up for me - they start to take up a big chunk of the pages from Page 3 onwards but I have to type it exactly "1,000" WITH the comma.

Maybe you purposely put the comma there so you'd have less competition and I understand if that's the case. However, it seems the majority of people are searching without the comma in "1000." You could try removing the comma on some listings, just to see if it helps things.

[austeam]

Hope this screen shot attached is clear enough for you to read.

[digital*ghost]

This may seem like a dumb answer but I did notice something in your listings that differs from virtually every other listing when searching for "1000 piece jigsaw puzzles."

Not dumb at all, most punctuation is treated by eBay's search engine as a space. (Try searching for things that have specific dimensions like 1.5mm and you'll see what I mean - the letters and numbers are treated separately even though they're - effectively - one 'word'). 

I see all of your listings (default search order is ending soonest) when I type 1,000, but don't see any for 1000. I would venture that 1000 is a more popular search term, so that could help things. 

[austeam]

Wow, the comma did make all the difference.... but you would think eBay would want buyers to find what they are looking for and allow for both.

[arb_games]

Thanks guys, I guess I have a big job ahead of me removing the commas then.  I will let you know in a week or two, when I have done them all, if it makes a difference.

[austeam]

The listings that rank higher than yours when I search for 1,000 piece jigsaw are mostly top rated sellers.  Your postage time DSR appears to have been hit hard (only 4.6) and that is sure to have an impact on Best Match.

[austeam]

Thanks guys, I guess I have a big job ahead of me removing the commas then.  I will let you know in a week or two, when I have done them all, if it makes a difference.

I suggest you only remove half of them.  Some buyers might search with the comma. However talk to eBay about this.