I’m having an issue with eBay. Perhaps I’m overlooking something obvious, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask.
Sometimes I see things posted on here that are on eBay. If I go to eBay and search for the item or similar items, nothing comes up. An example would be a recent thread about a Rudall Carte listing on ebay. If I click the link, it takes me to the item listing on Ebay. However, if I simply go to eBay and type in the search box 'Rudall Carte", the item doesn’t show up in the results. I only get a handful of results for Boehm system flutes. So… why is that? This has happened a number of times on various items in the past. I wonder how many things I might have potentially been interested in that I did not see because of this.
I don’t have any box checked that would rule out the items I search for. I am searching in all categories, all price ranges, all locations, etc. Why isn’t it giving me the results I am looking for? You would think that simply searching for an item’s name would make that item come up if it’s for sale on eBay… but it doesn’t.
Can anyone point out what I am doing wrong?
And sorry if I’m posting this is the wrong forum. I almost went for the trad tech forum, but wasn’t sure if this would be fitting there, as it isn’t related to trad so much as a website issue. I know a lot of people here use eBay, so figure someone here might be able to help.
I think the listing you mentioned got dinged because:
-The listing says, “May not ship to United States;”
-The seller has a 0 feedback rating;
-The listing title is, in eBay’s eyes at least, too short;
-The seller does not list a return policy.
The first reason probably kept it out of your search results. In the absence of the shipping restrictions the others would have probably just put it near the bottom of your result set. You can be the judge of whether these policies are likely to, “reduce bad buyer experiences.”
Thanks very much, Mike. I’ll do some reading on the link you sent.
I would hope that most people who use eBay would have enough common sense to check out those various factors and weigh for themselves whether or not it’s a risk they want to take. You don’t have the option to ask them about shipping if you never find the listing in the first place.
As for the other things, at most, a little cautionary notification at the top of the listing would be sufficient enough without limiting what we can find on eBay.
In any case, thanks for the response! That clears things up!
The posting information determines what items show up in a search listing from countries outside your own. If it says worldwide then anybody can see it, if it specifies counties/regions it shows up in these areas only.
If you are using a PC to go on to eBay, try ticking the Worldwide box on the left hand search panel and refreshing the search, that might let you see it.
Is that the Location section under Advanced Search, where you can select “Only show items … From preferred locations … Worldwide”? I don’t see it elsewhere.
With a little more digging I found that eBay does not show listings across international eBay sites unless the seller opts for the “International Site Visibility” fee. You can see this, as well as eBay’s many other fees, at:
M’yup, indeed I ticked the “Worldwide” box. I messed around with all of those options on the left hand side, after making the search with the search open. Before I ever made the initial post here I tried that, several times. I tried about every combination of those boxes on the left side, and it wouldn’t show up no matter what I selected. I actually did this on about 5 or 6 other items where this same issue happened, and it wouldn’t make the item show. The only way to see it would be to click a link posted somewhere else on the internet that leads directly to the item.
It said the thing about may not ship to the U.S. yesterday. Perhaps it’s changed now. I am not actually interested in buying that item, so it’s not a huge deal. This was just an example of this happening, as it’s happened many many times to me before, on things that I actually was interested in.
But thanks for all of the information everyone! It’s been very helpful!