Jumping Categories... Why Can't Ebay Get It Right?

I was searching for a stamp in the Croatia stamps category.
I typed in the Scott catalogue number and instead of saying "Item not found" or something like that; ebay jumps categories and brings up a list of auto parts.

What the #*&%*# does auto parts have to do with stamps from Croatia???

Category jumping needs to be STOPPED!

I wonder if any ebay managers or tech guys ever read these posts?

Was it parts for a Yugo?

But, seriously I doubt anyone from ebay even knows this site exists. I presume you were searching within the proper stamp category only.

auto parts, scott #'s > it's all the same to ebay software....numbers are numbers. It's that "catagory" thing that ebay's software can't handle. It's likely that someone searching for an auto part also ends up with stamp listings. With so many other issues ebay seems to have of late, this can just be another # for them in the "areas to correct" catagory for " ebay Problems Catagory".

Happy New Year Tim! Just roll with it,

Here's what might be an illuminating experiment: search on 'stamps of Bohemia' and 'stamps of France'.

Both areas produce beautiful crystal, but one (probably) has zillions of listings for its postage stamps, and the other, well, less than zillions.

Q/ In which case does ebay fill-out the search results with crystal wine goblets?

Why? One reason is the cornucopia effect: every site visitor should always be forcibly imprinted with the impression that there is lots & lots of stuff you can buy on ebay.

Another is that there is no reason to expect that every site visitor actually knows what they want.

The motivated, particular visitor can search within the results or, better, scroll past the 'keyword cousins' to find what they really want. The others? I've never been to ebay HQ, but I could imagine company coffee mugs bearing 'scrollers are buyers'.

Put another way: can you honestly say that you have never clicked on a serendipitous search result?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Timm, I have had the same results as you, except I was searching for a US stamp, 2128a. Since I am in my seventies I have a senior moment every so once and in a while, and when I forget to change the search criteria to stamps I also get lots of auto parts. It is easy to do; are you sure you are in the "stamps" category when you search?

Peter

I ALWAYS make sure I am in the "Stamps Category".
But category jumping also happens in other categories too.

ebay needs to learn from Las Vegas.... "What happens in a category stays in a category!"

How many collectors of Croatia use Scott's, most probably less than 1 in 1000, it has no relevance, it would have been better to type in Croatia & the year of issue, that would more likely have found the item,

Pagoda

Hi Timm,

If a search within a specified category does not produce any results, then ebay looks in other categorie to find which one has the most results.

In your case, I would guess that ebay did not have any Croatian stamps with the Scott number you specified and thus provided you with the Autoparts category that did have hits.

If ebay jumps categories then just go back to your required category and enter a new search criteria.

I just searched for 'Croatia Stamps' within the main Stamp category and received 6,191 items. Then adding "& 740" to the "Croatia Stamps" search (ie. "Croatia stamps & 740"), provided me with all entries that include Croatia and catalog #740.

- stamporator -

It's rampant all over ebay... we sell hard drives, and there's listings mixed in with auto parts...

eBay's categories need a major revamping to go along with better search. I like to sometimes just browse and see what's out there - some sellers don't list by catalog number and those listings are often bargains. However, when a bottom level category has in excess of 100K listings, it makes it much, much harder to find that hidden gem. For example, ebay has one category for the German area ("Germany and Colonies"), which encompasses dozens of different political entities and 165 years of history. ebay's Germany site has German Philately broken down into scores of sub-categories that make browsing and searching that much easier. Books have 2 categories - fiction and nonfiction - with over a million listings. How could anyone browse through that?