As long as our items are still in order by ending soonest and in fair order in first place sounds ok. As long as this is something you do after the initial list of items comes up
Hi EBay. The wheel is round and works very well. Perhaps eBay would like to try a Square version of a wheel. Some time thing are better just left alone.
cathier1165 #1: Best Match is indeed an optional sort that buyers would have to seek out and choose themselves. The initial list of items will still come up in search results sorted by 'ending soonest' as it does now.
decosuze #2: This feature is aimed at buyers who struggle with very large numbers of items coming back in some search results. For them, Best Match as a sort option could be a very much rounder wheel, so to speak, than the one we currently offer to buyers.
I think it is a good new feature but the fact that you have to choose it from the drop down bar will probably mean that most people wont even know it's there.
Its sort of giving you the option of pressing all of the Related Searches which appear on the top anyway which ebay suggest you try aswell as your current search request.
I think setting it as your deafult in Customise Settings will restrict your search results to much and when searching for a keyword you may not automatically want Ebays recommendation forced on you.
If your just after a quick lookup and want to have a sort of Ebay Express approach to your shooping on Ebay then It sounds good but for me it will filter out too many listings where the sellers choice of Listing Title doesnt include ebays recommended Best Match.
I think the giving a link to a discussion thread is good though and i'm supprised of the lack of people posting.
I think it is ok the way it is. Because if you keep changing it the people you say who struggle with large numbers of items coming up are going to get more confused. If the order comes up the same as it does now then its fair, if the keywords stay the same its fair, but if you are going to mess with the items ending soonest & the keywords then it isnt the way Ebay works is it? & that isnt fair.
#3 Richard, you say "The initial list of items will still come up in search results sorted by 'ending soonest' as it does now." However that is not the case if somebody sets their preferences is it?
How does it affect featured listings - will they still always appear at the top of a search, or only if they have the magic words that eBay have deemed important in them?
I feel this would be an ideal way of displaying SIF results, however I am concerned that on the main site it will unfairly tilt the board in favour of professional sellers, who will be able to study the key words etc, and tilt it away from the casual seller.
Clearly this goes beyond simply the words that are in a listing... so it begs the question What other influences will their be?
Will multiple item listings appear higher than single BIN - by their nature, multiple listings can attract numerous bids (purchases) and so will appear to be more attractive than the single item BIN.
Will any weighting be applied to feedback score - if buyers prefer to bid on / buy from sellers with high feedback / high percentage positives for example?
Will any weighting be applied to favour auctions over BIN or vice versa if buyer behaviour suggest that buyers favour one over the other?
Will high volume sellers be favoured over low volume in any way?
Are the search results based on buying behaviour of the individual searcher, or of the eBay community?
I think we need a lot more information on how this works for sellers to have confidence that it is fair.
dixietree #4: I think you're right that because Best Match is in the drop-down, it will get pretty low usage by buyers.
Our hope is that people who do use it get 'better' results - measured by their tendency to click into items, watch, bid and buy afterwards.
The listing title is still a very important part of where items are positioned in Best Match - an exact match with the search words that buyers type in is a big part of the formula.
nothankujohn #5: Glad you like it. As you and others use it, it would be good to hear whether you think it's helping you get to relevant items more easily.
catkaz75 #6: You're definitely right that this isn't the way that eBay has worked in the past. We've always had items sorted by time remaining, which is fair and simple for sellers, but not necessarily the most helpful or useful thing for buyers. It's definitely a big change in that respect.
rozsr #7: Certainly if a buyer changes their preferences to use Best Match, results will appear sorted by 'relevance'. I'd imagine that buyers would only do that if they tried it and found it useful. Very few buyers use the drop-downs or change their search preferences, so we're probably talking about a small number of people.
Featured listings will still appear at the top of results, though the order of the listings within the Featured section may change if Best Match decides that one is more relevant than another.
Interesting thought about professional and casual sellers. Professional sellers already study the site and how to list successfully on it a lot more closely than casual sellers do, do I imagine that that will be true of Best Match too.
At the moment the 'formula' is super-simple. It combines the time remaining, the words in the title and what previous buyers have done with similarly titled listings to generate the sort order.
In future it will probably become more sophisticated; potentially, the ingredients for the 'formula' could be anything we want to use. Multiple items, feedback, auction/ BIN and seller volume could all be used, but for the time being we're going to stay with the super-simple formula and see how that does before we tinker with it further.
