What Could Be Better About EBay Search?
Do different shoppers get the same results when conducting identical searches? Not according to this article in EcommerceBytes, where they conducted a test with multiple shoppers entering the exact same search words.
For example, one set of searches entered the term "black cocktail dress," and these are the results they got:
Black Cocktail Dress:
63%: 453,000 listings (+/-2000 listings)
21%: 363,000 listings (+/-1000 listings)
8%: 376,000 listings (+/-1000 listings)
4%: 472,000 listings (+/-1000 listings)
4%: International participants
Other search terms with inconsistent numbers of results included "Diaper Bag," "Tackle Box," and "Star Wars Figure."
You can see the results on the EcommerceBytes Blog post. It also explains the methodology and numbers of people who participated in the study.
The question here is why would a search using Best Match bring back different numbers of results for different people? Is eBay somehow tailoring the search results people see based on their past buyer behavior?
One other thing that troubles me about eBay search is that they got rid of the use of the asterisk, which I found very helpful in conducting searches. Anybody else with me in wishing eBay would bring back the asterisk for search? Post a comment here!
What other changes would you like to see made to how eBay search works, or are you fine with it as it is?