Pretty much all my all my carefully refined saved searches are now broken to the point of being useless, and will need to be reworked.
On the linked web page, new categories are show in Red text, while removed categories are shown in Blue text. Sellers will need to reconsider their listing titles to make sure that they have adequate unique words to enable buyers to find items in the new, and HUGE, categories!
Hmm, from a first glance, seems they elimated manufacturer specific categories for Model Railroad (e.g. Tyco, Athearn, Life-Like), and kind of over-categories the detail parts (figures, decals, lights…really, catenaries is now it’s own category?) and the like for each scale.
I’ll reserve judgement.
Some of this makes sense. You can search for the mfg within a category, for instance, so not much loss there unless you don’t understand search.
Some seems to be designed to bring about greater consistency, usually a good thing for something like this. But that then led to a sudden enthusiasm for TT, which now has the whole set of categorizations the major scales do. They could’ve covered most of that with TT-Other and the few folks in TT wouldn’ve been thrilled.
My main concern is where does HOn3 fit in or maybe I missed that?[xx(]
I don’t think that these changes matter all that much.
When I go searching, I put in my own words rather than relying on eBay’s format.
And when I sell a model railroading item, I spend a lot of time developing the title so potential buyers can easily find the item. I pay attention to how many Views an item receives. For a 7 day listing, I usually get anywhere from 100 to 150 Views. And, most of the views occur within 24 hours of the auction ending time.
My sense is that most buyers and bidders don’t use the eBay categories to search.
Seems silly, since it’s all a database and no big deal to have the extra categories - but then I never use them, other than the top level, like I’ll go to HO Scale, and search from there for what I’m looking for. I’ve never used the manufacture categories other than when listing things. Sometimes I didn;t even bother going down as far as HO - my most common search is “Reading HO” which SHOULD just pull items in Toy and Hobbies, Model Railroads, HO, but some times I get an item or two in Collectibles because for whatever reason some idjit lists a post card or a lantern or other railroadania under a specfic scale category - it’s 1:1 scale! But really, I might get 250 items, and 2 of them will be outside the HO scale category. Not a big deal. Someone lists an item and does not include the manufacturer in the product description, they’re going to get bypassed anyway.
So basically, this has pretty much 0 effect on me, as I never used the detailed categories for searching anyway, I just enter keywords. As I’ve done for however long I’ve been on ebay - 13+ years at least now.
The loss of major non-brand subcategories (effectively a good pre-filter) such as “Brass Imports” or “Craftsman Kits” etc, is a major pain.
Constructing searches for brass rolling stock is now going to need a lot of filtering options within the search to elimate track, parts, autos, etc etc.
Brand based subcategories are not particularly useful if you are looking for ‘classes’ of items rather than just products from single suppliers!
I search based on key words which usually works pretty well… not sure if the category shake up will make any difference. Now about people posting Athearn HO 2-packs of Fruehauf trailers for $65 that MRSP’ed for $24, I guess thats because they can re-advertise them ad-infinitum and no skin off their nose?
I will never understand why technology companies insist on changing sites, searches, etc, just for the sake of change. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! I’ve been using ebay for 17 years, and I will certainly let them know my dis-pleasure.
There is now a Narrow Gauge category (in addition to the scales). That will certainly make it difficult for those like me that dabble with HO, HOn3 and perhaps HOn30… Simon
I am with Rich on this one, I don’t think it will make much, if any difference to 99% of users. Besides, I’ll bet at least 1/3 of what I find on ebay has been listed in the wrong category anyway…
That’s exactly where my misgivings lie. There’s already semi-frequent confusion between HOn3 and HOn30, often because sellers are semi-clueless about narrowgauge anyway. Typically, buyers want one or the other, not a selection of both. While jiggling search terms around can help sort this out, why jumble things so badly to start with? The lack of distinction non-expert sellers already have in these categories is compounded, rather than relieved by the new classification scheme. I doubt that was the goal for ebay, but it’s what they will accomplish. Individual listings will tend to become more inaccurate when sellers are presented with this managled mess.
In several instances I have made out with some very good deals when the seller had an item listed in a wrong catagory and it seemed to me that there were much fewer watchers—and bidders—of these items.
For instance a book of Pullman Car Rosters was listed in automobile shop manuals.
As others have mentioned, I search using several criteria, keyword being the most useful. Sometimes, even a Google search will bring up several eBay hits.
That’s a good point. But if done badly enough, no one finds it, no deal, no sale, no one benefits, including ebay.
It’s not so much the searches by the buyers this affects, which can be compensated for in many ways, but this depends more on the user’s search skills than before. It’s the new opportunities for miscategorization by sellers that hurts them, especially those unfamiliar with what they have and the hobby itself. It very well might create more opportunities for lucky/observant buyers, but I’m not sure ebay intended to take the hit to its profits from the lower prices that will result. That is among the reasons for thinking someone didn’t even represent ebay’s interests all that well here, whatever the goal actually was.
Their changes have always been a pain. I hated when they started to expand your search, even though you misspelled it (on purpose), used to find some buys that way, now I have to add "'s to get it. Also have issue with their live auction add ins. Wish they would have an exclude resurve auctions, for that mater, at that to start at 99cents or some other $ amount so I could get past the retailers when I am just looking for a bargin!!!
Indeed…I found a Atlas GP7 for BIN $32.00…The catch? It was under Athearn GP7…The Atlas Geep arrived in a Athearn GP7 box.
Back to topic…I found wanted I was looking for yesterday by typing in Athearn GP40-2 in the search box…To bad the price was way to much for a used BB GP40-2 even though it was nicely done with number in the number boards and added grabs… Ah well I keep checking…