At the moment, the results are influenced by the past behaviour of all buyers rather than a single buyer, but ideally we'd have it working based on the single buyer's habits so the results were as relevant as possible for that individual.
I think we'll need to balance 'giving information on how it works to give sellers confidence' with 'giving information on how it works to give sellers ways to game it'. I hope with this thread I'm starting off towards the former!
Please don't ever make this the default. I don't like being told what I like or what I want and yesterday's choices are not necessarily the ones I want to make today.
For those that are easily pleased and don't mind someone or something else making decisions for them, I suppose Best Match has its uses!
Cannot see the point in this at all, why change what already works well. Too many new pointless features are being introduced at the moment. Perhaps more effort should be put in to making sure current features work as they should (eg. counters) rather than introducing new ones!!
I think this will help buyers. I think it is important for buyers, for their own benefit and amusement, to experiment with the different ways of searching on eBay but this new way, which will be based on RESULTS, will be useful for all but the most erratic and whimsical buyers who don't like today what they liked yesterday (if such skittish creatures exist).
Agreeing with SteveJamesMorris here - what the hell is going on with this? Absolutely awful. Surely the customise display option should do exactly that and let me over-ride Best Match. If I'm searching for the same term every day, I want to see the newly listed stuff, not the best match stuff. Shockingly poor.
no good, please don't make best match default, this will end up only a few big seller can sell their products, and new/part time seller end up in the bottom of the list. less people will sell in ebay in the end.
I am a seller who sells computer accessories, i have sold 80-90% less item since the new 'best match' search was introduced. What a load of cr*p it is!
I have buy it now items that would normally have 300 views and 4-5 sales on a 10 day listing
BUT NOW
My items now have 19 views and have 1h 37 mins left and are bottom of the search list of results!!! How is that FAIR, I pay the same as the guys whos items are top of the list!!!
ALSO
Now this new best match serach has been introduced I cant be bothered buying items off ebay since the new search option was introduced, I just find it difficult to use and I have 900+ feedback.
I used to search for a sub category of Matchbox die cast vehicles called "Models of yesteryear". This category seems to have been dropped and now I get all matchbox vehicles. Instead of 1100 items there are now over 7500, most of which are irrelevant. I have now given up searching for "Models of yesteryear", sales will suffer.
Please abandon this idea and go back to what worked!!!
Go to Advanced search. at the top of the page, and enter Matchbox (models of yesteryear), tick the box for item and description, and this is what you get...
best match is default choise by eBay I guess!! - when you enter on eBay and search for something it comes up on best match. eBay just wanting time on something we dont need. Its would have been ok if it wasnt recommended but only optional..
Best Match is the WORST thing I have every seen on eBay. My sales have plummeted. I can't even find my own items half the time. I feel like I'm wasting my listing fees and to be honest I think eBay couldn't care less and would prefer it if I just hurried up and went away. They certainly don't seem to value the £200+ eBay fees I pay them every month.
I have tried to explain my problem to them but the corporate giant that eBay has become couldn't care less about the little guys like us that made them in the first place.
I guess I have no choice but to look for alternative sales outlets as eBay is fast becoming a complete waste of my time and money.
Well done whoever forced this digrace through the eBay board... I hope you feel good about yourself.
I am a furious seller who has just thrown away £15 on a featured ad, that even when it is about to close never made it above page 8 of the results for the keyword it was aimed at.
I am selling a sherlock holmes dvd boxset, and the title is called complete sherlock holmes dvd.... You seach for sherlock holmes dvd and i am not ranking...
If you are not going to show my ad, you should make this clear and not charge me £15..
Just to add after reading the thousands of users in uproar, please reverse this terrible mistake you have made ebay... It is a mistake, remove this junk immediately.
And by the way, you're not talking to Ebay here, you're talking to other buyers and sellers... Use the Contact Us link under the Help tab at the top right of the page.
I HATE THE PIECE OF CRAP KNOWN AS BEST MATCH. ITS THE MOST LUDICROUS THING! I AM CURRENTLY SELLING WII FITS BUT MY ITEM JUST DOES NOT SHOW UP UNDER BEST MATCH.
