What happened to e-Bay?

[scott12180]

I used to be able to search all cars for sale on e-Bay and just list them from oldest to newest. In fact, I used to be able to do a search for any make of car MINUS the stuff I was not interested in like -bucket -hotrod -rat -deuce.

It seems they have changed their site (again) and now you need to put in a specific car name in order to search. You can't search "any make" and sort by year. The fun of it was seeing what would come up from brass era to whatever, even though I do look at certain cars.

Has anyone figured out a way to search by year for all cars on the "new and improved" e-Bay?

--Scott

[Guest Cheri]

Try searching for just the year. let's say 1939, then on the left in categories, under Ebay Motors, then click cars and trucks, See if that helps.

[TexRiv_63]

They have been working on changing this for a long time but you can still search by year - open the cars and trucks page, look at the search modifiers on the left side. scroll down until you see the link "other refinements" and click. One of the choices is searching by year. You can also search by era. Go to the main Ebay Motors page, scroll down to Cars and Trucks and hover, you will get a submenu, click on "collector cars". That page will let you choose antiques, 40s, 50s, etc. they definitely don't make it easy...

[CarlLaFong]

Just click on "Cars and Trucks". Everything listed will come up. On the left, under year, type in "1900-50" and enter. Then select "Oldest First". All cars and trucks from 1900 to 1950 will come up with the oldest listed first. As far a filtering out the hot rods, I dunno. I just ignore most of them. Of course you can enter any year range that suits you. I used 1900-50 as an example

[Pete Phillips]

Also, what happened to the larger photos at the bottom of each listing? How does one register disapproval with the faceless operatives that run Ebay?

[Bleach]

I really dislike what ebay has become. Searches yield all kinds of unrelated garbage that would have business being installed on my car. Even by trying to eliminate some of this garbage by using "-fits" in my search parameters, a lot of garbage still gets through.

Another thing they eliminated was the use of wildcards like adding an * at the end of a term or year like "195*". It is no longer supported.

I am always hoping they will put things back the way things used to be because I really hate what it has become.

[CarlLaFong]

I'm sure the powers that be at eBay don't want you to be able to filter out too much. Every sale puts a few cents or a few hundred buck in their pockets, depending on the item sold. They know that if one person buys a radio antenna, a set of halogen fog lamps or a stereo for their 1908 Stoddard Dayton, that's a few more cents for them and the shareholders. It's not just cars, it's everything you can imagine, for sale, on eBay. Every category has someone, almost always, from China, spamming it with junk that "fits". I doubt that eBay cares one whit. It's not illegal and they pay their fees to post the item. eBay wins and we get bombarded with Dollar Tree crap made by little girls who earn 3 cents a day

[1937hd45]

Is this the reason nobody is bidding? You would think with 450 things listed (and I cover lots more than collector car stuff) I'd have more than one active bid. The economy went south a long time ago, or eBay management chased away the bidders. Bob

[John_Maine]

Personally, I think E-Bay's day has come and gone. Just like everything, all the tech people have to come up with "improvements" to keep their jobs. I still go in and poke around the car stuff, but it's been a long time since I've bid on anything.

[Bleach]

I've found new items are often cheaper elsewhere. I've seen the same items by the same sellers selling things outside of ebay for less.

There are still some items that are very hard to find that sometimes I have to go on ebay for them.

[Guest Henry White]

Posts 6 & 7 are spot on. With all the "fits" garbage (which does not fit) it has made search almost impossible. My -words exceed my want words. It causes me to search and bid less often, & spend less, not more. I sold a lot there until 2006, when sales died. Of course when my sales died I also refrained from buying much. (lost fees for ebay on both ends) Now I sell nothing, I refuse to allow ebay to dictate every aspect of my business. I buy little, mostly Shopsmith items, or the rare ocassion when I stumble upon a reasonably priced Mopar goody. -fits -cover -key -nut - it's crazy.

I would like to see a company knowledgable about selling start up an online auction co. Ebay has driven away MANY great sellers due to their policies.

