Why doesn't eBay do anything about search result manipulation?
Why does eBay do so little against the manipulation of search results?
Search for SD card 32 GB or something like that and you’ll find lots of results that start with a price range of €1.50. If you take a closer look at the results, you’ll notice that alongside the SD cards, the cases for SD cards are offered for 1.50. This manipulates the search results and makes it unnecessarily difficult, if not impossible, for people searching to find the cheapest one.
I made the effort a while ago, about a year ago, and reported a good 10-15 such listings, but nothing changed.
Since I work with databases myself, I know that from a programming perspective it would be child’s play to identify results that have strong deviations from the average price within the offer.
der_einzig_unwahre_heino
·1 year agoNothing is being done here because the portal itself manipulates the results, since it has a vested interest in doing so. Search term expansions, category expansions, and poor filter and sorting functions lead to overloaded result lists. It would gladly show the user every bit of junk, in the dubious hope of selling even more. That it annoys customers? Doesn't matter! And especially with mass-produced items, it gets really bad. Overloaded result list and that's exactly why you're searching like crazy.
This has been criticized for years, the result is known. Will anything improve here again? I don't think so.
checker_76
·10 months agoIn addition, regular listings are pushed far down in the ranking without additional measures. To stay visible, it is practically necessary to book paid campaigns, which also incur percentage fees.
For commercial sellers, the costs are even higher, which makes the platform generally not very attractive.
In my view, eBay has thus lost a great deal of user-friendliness and today offers sellers significantly worse conditions than it used to.