eBay users... the new search?

[emb123]

I hate it. I loathe it. I despise it.
Good to get these things off your chest apparently.

For those who also hate it, there is a link to let you opt out in the most obvious place (at the bottom of the search page, after all the adverts, mixed up with a load of boring text, in small print, in the very last section on the right.

The opt out option is only going to work for a few more weeks - unless there is enough opposition, it will be a permanent change.

There is a wealth of discussion about it in the eBay community forum, the criticisms to eBay defensive comment ratio is currently running around 2000:1

I wonder what folks here make of it.

I find eBay an invaluable method of shopping now that the running costs for a shop keep the high street so full of bars, cafes and charity shops.

I found it almost impossible to find some of what I was looking for. I found it took me five to ten minutes of exceedingly frustrating searching through pop-up windows to find what I would previously have been able to search on and then refine the search on within 40 seconds. I'm afraid that at one point I was getting so annoyed after spending about seven minutes hunting for an 'audigy' soundcard and having to wade through endless adverts and a load of suggestions about what I probably meant effectively asking me stupid and irrelevant questions that I gave up in disgust.

Anyone else fed up with it already ?

If you are, then do get you comments/rejection of it noted.
If nobody says anything then we'll be stuck with it, permanently. :(

[Fluff]

I am confused, fed up with what and opting out of what?

[emb123]

I am confused, fed up with what and opting out of what?

If you search for anything on eBay then the whole way in which you need to refine your search to get the results you're looking for has been completely re-written.

Suppose for example that you want to search for a toaster, you would type in 'toaster' and hit return.

You then get presented with a list of categories/choices i.e. links that you can click on to refine your search.

e.g. home and garden, with a few categories going to small appliances, toasters, also there is an option for business & commercial and another for camping. You can click on the small appliances, toasters link and Bob's your uncle, you get a list of toasters. You could then further refine by clicking on 'buy it now' and then further refine by changing the sort by order to show lowest prices including p+p first. If there were a deluge of listings from Hong-Kong you could exclude them by selecting UK only. Quick and easy

That was the old system.

If you have still got that then you are lucky and have not been included in the trial.

If instead you are presented with a load of adverts and stupid questions about 'did you mean ?' and given all sort of useless information but where you can't find a link anywhere to show 'buy it now' listings, you can't find a way to get it sort by price including postage, and you can't find any option to exclude foreign listings, or indeed you can hardly find any useful search options at all then you have the new search. It's horrible.

If you have the new search then there is an option right in the bottom right hand corner of the search results page to "opt out". It is VERY hard to spot. You can click on that link and you'll be back to the old search system for a few weeks until this dreadful new one comes back to haunt us again.

If you know your way around the old eBay search system and you get presented with the new one, you'll know about it.

[joxville]

It'll just take time to get used to although so far I've had no problem with it.

[emb123]

Fair enough.

I find it is like having to retrain a new member of staff. You'd just got the old one to understand everything you needed and give you the result you were looking for instantly and now you have a new one and it takes ten times as long only to come up with to come up with an almost but not quite a complete load of garbage at the end.

If all you do is enter something and click search then you're not going to notice any difference.

If on the other hand you have been using eBay for years and are used to refining your searches and even use boolean searches to locate precisely what you want within just a few seconds then to have to waste ten minutes to come with a load of rubbish for a result is going to bite somewhat.

I'm not prepared to accept the results of a simple single word search and accepting on blind faith that the result it chooses to give me is the best of all possible results in the best of all possible worlds.

I know how precise the results can be. The new search, even when I get used to where things have been moved to will be like trying to plaster a wall with a spade.

IMO it's primitive, unwieldy, long-winded, protracted, irritating and ignorant. It's like a detour back to computing in the 1980s (I was there).

[JamesMcVean]

I often use ebay to sell my novels...I have found it really useful, but cringe at the double costs when using paypal...They should make listing free if the item does not sell...that is my only criticism of them...

ps drop me a PM if you want to buy one LOL:cool:

[Jeid]

I too hate the new search. It was grand before... now it's well... not so grand.

[Metalattakk]

I see no ships?

Seriously, nothing's changed for me. Not that it's a service I use much, or care about much. Is this 'trial' ISP based, maybe?

[Angela]

Tried it for the first time today and I hate it! [evil] It takes forever - I couldn't find what I was searching for and in the end I gave up trying.

I don't use Ebay much now anyway. The post arrives at such unpredictable times I usually manage to be out when it does come -then I have to rearrange delivery of the parcel to my local PO. It takes about a week to get it there and I have to pay for the privilege of collecting it.

If (as is possible -we'll know next month) my local PO closes, I won't be ordering anything online if I can avoid it. Life's just too short for all this palaver..... :roll:

Lots of shops in Edinburgh of course, but it's not easy for me to get to them -any more than I can get to the sorting office. I've found Ebay and other online shopping a real boon but I think its usefulness is decreasing, for me at least.

[gollach]

I often use ebay to sell my novels...I have found it really useful, but cringe at the double costs when using paypal...They should make listing free if the item does not sell...that is my only criticism of them...

ps drop me a PM if you want to buy one LOL:cool:

James,

Have to agree with you about the double charges due to Paypal as well as Ebay end of auction charges. At one time, there was a competitor to Paypal called NoChex but they seem to have vanished from the options for payment. Any coincidence that Ebay owns Paypal? I think not!

I have been put off the cheque route in the past but I am starting to think that I will put up with the inconvenience. My latest sale seemed to cost me so much for the convenience of bank transfer that it has left me reeling.

[Bobinovich]

Well I've just tried a few searches and found the results I wanted without any problems. Didn't see any adverts or 'Did you mean' options - just used the refine dialog to narrow what was listed and Hey Presto it worked.

However I'm very disillusioned with Ebay these days as too many people are bumping up the postage costs beyond justification. Yes it's great for those hard-to-find items where you don't mind paying extra - you're just grateful to have found them - but for run-of-the-mill items it's no longer a buyers paradise.

[Angela]

I've opted out of the "new search experience' now. Why does everything have to be an 'experience' these days? :confused

Anyway my new experience was searching for size 4 trainers and being offered.... size 7 pole dancing shoes.... :eek:

[spurtle]

I find you have to type what you want then press "see completed listings", then press "see active listings" before you find what you used to.It's more complicated and it's annoying.
Why do they feel the need to change what everyone was quite happy with?

[Anne x]

I've opted out of the "new search experience' now. Why does everything have to be an 'experience' these days? :confused

Anyway my new experience was searching for size 4 trainers and being offered.... size 7 pole dancing shoes.... :eek:


Lol Angela a whole new career maybe ? [lol]

[Highland lad]

I have now changed back several times to the old search. The new one is rubbish it takes about 20mins to find what you would have normally found in about 2mins.
Then half the time you can't find what you want.
They need to either make it better or leave it alone.

[ashaw1]

Glad to know i'm not alone, i went back to the old version too!

[porshiepoo]

I opted out too.
I only got the test version on the family computer, my laptop stayed as normal.

Nasty, nasty system. I hope it doesn't take off!

[changilass]

I;ve just opted out of it too, got over a hundred more items on a search after I changed back than I got on the new version - change aint alus for the better.