[Scooter Guy]

It is important to remember that eBay is a business, and a large publicly traded company at that. "They" (as in eBay management) are obligated to act on decisions that are mandated by the board of directors. That board is elected by and acting in representation of the shareholders. Management must keep shareholder interest (namely making money on their investment) in mind with every decision that they make including things that might seem far too small and detailed, such as search results and filtering. Manipulating those things can mean thousands of dollars in potential increased revenue for the company.

The eBay experience depends a lot of which side of the transaction you are on: buyer or seller. Ebay has become very "buyer centric" with their policies (not a bad thing in my opinion)...and without the bidders/buyers happy, nobody comes to their site to sell (thus becoming eBay's customer). This is exactly why eBay has almost completely gone to a "buyer is always right" kind of approach to sales policies, fees, feedback and dispute resolution.

I am of the opinion that many that complain about being a seller on eBay are not familiar with current policies. First, the average "Joe B. Hobbyseller" can list 50 items per month for free (no insertion fee) depending on how well you follow ebay policies (on categories, listing type, etc.). Sellers also get free photos (up to a limit) for each listing, and the final value fee is a flat 10% of the TOTAL (including shipping) to a max fee of $250. I don't personally think that's a terrible deal as it boils down to a 10% commission to sell on eBay as a hobby-level seller doing up to 50 items per month. Yes, it's terrible to have eBay take a piece of your shipping, but eBay was getting ripped off by sellers trying to skirt fees with low selling prices and high shipping prices, so they had to do something. It's the add-ons that can really run the fees up. If you can live without those items, selling on eBay is not unreasonably priced, in my opinion. Ebay MOTORS is a bit different (and they have exclusions on vehicle categories anyway), but they don't FORCE you to list you auto related items under Ebay motors.

As a collector, I view eBay as invaluable and have again and again found and had the opportunity to purchase all sorts of "impossible to find" things that I would have never known about or had the opportunity to purchase otherwise. Ebay has essentially made the world a smaller place: I'm able to buy things from all over the world because sellers know that eBay traffic is incredible and that the exposure and chance for success there is high: millions of hits per day and (depending on who you ask), it's one of the top 20 most visited websites in the world. You just can't get that anywhere else for the price. I've done thousands of transactions on eBay including buying 3 collector level motor scooters and a moped. The safety, customer service, and integrated payment system all make eBay very easy to use and quite low risk as a buyer.

Many have tried to "build a better eBay" and nothing has found mainstream success. Start-ups just can't compete with such an established brand. Even "special" sites have been started for the sale of specific items ranging from cars to electronics. They've either all failed or are barely limping along. It takes sellers to attract buyers. But sellers won't come around unless there are buyers...kind of a catch-22 situation that makes eBay even harder to compete with. Think Craigslist is the answer? Guess what...eBay owns 25% of them. Special interest sites, such as this one, are the only real, viable alternative in my opinion. They gather like minded people and often provide a free classified section. The trade off, of course, is that you are 100% completely on your own in the transaction from top to bottom.

Getting back to searching...it's pretty well been covered by the other posters. Also, running a google search for "how to search on eBay" brings up a lot of interesting sites, some of which go WAY into depth on doing all sorts of advanced searches and how to weed out the garbage.

Edited September 15, 2013 by Scooter Guy (see edit history)

[TexRiv_63]

Another Ebay bash thread, seems we get one every few months. I still haven't heard anyone name an alternative site that even remotely competes, please share if you have one!

[Ted "Wildcat65" Nagel]

My new super secret search term is "used" . I'm still not buying much, but it has filtered a lot of parts that don't fit a Wildcat.

[auburnseeker]

The only problem with using the term used as a filter is you will miss alot of New Old Stock parts that fit your car. Those are the ones you really want to buy. Why mess with tired rusted, pitted parts when you can buy N.O.S

Although if you do a search without Used and put NOS as a keyword you will probably pull up what you may have missed that is relevant for your car.