You hear a lot of complaints about eBay's "Best Match" algorithm if you watch much eBay news. It's one of the biggest mistakes (and there have been many) they've made under the new--and some say frightening--administration since Meg, who is now eying the California Governor's seat (Lord help us all)--left and took all of her then-decently-valued stock with her. Okay, so stock prices are relative. They had already started to nosedive under The Megster, but that's another story.
And to think I used to be a stockholder. It's a pretty sad reflection on a company when you "partner" with them (if anyone can be said to "partner" with eBay, with the possible exception of Buy and the other "Titaniums," who pay no listing fees and get a cut on everything else...lest they, too, bail out and jump ship because of the outrageous fees, poor management, and low sell-through rate). Gads.
But I digress.
Most sellers are also buyers on eBay. That seems to be something eBay neglected to consider in their analysis before they started (oh, yes they did) encouraging sellers to leave. They didn't just encourage them by "showing them the door" through their policies and treatment, mind you. The actually said they didn't really want a lot of the smaller sellers. Called them something like a pain in the butt. Said they wanted to get rid of a lot of them. They preferred the bigger sellers. Unbelievable. Logic would dictate that the only way to become a "bigger" seller is to first be a "smaller" seller. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Logic is not one of eBay's strong points these days.
But I digress again. Bear with me, here.
Okay, so most sellers are also buyers. When eBay started "encouraging" thousands upon thousands of sellers to leave, lots of them did. Gone. Poof. No more seller. And when you lose sellers who also buy, you lose buyers. That means losing sales, and that means losing income. Duh. But--and I fear in explaining I start to digress, so I'll get to the point already--in catering to the buyers (apparently to those who do not sell, given their actions and statements about sellers), they have implemented many changes that are allegedly in the buyers' "best interests."
I, for one, hate it when other people think they can determine what is and what is not in my best interests. Don't you?
So, one of the biggest changes was their much-touted "Best Match" (and that should be in quotes for obvius reasons) algorithm. Best Match is absolute trash. Just trash. It doesn't work, it's a pain in the butt, and eBay has made it so buyers cannot change the default search results presentation. How's that for idiotic?
For instance, say I want to find "blue widgets." The default Best Match algorithm kicks in, and I get a mess of search results, maybe 10% of which have anything to do with actual blue widgets. I get red widgets, faux widgets, blue kitchenware, purple wonkers, large plastic bananas, used cars, mystery mayo jars filled with air and who knows what else. It just gets worse and worse and worse.
What I used to do, as many buyers did, was to sort by "ending soonest." Particularly when you're looking for a good buy at auction, that's the thing to do. Trust me. I've been doing it for years, and I buy a ton of stuff on eBay (that started out of necessity when I was in chemo with broken bones and casts and barfing all day and bone marrow failure and all of that and absolutely could not drive to the store, let alone shop without dropping...literally). So, I got pretty good at buying everything I needed online, from clothing for my son to school supplies to groceries to medical supplies to you-name-it.
I am The Queen of The Bargain. And eBay used to be the place to shop. Plus, it used to be fun. Used to be.
I've been scouring for supplies for the new jewelry line on eBay. And I am so frustrated I could scream. Every time I search for someting, I have to change the default from Best Match to "ending soonest." Plus, I have to mark "include store inventory" to see store listings (and I'll tell you, auctions are a dying breed on eBay since they clobbered the heck out of their bread and butter on that one). Plus, I most often literally search all over the world, so I have to mark "search worldwide," too. Every time.
You just can't set your options to what you want as far as search anymore. And that's plain wrong. And bad. And frustrating.
It's one thing to screw it all up and implement somebody's idiotic brainchild like Best Match. But it's another thing entirely to not allow buyers to search for what they want, how they want, and where they want. Oh, you can change the options--one at a time (and the system is slooooow, so it takes a few seconds to mark and implement each search option, then refresh the search). And it will stay the way you want it for a couple of searches, but then, after a few minutes, you're seeing purple widgets and used cars and mystery auctions again when what you're searching for is blue widgets.
Then you know. The Best Match has taken over again. You don't even need to look at the search parameters. It's clear from the fact that you're seeing totally unrelated garbage. Your options have been overriden. They're gone.
eBay thinks they know what's best for you. You say no, no, I don't want purple widgets or used cars and they say yes, yes you do. At least that's what we want you to want, and we have made sure that that's what you're going to see, even if you tell us several times a day that no, you don't want that. No blue widgets for you, buyer.
Well, I'm getting tired of it.
I want blue widgets, eBay. And that's what I want to search for. Blue widgets (even if they are not auction items, since you killed the Golden Auction Goose and now it's just plain hard to find blue widgets on auction). And not just blue widgets from the United States. I buy French and German and African and Asian widgets, too.
Blue widgets.
Why do you have to make that so difficult?
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