Have You Noticed This Ebay Change?

I have a few searches I use everyday and recently I've noticed a change in the results. The image below is the result of looking at auctions in "Stamps/Worldwide/Collections" sorted by "Most Bids";



The change I'm referring to is the lack of any userid's with the resulting items. I've found that this information is missing if you choose other categories or any of the item specifics. The userid information only appears if I use the search bar. I searched for "pages" in the same category shown above and this is the result;




Now I can see the userid like before. I'm not comfortable with this change from either a buyer or seller perspective. As a buyer I pass sellers I don't like and sellers with very low feedback, now I have to click through to find out I don't want to buy from this seller. As a seller I want my repeat customers to see my items so they need to see my userid.

In both images "ckstamps" uses their userid in the title so I can see whose item it is. I've decided to emulate this and put my userid in my titles and maybe other eBay sellers might want to consider doing this. I just hope eBay isn't headed for the Amazon model where the sellers identity isn't involved in the sale.

Interesting. I can't get seller names in my search results no matter what I do.

I don't care for that either. It doesn't bother me much as a buyer (I can always run a search that excludes specific sellers if I choose), but I certainly want my name associated with things I'm selling. that said, my listings are fairly identifiable (I use an inventory code format that is pretty recognizable) so I wouldn't want to waste valuable space in an item title to include a seller name.

My userid is shorter than yours.

As a buyer (only), I strongly endorse the use of seller id in listing titles. eBay wants to hide the ids to train buyers that everything offered is a fungible commodity and seller doesn't matter, but we know with stamps, this is false. Seller id definitely matters to me.

paperhistory could use a short alias such as ph:, PaHist:, etc. Loyal buyers would get used to it.

This practice also allows the use of the minus sign operator to exclude unwanted sellers. I have numerous searches with keywords and "-nystamps" or others appended.

As a trademark lawyer, I would suggest that eBay's practice is yet another tactical move in a long-term strategy to eliminate the significance of brands for consumers. For generations, sellers and their brands have mattered, along with the brand of the commodity. Consumers who need a suit know that the sales experience, as well as the quality of goods, will be different at Saks Fifth Avenue compared to Target. Now eBay wants you to focus only on the suit, not the seller. And even they and Amazon want the brand of the commodity to disappear, as we see in the increasing offers by Amazon of its own non-brand items, in office supplies, cookware, and more. For them, only the platform matters, not the seller or the brand of the commodity, and it's remarkable that consumers accept this—I guess their house brands are getting better.

My suspicion is that my particularly loyal customers search me as a seller and review my items periodically. It's certainly what I do with a couple of my preferred sellers.

I 100% agree. They are 'handling' us. This theory is further bolstered by their absurd rating system. It is now easy to leave (+) feedback, and is harder to leave (-) feedback - especially for a seller.

In the end, there are good, honest sellers and there are dirtbag sellers. We all know that, and that's why each of us has a small list of sellers we avoid. eBay would have us believe otherwise. I contend that this truth carries across all product categories. In stamps, you can get mis-described product. With other product categories, you can get sellers that ship the wrong things, ship empty packages (so tracking works), or deal in counterfeits - cheap razor refills packaged as Braun, for example,

eBay has a problem. And they are handling it all wrong. They have rip-off artists in their paddock, and they are unwilling to take them out back and prep them for the glue factory. They continue to try to sell the old nag as a thoroughbred. Their biggest problem is that we are not idiots.

I enjoyed your post.



I see it differently, locally.
The gap between the haves, and the have nots, is ever widening.
We accept house brands through necessity, to meet lowering budgets.

I see it growing in supermarket shelves, and "Target" type retailers.

Yesterday, I embarassingly snuck in a few "Coles" brand, baked beans
totally unaware of the quality, or contents, then Target for a spring operated weight scale, and a Toaster for $48 ($35 US?)

I am aware of my choice, and the parameters I use. I expect the products to in an ever shortening life span.

I am in the enviable position, I do not have a House Mortgage. but vast percentage of Aussies I would suspect, have their income taken by huge repayment structures.

I have moved totally away from eBay for all selling ever since they wanted my bank account information in order to sell. Already fighting too much chance of my info being compromised.

Suggestion:
Just open a separate working account, set a limit of $250 or $500 transaction, whatever suits, create a decent passsword and you should be fine.

I think that eBay, like any other public company, is beholden to their stock shareholders. The shareholders demand that they be profitable and that they get rewarded for their investment in the company.

A seller's name is probably considered similar to FedEx or USPS; they are simply a part of the supply chain. eBay wants to be like Amazon and Amazon does not tout sellers with an obviously broken Seller Rating System.

The Amazon star rating system more times than not is filled with reviews of the product itself and not the seller's performance. The sellers name on an Amazon page is not predominately displayed, it is listed in one of the smallest fonts on the page. When you want to sell 'consumer' items, the seller does not really matter and this is what Big Tech selling venues want to do. And we have spent the last year sitting in our homes, buying from Big Tech selling venues, and supporting off-shore products that go towards supporting the Chinese Communist Party. In my opinion the issue is not eBay or Amazon, they are fulfilling a demand; the issue is the demand.

When we all use Google, Amazon, and Facebook we should not be surprised at the results. When most buyers run to the eBay 'sort by lowest price first' page, we should not be surprised that sellers are being portrayed as 'all the same'. eBay knows exactly how buyers buy on the venue.

And even before the internet this consumer trend has already taken root. Consumers flocked to big box stores and stopped supporting smaller retailers who gave better service. The old saying is 'countries get the government they deserves' but I think that we can also say that 'consumers get the selling venue they deserve'.
Don

I have this happen every few months... where the sellerIDs disappear. Log out of eBay, delete all browser cookies for the domain *.ebay.com and log back in. The seller IDs will be back.

I speculate that it has to do with eBay's developers constantly pushing out new changes and existing cookies get corrupted, so the only way to "set eBay straight" is to delete the cookie and get a fresh one.

I don't believe it is intentional user experience behavior.

In the iPad app, seller names don't appear in the tiles that represent search results, and haven't since the app was released. You have to tap a result item and then carefully scroll down to find the seller name, which is in small type that's easily missed.

User names are back!! Yeah! Wonder if they'll stay?

Ken

Forget it, an hour later the userid's were gone again.

Ken, one workaround that I've used whenever eBay changes its formatting of searches is to logout of eBay.co.uk and login to eBay.ie as the Irish site isn't changed at the same time that the UK tweaks its site. Or try logging on to eBay.co.uk, which also isn't updated when eBay.com is. On eBay.co.uk I can see all user IDs in my saved searches (which have 200+ IDs removed to make the searches easier) If that fails to fix the glitch, try a different browser. Steve

Thanks Steve, I tried Chrome and still no ids. I'm not concerned about my searches, I'm concerned my customers won't be able to find my auctions. I've often wondered how my buyers search for the items they buy. Do they look at my listigs each week or do they find me from a general search? I added my userid to the beginning of my item description but I don't think that's a good answer.

As an aside have you ever heard of a TV show called "Escape to the Country"? My wife and I are addicted to it and it's possible we may be joining you in a couple years.