New search = eBay sellers losing money!

[markr2]

Hopefully that caught your attention, but it's certainly the truth!

If you haven't noticed, eBay have changed their search routines.  Unfortunately it means that you may not be able to sell to international customers.

To make sure I can find as many items as possible, I use advanced search, select search title and description and change Location to "Only show items" / "Located in" / "Any Country/Region".

In my case I'm a collector on Naomi Campbell.

In my saved search on eBay Australia (ebay.com.au) that shows me 7503 results.  Great, except with the new system if I try to move to the next page the new search shows only 741 items.  6762 items I can no longer buy!

If I go to eBay UK (ebay.co.uk) with the same settings I can see only 2070 items and every time I swap pages the count changes up or down 20 or so!  Still, that's 5000 items I can't buy!

Worse still if I use eBay US (ebay.com) remember eBay made changes earlier that prevents buyers from searching the globe as "Any Country/Region" isn't available.  That limits me to finding only 2700 again.

Now if I go back to eBay Australia, try the same search and then on the first result page select the inferior "Worldwide" option on the left hand side of the screen I do increase the findings to 5942 so I'm only losing 1500 items!  Again however, every time I move pages the count goes up and down dropping items on and off.  And no, that's not due to items being sold or added new - it's too many for that.

I've tried this on three different PC's, three different browsers and two operating systems.  All do the same thing for the past 15 hours.

Please, everyone try this yourself.  If you see the same I'd suggest you post your displeasure as I'm sure you all realise that without buyers being able to find your items, you are missing out on sales and reducing your income.  If you're eBay, you're missing out on commission.

Hopefully this is only a temporary glitch and eBay will fix really fast.

[steph_vz]

Yes, I have noticed this too.  Its terrible!  I like to search all items available as sometimes you find items not available to Australia, but if you kindly ask the seller, they are more than happy to change the listing and sell to you. 

[carly2579]

i dont sell international  only in australia 

[davewil1964]

I only sell to Australia, and it is a valid point. I doubt there is very much available from Australian sellers that isn't available in the relevant countries without the cost of posting halfway around the world, so it could well be irrelevant whether or not a search on other sites finds such items.

Too many polysyllabic words?

[flashback_deals]

I sell some stuff overseas, mainly things that can be sent as letter rates, parcel rates is a ripoff

I would say 95% of my buyers are located in Australia, although last month I had an increase in overseas sales

[july80_0]

This is really ticking me off as well. There are plenty of items that Australian sellers DO NOT sell of have access to sell.

For what I buy on eBay the ONLY way I have found what I'm looking for is by using "Only show items" / "Located in" / "Any Country/Region"

With eBay thoughtlessly limiting it's buyers from using this they have effectively left Aussies out in the cold as we are so often behind the rest of the world with many items, now even more so.

[glittabebemetamorphislatex]

I find that also often go into ebay UK and ask them to post and its fine but not all buyers have the etc savvy we have.

[suitcase_of_memories]

freightcar you should change your name to freighttrain.....you are VERY funny !!

markR, thank you for spending all that time researching this, so many seem to think it is a conspiracy theory.  I noticed over 12 months back how 'uncertain' being found on here could be.

If you absolute specifics you come up with a lot of what you are looking for but as you have pointed out NOT ALL OF WHAT IS BEING OFFERED, which is unfair to the sellers as they ARE paying to reach a market of buyers......and these buyers are unable to purchase because THEY AREN'T seeing the sellers items....even though they are on here.

I do have a lot of international buyers [I always mention that it was an international sale in their feedback], but these days, no matter what I am listing, I am definitely NOT getting anything like the number of watchers I used to have.

Now if ebay have finally become an acceptable household name & people feel safer buying on here wouldn't you think the volume of watchers would incrementaly increase with the growth of new comers/buyers ?  Seems to me it has gone backwards in that regard.

I was watching tele tonight re the 'frenzy' sale mishmash...I noticed they were on SAFARI - this is where many are saying ebay now directs all its energies

What I would like to know is, if ebay are using Safari instead of say GOOGLE like they used to, is this the reason for the lack of listings showing up.......safari doesn't have the audience or it just can't cope perhaps ?

Also another interesting thing I have noticed on ebay is once upon a time when you were searching through pages of items, either completed or for sale, at the very base of the page the number of pages available were limitless 1, 2, 3 , 3 ,4, 5 etc up to 25+ & then ongoing. Now you only see 1, 2 & 3..........until you click on page 2 then you see page 4 as an extra page.

I would like to know what the this means technically. I don't know a lot about IT so will see if someone savvy can explain its impact on Availability vs Being Displayed.

sorry, bit long winded, too many bases to cover on this issue.

[zenremix777]

suitcase, within the last couple of weeks eBay and PayPal have both started advertising on TV. It seems they're really pushing forward with their new idea for the site and hopefully that will bring more people to buy.

Re: watchers, I've noticed that the cheaper the item is the more watchers it will have. In saying that, I've also had an item with 8 watchers only get one bid for a ridiculously lower price than it's actually worth. For some reason, people didn't come back to bid. eBay can be a very frustrating place... infact, I'm more frustrated now with it than maybe ever. I can not stand waiting 7 days for a listing to finish anymore and have not one person bid - let alone even view it - or someone place a bid within the last day or whatever. Yet, starting things at just 1 day auctions will eat up free listings. I don't know how people can tolerate waiting 7 days for their listing to finish. They must actually have a life, so lucky for them.

Infact, I'm more peeved at the buyers than anything else. I try to sell things worth a certain amount but can't. The same thing gets sold in 99% of other auctions by numerous different sellers for much higher. I can't get a single bid. Honestly, I've started to think alot of buyer's are a joke. They bid or buy something if they like the seller, not necessarily the actual item. They'd buy lint from a suit jacket pocket if it was sold all flash and dandy. Bah... I'm very angry today... alot of things piss me off. Hopefully no one has read this full post as it's a waste of your time. I just needed to vent this.

[suitcase_of_memories]

zenremix I think you are just as frustrated as many other sellers on here. 

I think we all feel we are paying our FEES & not being given any service for our money.

By that I mean ebay have made it quite clear they are giving priority to sellers who 'tow the line' re 30 money back refunds, free postage, postage within 24 hours etc...all the new requirements that earn you priority placement.

I think ebay will regret the day they opted to pander to the large companies & the chinese market.  Once every large Retailer gets the hang of on-line selling they will open their own websites. When that happens where do you think buyers will go.......directly to the retailer BECAUSE they know exactly who they are dealing with then, they know there aren't going to be any issues with warranties & services, they will trust the Brand Name website over a generic mish=mash group of business they have no way of identifying with certainty.

A lot of the huge retailers resisted on line selling - probably because bricks & mortar shops was all they ever knew & we know how many of us hate change. But now they are hearing about it ALL the time they realise this is the new way to reach their customers.

So when all these companies move away who is ebay going to have to rely on for their business..........they will wish they'd respected the very people who CREATED THEM - US, all the small hobby sellers who took the risk long before a lot of the big retailers even knew it was happening.

Sadly ebay probably would laugh at this idea, but let's wait & see........hopefully we won't all be tooooo disillusioned by then & have gone back to B&M ourselves or markets etc. or found a more loyal trading place.

.