REMOVE BEST MATCH SCAM

[comcol]

The only way this Best match scam can be removed is for a large amount of sellers to demand action on it. 

The majority of sellers have seen large drops in their sales which have all gone to 1 or 2 sellers in each catagory.

Ebay clearly wants this and refuses to accept any suggestion that it does not work. 

Their supposed 'criteria' to move up the best match engine has been proven utterly false on several occasions.

Ebay needs to remove it as a default setting at the very least.

Best match guarentee either the cheapest prices, best service or best quality on a product what so ever.

It simply allows the protected seller to dominate and take sales away from other good sellers.

TIME TO TAKE ACTION SELLERS 

[phonebite]

I think it is a bit misleading calling Best Match a scam. When I think scam, I think someone trying to steal your money. 

I am all up for a system where it would show Australian Sellers first as it would benefit most of us but I wouldn't say this current system is a scam. Broken maybe.. but not a scam in my opinion.

[phonebite]

It really is up to the buyer on what they want. If they want quality goods, then they probably look at a well priced product anyways. I think most buyers go for something cheaper on eBay.. I mean thats probably the only thing I hear about when people talk about eBay.. the cheapness.

[comcol]

The trouble is when a single catagory has 7000 items a buyer is only going to look at a couple of hundred. When ebay falsely claims the best price and quality is what you get with 'best match' it manipulates buyers into purchasing those at the top. 

An auction site is supposed to be time ending. That is what the default setting should be. It is then fair for everyone.

I personally went from 40-50 systems a week to 2-3 when best match came in. I have literally put systems on where I am losing a fair bit of money on them just to see if it moves them up in the best match and not a single one sells. No matter what price etc the item it will never be anywhere in best match.

Yet, Ebay is allowing one seller use multiple ID's and with those they have stolen from a LOT of buyers. Ebay KNOWS this and is ignoring it. Pretty good proof they are manipulating the system trying to drive sellers out whilst protecting certain sellers.  Along with a couple of other sellers we even provided the evidence of what was going on and they totally ignore it.

[clarry100]

Hi PJ,

We can clearly tell that BM ranking correlates with sales volume in our category.

We use the same test search all the time to check. "baby girl headbands" with no other flters set. These three words are used in the tiltles of most of our listings. Along with others of course. We use up all the 80 characters available if we can.

Interestingly if we include the filter "located in Aust only". Then the vast majority of our litings show up inside the top 200 or so. This eliminates all the Chinese sellers and leaves only the very small handful of Aussie sellers in our category. If we could have this as a default setting I'm quite sure we would sell more than we could handle.

When our sales are waning we find that little or none of our listings are inside the top 500 results.

When sales are up we find that quite a few are up inside the top 500 results.

Very occasionally we get a big run on a particular product. When this happens we find that this particular listing is right up on page #1 of the results.

So from this it really looks to us like the buyers in our category are heavily reliant on BM to find their items.

Of course, this may not be the same across all categories.

[comcol]

That is all best match relates to. Sales.

The MAJOR problem with that is if the same sellers are always on top in best match (and as a result get all the sales) then it makes it impossible for other sellers to ever move up the list when there are thousands of auctions in that catagory.

That is why best match is falsely manipulating the system.

[clarry100]

... and once all the smaller sellers give up and leave becasue they cannot make a buck, then where is ebay.

Left with a few large sellers in every category.

Maybe this is what they want for whatever reason.

[*crikey*mate*]

Maybe it is the categories and how many sellers are in those categories?

On my PC a little while ago, I am on the first page in 4 dif categories. I'm not a big seller by any means, but they are smallish categories. I guess if there are a lot of listings in a specific category, that only so many can feature on the first page at a specific time.

Also, from memory, Clarry and I were looking at best match searches a few months ago and what showed on my best match was different to what showed on his best match.

The way I work with the eBay searches is to target the searches I can control, such as ending soonest and those with price considerations. Best Match and how it is determined seems to be a mystery, even to eBay.

When I list something new, I find my sales increase, and not necessarily for that item, but I think when I list new, that item shows up high in someone's search results. If I can, I will go for lowest price + postage (though that can change as soon as someone else lists something), or if I can't do that will go for highest product and postage but often include best offer. Sometimes you can't though, so those you just have to take it as you come, but if you can get at least a few of your items to show high in some of the categories that can be controlled (to an extent) you at least have a shot at being seen and having p[eople see "what else I have".

It has been equally successful for me to have some loss leaders - very popular, highly sought after brands/items, but in categories where I have other things of that nature/brand that someone may also buy - and also have a couple of items priced quite high. Usually they sit there, but other things then sell, or sometimes, you get surprised and someone will buy it and not even put in best offer. Happenned twice this morning.

I have few return customers as I change my product often, and also sell it in cycles. I just list things I find that I think will sell rather than focus on one category, but I try to have a few different things in that category when I do list in it so that when I do manage to catch someone's attention and get them to look, I have more things to provide a choice in the area they are interested, and just maybe, they may look into another area as well.

[comcol]

yeah I knew sometime before the Best match came out that it was being brought in by Ebay. I knew someone who worked there and they were bringing it in to do exactly as you mentioned: to get rid of all sellers except for 2 or 3 per catagory if possible. No idea what they think that will achieve except to turn people off the site as prices will and have gone up.

Unfortunately, the majority of buyers do not change the settings and they always use best match search. 

As a result, it is simply impossible to ever sell much (no matter how much cheaper your items are) in a large catagory.

My sales dropped 1000% the first month best match came in and it has never really improved.

I even list some items where I lose a good $50 on each sale just to see if it ever moves up in best match but it never does.  Customers dont even buy them because they simple can never find them.

I have some 15% of total adds in the catagory yet not a single one is even in the top 700 listings. Pointless.

It sure does no help when Ebay is colluding with sellers who are stealing from buyers either. I think everyone would be shocked at the evidence I have on that.

[davewil1964]

Bugga, no laptops. I've decided my next PC needs to be a laptop.

[runninmt]

The ebay product is laughably diluted and they send customers to google adword websites routinely .. the search engine is completely stuffed too .. best match is another disgusting ebay lie .. I have no idea what a professional seller can do here these days aside from loose their shirt .. IMO ebay is now like some bizzaroland gambling casino .. best match at the very best is like some kind of moumental stuffup that gets tweaked on a near daily basis .. overall a joke and affront to people's intelligence ..