Category Updates - Massive Problems

[himalayan-dog-chews-australia]

I have just spent over an hour on the phone to a lovely lady in US (on the File Exchange team) because the category updates for books have gone to hell in a handcart. She intimated that other categories are also in a complete mess.

Don't try to manually correct migrated listings that are in the wrong category- chances are you won't be able to anyway.

This is just to let everyone know there are problems - surprise lol

[twyngwyn]

Yes, you can relist or sell similar & have the sub-category show....BUT....try searching for your book under that sub-category - it's not there....customer support told me they have REMOVED the option....I think they are waiting for more complaints

[waterway100]

you are right .. I contacted ebay multiple times .. nothing on the annoucement board .. and nothing shows up when you search for it .. A huge mess .. and ebay refused to infom the sellers .. extremely frustating .. thank you 

[waterway100]

Thanks .correct.. But was is the point in relisting an item in this category ..when it does not show.. This is ebays mess and they refuse to inform sellers ...this subject search in the non fiction book categories is not fully operational ... Extremely frustrating .. Cheers

[twyngwyn]

99% of the items I sell are books/magazines but I try NOT to list them in BOOKS/MAGAZINES because they don't sell

[pruetrading]

Same here. I am starting to list a few in categories other than "books"; I'm now also mainly listing in Book categories where subject still works eg Antiquarian, Childrens . Can only hope that buyers may start complaining as the number of book under Subjects dwindles (anything after 10 Sept and most renewing GTC are listed as unspecified )

[dazzledayz]

It's a mess alright.

I just did a bit of a count for non-fiction books:

Categorized listings = 128,934

Un-Categorized = 9,268,210

So I guess this means that only 1.4% of listings are browsable by subject.

If the title you list is not searched for by name, author or isbn it will not be found.

Really, with over 9 million titles we need more sub-categories, not less.

As any bookstore knows, customers are inveterate browsers.

A good many books are sold to people who never came into the store intemding to buy that particular title.

It would be nice to hear why eBay thinks removing subject categories is a good idea.

[straybooksoz]

Probably because the mega dropshippers don't use them. And we can't having smaller sellers having an advantage because we're prepared to spend time on our listings instead of just uploading a list of ISBNs

[dazzledayz]

I guess so but then you and I both use isbn numbers too as can anyone.

There are also plenty of books out there without numbers as well.

I would suspect even drop-shippers have issues with the older stuff.

Way to go in making a "better buying experience" !

[straybooksoz]

The difference is we use ISBNs as additional information. They use ISBNs as their primary tool. So their default listings won't include subject or, when the info is taken from fantastic fiction, necessarily the correct author.

I have a book listed, where the wrong author is listed on EVERY listing but mine. But it's only a $5 paperback, so who would care? Apart from me.