Rant: eBay no longer allows to filter items based on location - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Bicurico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 02:25:19 pm
content: Is it just me? I live in Portugal and normally use the German eBay (www.ebay.de). For some months, when I do a search, as soon as I change the order of the matches to list "ending soon", items from other countries are shown - in fact any item for sale globally. And there is no way to specify that I only want items located in Germany or shipped from Germany and/or within the EU.It is totally useless to get items that are listed in the UK, US, etc., as the shipping is expensive and import taxes apply. Not to mention 110V instead of 220V, 60Hz instead of 50Hz or different plug types.Why is it, that corporations insist in making the life of their users more difficult? (I know that in this specific eBay case, I am the user and the seller is the customer)

author: alm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 02:37:25 pm
content: If I search for something random (hameg in this case), sort by earliest end time, and select Deutschland under "Artikelstandort" on the left, it seems to just showresults from Germany. Does it show something different for you?

author: Bicurico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 03:06:02 pm
content: "Artikelstandort" is no longer a Filter option on my eBay!It is really weird. The same happens on my phone using both the browser or the eBay app.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 03:28:45 pm
content: I see it:

author: R-1125F
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 03:30:27 pm
content: It's just you. I am on ebay.de now it is there.

author: Bicurico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 04:06:47 pm
content: Strange!!!

author: Bicurico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 04:11:51 pm
content: It's the address. If I change it to a Germany with a German zipcode, then I get ARTIKELSTANDORT instead of ABHOLUNG and LIEFERUNG.Tried it on Chrome and Firefox.What a stupid design.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 07:08:40 pm
content: Quote from: Bicurico on January 20, 2023, 02:25:19 pmI didn't notice that yet. To be honest I always hated needing to go on country specific websites in order to see items in other countries. So I'd say it is great they fixed it. You can always sort on price + shipping to get the cheapest items on top. These are typically nearest to you.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 08:39:55 pm
content: Can you try a live proxy in different counteries to see if it appears? (without being signed in of course)If it shows then it looks to me country specific by IP location.Here one:https://www.hidemyass.com/en-gb/proxy

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 08:53:05 pm
content: Apparently, same problem here! Very weird.I searched eBay yesterday and the filters were there. Now there is nothing except the categories.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 10:40:15 pm
content: Works for me on oz site.

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 10:45:10 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on January 20, 2023, 10:40:15 pmItem location on eBay is a farce.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 11:06:41 pm
content: Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on January 20, 2023, 10:45:10 pmWell, true. Sellers can put a location that is not where the item is whatsoever. And it's quite frequent, especially with chinese sellers.But still, it has some usefulness.

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2023, 11:09:16 pm
content: It works in advanced search options. But is really bad, because it still mixes in results from other countries. And depending on the options, at least on ebay.de, I get either results only from China or only from US, even if I select Europe or something.What a piece of cr@p.What still works seems to be if you set it to search from a certain distance from a location. So pick a large radius and it at least leaves out the results from China.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2023, 02:03:14 am
content: Oh yeah, you need to use advanced search now. It's a lot less convenient.Yet another bullshit software design to dumb things down to the maximum. Aren't you sick of that crap?

author: Bicurico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2023, 05:28:38 pm
content: My rant with Ebay continues.The search is now completely absurd.I can no longer select the country of the products I am searching: even with advanced search, no options are show. If I search for something, I will get offers from any part in the world. Ebay seems to inforce me to purchase regardless of customs and shipping costs.Also, the search now doesn't respect the keywords I type. If I search for something specific like "emitor" (swedish manufacturer of TV field meter), I will get results from all over the world for "emiter".Even my saved searches, which previously worked pretty good to show me any new item of my broader interest, now no longer work correctly. I get hits from different but similar keywords, from UK (despite them no longer being part of the EU), etc.This seems to be in alignment with my general impression of the current state of the world: marketing and sales consider their target customers to be the increasing percentage of idiots in the population - those that cannot write correctly, do not understand that shipping and taxes/customs increase the price considerably, etc.It annoys me, because I do enjoy getting a good deal from time to time. There should be a "normal people" mode, where a search just works as expected, i.e. you search for "emitor" with filters like "used" and "within the EU" and get exactly that as a result. Is this so hard to do?Rant off, thanks for listening and sharing your expience.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2023, 05:45:48 pm
content: My search options have always been like the attachment. US only works, but after the US hits, they list items from international sellers.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2023, 07:41:35 pm
content: Quote from: Bicurico on September 03, 2023, 05:28:38 pmThe general fashion in web services these days is to know what the customer wants better than the customer.To them it's a game where you type words and they need to guess what you will end up buying before you get bored/frustrated/distracted and leave the site to buy your shit elsewhere. The will show you items which have actually been bought in the past by others who searched for similar things, or approximate guess made by some AI rubbish. Whether they actually are related to your keywords is immaterial.Still, the absolute worst search engine I have ever had the displeasure of using is AliExpress.In their case I don't even understand how it works or what it is trying to achieve. The results are extremely random and inconsistent.

author: woofy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2023, 09:11:28 am
content: Works for me, too. I usually leave it on default though.

author: Bicurico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2023, 09:55:22 am
content: On the PC, using the browser, it sometimes allows me to select the location, but not always.The search words are ignored, results shown are considered by Ebay "close enough": if I search "emitor", I get shown results like "emitter". The problem is that I expect 1-2 hits for "emitor" per month, while "emitter" will show hundereds of results, which don't interest me, but make the "emitor" results hard to find.On the Android app it is even worse! The location option can be selected, but then no options are shown - just a white empty tab, where options like Germany, EU, US, etc. should be shown. This is not a problem on this particular phone, as it happens on the two phones I use.I guess that one reason for my reduced "user experience" is the fact that I am physically located in Portugal, but use the German Ebay (because I trust German sellers more than those from other EU countries - just my opinion - I have good experience with UK and French sellers, though, but UK now has customs and it is difficult to find the french listings due to lack of knowledge on the correct keywords).

author: mahi
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2023, 12:52:47 pm
content: Bicurico:Search for "emitor" including the quotes to prevent eBay from searching for items that have similar spelling.See the difference:emitor→ many, many irrelevant results"emitor"→ ~30 results. There are still results with emitter in the title but if you check the item you'll see the word emitor occurs somewhere in the auction details.

author: Bicurico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2023, 12:58:49 pm
content: Who would have guessed that! Thanks!Learned something new today!