First Consequence of this ass-clown decision
 

I sold a '53 Topps lot of (16) w/a Spahn (granted they were in Fair shape) for $16! Normally, they would have sold for atleast $30. I will not be honoring this sale and will take a neg. if need be. I have changed all my other auctions starting price and would recommend others do so before a bid comes in.

Normally, at this time of the night, I would browse a couple of my favorite categories, place a few bids, win a card or two. Now, not going to happen, not just b/c I'm STEAMED but mostly b/c the cards just aren't accessible and I hate wading thru modern junk.

BTW--this is all intentional. They want to kill auctions and small/midlevel sellers, this will help them do so very quickley. I will not be listing anymore the way/volume I had been planning on.

Horrible...try to search t206 next year with the new topps issue. Or Allen and Ginter or Goudey....all you get is a bunch of new stuff with a vintage issue every 30th listing. I sent my email...

Joshua

e bay mess.....the final straw
 

On the phone again w/ ebay this time a supervisor was more open to reason and will try to push this up higher, they are getting a lot of calls regarding this subject, EVERYONE! keep calling!...nothing will get done unless everyone bombards these guys with complaints...this is the single worst change e bay has done ever and this one, i am calling every day, 7 X a day for however long it takes to overturn this stupidity, they never forget how ridiculous this is...this is a plea to all that want to see this reversed, CALL E BAY- 1-866-442-3229...hit -0-)- several times if you do not have a pin #, eventually a live operator will ask you for your user ID, then bombard them...

Guys with LOTS OF FEEDBACK & OR LARGE SALES VOLUME- time to PRESS BUTTONS, smaller guys, we need you too!

Thank You......Larry

I happen to know the guy that started iOffer ... I just wish they could gain a little more traction in the collectibles market.

This is beyond unbelievable. It does not make browsing for prewar cards more difficult. It makes it impossible. There are literally 200,000 "baseball cards" on ebay now. I do not have the time or patience to browse through 200,000 cards, mostly post-2000 to find the prewar cards I'm looking for. And I can't even imagine someone looking for post-2000 cards has the stomach to wade through everything else.

I've been on ebay since 1998, very actively buying. No more. And not because I'm mad. It's just impractical now. It's like going to a thousand flea markets and hoping that you'll find what you want.

I am also cancelling all my current auctions on ebay. Again, not because I'm mad. I just can't expect to get anything close to the value of my cards. Who the hell is going to find them unless they do a search for the specific card I'm selling? This is, pardon my French, totally f'd up. I cannot imagine that ebay will last more than a month with this system. At least not for sportscards. Maybe buyers of golf carts prefer one category.

Well, I just cancelled my auctions. I only had two running. Here is the message I sent to most of my bidders (slightly different for the other card). I couldn't send it to all of the bidders since ebay has a limit of 5 messages per day that you can send to your bidders. (Who knew?) So they'll get the message tomorrow. What a bunch of crap.

Dear Bidder,

Thank you for bidding on my E95 Mathewson. I apologize, but I am cancelling all of my ebay auctions. The reason for this is that ebay has complete changed the organization of its entire websites. Effective today, ALL BASEBALL CARDS ARE NOW LUMPED TOGETHER IN A SINGLE CATEGORY OF 200,000 CARDS! As a result, collectors of pre-war baseball cards will not be able to find my card unless they are willing to wade through 200,000 cards. I had no idea this change was coming, and never would have listed my card if I knew that my card would not be targeted specifically to likely buyers. That's why I picked the "pre-1930" baseball card category -- a category that has now disappeared.

Again, I apologize for the inconvenience. You can reach me at pstewart@kmob.com. Thank you for understanding.

Paul

Just called ebay as well.

They said that this is their new policy. I can no longer sell cards on ebay after this change.

What a bunch of douchebags.

Rob

e bay is #1 in self destruction
 

On the PSA community board, a few posted that we are antiquated on the way we search for items(by category or graded/non graded)...what they and e bay fail to realize is that most of the collectors that buy vintage cards(pre 1970) do not want to waste time filtering thru all the shiny stuff, reprints, magazine cutouts and even many do not want 1960's and 1970's cards which are abundant compared to pre war cards and probably those shiny guys really do not want to see prewar cards in their searches. It is true if you want a specific card with specific tags such as 1933 Goudey Ruth, you can search that way but so many of us may bid on other 1930's cards because they are all in line 1930-1939 category....Many only want graded, many only want non graded but at least there was a separation that was distinctive, now you have to search for cards with 200,000 related items, have fun!

This probably does not have an answer unless everyone that buys and sells no matter how large or small calls ebay and lets them know that we do not want to eliminate the category search and refuse to do anymore transactions on e bay.

Frequency and #'s are the only thing they might understand......do not get discouraged, call your friends and tell them, keep calling e bay....