JUST YESTERDAY THE AVERAGE VIEWS ON WII FIT LISTINGS THAT APPEARED IN BEST MATCH AND FINISHING AT THE SAME TIME AS MINE GOT ABOUT 150-200+ VIEWS AND THE SELLERS WERE RECEIVING £90+. WHEREAS BECAUSE I DIDN'T APPEAR UNDER BEST MATCH I BARELY GOT £70 WITH JUST 30 VIEWS IF THAT!
HOW IS THIS FAIR? EVEN THOUGH I HAD THE IDEAL TITLE - BRAND NEW NINTENDO WII FIT BALANCE BOARD + GAME PAL UK. THE DAY BEFORE THE SAME ITEM, SAME TITLE SHOWED ME ON BEST MATCH AND I GOT 190 VIEWS. CLEARLY MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE! BUT WHY I DON'T APPEAR THERE, I HAVE NO IDEA AND ITS COSTING ME!
I HAVE LISTED ANOTHER ONE, TWEAKED THE TITLE TO RESEMBLE CLOSER MATCH TO OTHERS, BUT STILL NO LUCK!
ANY ADVISE WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED. ANY CURSING ON EBAYS BEST MATCH SEARCH WOULD ALSO BE APPRECIATED.
Hello Richard, why is item nearest, better than item ending soonest? O.K. I am looking for a spare part etc, I do need it it pretty soon, what I do not need is to be shown an item up in 29 days time that is just around the corner. I do now know that the search option is available for ending soonest. However, we get used to a system that works fine and has done for years, then Mr D.Hedd and his interfering gang of know nowts decide we need an unwanted change, don't believe me?, I finally had a reply from ebay about the changes only to be told the blatant lie 'after much consultaion', who did they consult? I do not know any of my friends on ebay who were consulted, so who did they ask? T. Blaire or G.brown or some other upstanding never known to lie member of the establishment?.
Richard moved on from this board two years ago... he's now the Head of Trust and Safety for Ebay UK. So there's not much point addressing your rant to him here.
It took me 30 seconds to change my default searches from Best Match. That was weeks ago, and they haven't reverted. So the time wasn't wasted.
Many of the Item Specifics for mobile phones (eg 'Nokia 6300') contain a list of 'included accessories'. But when I list a phone, they often do not contain all of the items eBay have listed. And not just me - consider a casual eBay seller auctioning their old handset who has simply lost the headset or manual yet is obligated to provide one because it's included in the Item Specifics.
I could of course NOT include Item Specifics but presumably this will result in my position in Best Match searches being compromised.
Good to see we have a 'wise guy'! here comes summer!.
Obviously this is a thread, not aimed at ebay but hopefully they read it.... if you have ever used the contact us page you will know you just get auto replies... and a wasted effort.
Someone of your sharpness will change the default search back to normal and bypass this poorly functioning algo, but the average punter wont.
I can see why ebay would want to shut out bad sellers from the rankings but I have an account that I have made an effort to post every item the same day or day after, it has DSR ratings all 4.9 or 5 out of 5. Its a perfect account.... somedays I rank some days not... gone from spending alot on featured ads to just the odd 20p one now, and sell 90% on other sites nowdays... shame ebay was the best.
I think best match is a great idea in theory, it just doesnt work well enough yet.
This new 'Best Match' setting is plain stupid. Why o' why have they done this, as the algorithm doesn't even find the supposed Best Match anyway. I have far better feedback, been trading longer, offer better value than all my competitors who are now listed above me??? I have asked eBay to explain the logic in that... guess what, no reply. This is an absolutely stupid system.
When it was set to the ending soonest, that was an objective system, to set it up with Best Match is subjective and nonsensical.
My existing customers who want to buy from me again are now asking me why I am not selling on eBay any more, and I have to tell them I am it's just that eBay have made this stupid change!
I mean I could understand it if did find Best Match, but it don't. It is crazy.
I would appreciate it if you or anyone else could answer this... Why does an item listed on ebay.ie get put at the bottom pages of the ebay.uk site? It basically closes off the whole UK market for an Irish seller. How is that fair and can you confirm what I am saying is true?
BEST MATCH IS A PAIN having to turn it off all the time to find what you want. if it so good why not put it as a tag at the top of the page like buy it now only and auctions only and stop trying to manipulate Customers unless thay want it think about it dave57000
Search & Category Chat
Learn more about RSS
Must use Buy It Now and PayPal.
Previous
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
if it so good why not put it as a tag at the top of the page like buy it now only and auctions only and stop trying to manipulate Customers unless thay want it