-

EBAY search
 

I have a question concerning the new EBAY category changes.

First of all, please understand I am not saying I support the new category changes and am not looking for an argument. While these changes are not optimal I do not see where one would quit selling on EBAY.

I buy and sell on EBAY. When I am looking to buy cards I don't go on a blind search for cards. Do most people blindly search for baseball cards on EBAY where they have no focus of what they are looking for?

For example I look for graded 1960's, 1950's, Play Ball, Goudey, etc. I just performed EBAY searches for 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth, 1933 Goudey Ott, 1933 Goudey PSA & 1915 Cracker Jack. Granted reprints popped up as well, but many did before as sellers of reprints put them in category of original cards.

Take the E95 Mathewson in an earlier post for example. If someone is seriously interested in buying a E95 Matty, they would search for E95 Mathewson or E95 (maybe they are working on a set). I just searched for E95 and clicked on cards and see 43 cards available for sale from that set.

I just don't see buyers in the past blindly searching pre-1930 baseball cards and seeing a E95 Mathewson and having an epiphany that they need a E95 Matty and placing a high bid on the card or outright purchasing it.

The same with 1950's & 60's cards. I would think most people would search for 1955 Topps or 1955 Topps PSA or some similar search.

I see where doing general searches for cards trying to find cards selling too cheaply, etc would be a problem or if you sold lots that contained multiple years, etc.

I am for leaving good enough alone, but on the other hand I do not see these changes (if they indeed permanent) killing one's ability to sell cards on EBAY.

What am I missing?.

Bottom line, it leads to fewer hits and fewer eyes on your auction. Most buys on Ebay are impulse buys.

Anybody who has sold on Ebay for any amount of time knows it only takes two interested bidders to drive an item up to an acceptable level. Take out the possibility of even one less possible bidder seeing your auction and I could see how this would scare a lot of sellers.

There are a few cards that I specifically search for on ebay. But I find most of the cards I buy by browsing a category, usually pre-1930. I think a lot of people do the same thing. That was one of the great advantages of ebay. Sellers could target buyers looking for a specific type of thing, and buyers could look at only those specific things.

My E95 Matty is a great example of precisely the kind of card that would never be found through a search. Most E95 Mattys are very expensive. So a lot of people who don't have a lot of money would never bother to search for one. They will spend their time looking for Goudey Hubbells or T206 Crawfords. They just assume they can't afford an E95 Matty. But mine is a PSA1, and someone who likes old cards might decide to give it a shot if they are browsing the pre-1930 category.

Also, a lot of people buy a card because they have some vague interest in it but only want it if it's a good deal. I do that a lot by browsing categories. Now all those bidders are gone. I wouldn't be thrilled selling my Mathewson to a guy only looking for a bargain, but it's better than selling it only to the very few people who are specifically looking for an E95 Matty that week. And maybe someone really wants an E93 Matty, but he sees my E95 with a nice front and a miserable back, and he decides to go for the relative bargain.

Another good example is the E card of Wagner in a throwing pose. I'd like one. This pose probably appears in 6 or 7 sets. So now I have to search for all of them. But this is also a card that is very expensive and I'd only want one similar to my E95 Matty -- massive back damage, or maybe even slightly trimmed. I've been looking at ebay for years and still haven't found one that's the right balance of looks and price. And it's just not worth the effort to do a search for this specific card every week when the chances of finding one that I can want and afford are low. Particularly if I have to do similar searches for hundreds of other cards. I already do about 40 "out of category" searches every week. I'd hate to have to do a couple hundred more. It's so much easier to browse one or two categories every week.

All of my buys in the pre 30's cat. are from browsing. I collect no 1 set or player. Browse every day and bid on several items I liked. Now, it is not possible to do, therefore I will no longer try. Tell me that is good for the seller. NOOOOOOO. What a shame that ebay has no clue as to sports cards.

I just ran my normal t206 (psa,sgc) search and only got 800 something cards. Nothing out of the ordinary. While I don't think this will affect my buying too much, I doubt I ever list anything for sale on ebay again. I did also email them a long message, so hopefully it helps.

Dearest NCININ, I don't do a blind search when looking for cards, I search pre 1930 and the 1930's category. Anything newer than that does not interest me in the least. Is this a blind search? Well maybe to a point but it is also very specific to certain era's. That option has been taken away.

Go Amazonbay!

Dustan,

The thing you are wrong about is that this WILL affect your buying, a lot! The reason is that many sellers will stop using Ebay as their marketing arm, because of the reduced number of views. If the sellers move, it will impact what you have available to buy.

Any decrease in bidders will lead to a decrease in sales. That will lead sellers to go elsewhere.

Jim, that makes sense and after thinking about it a bit further, I do see your point. A worse overall product will eventually show its effects, even though my search ran today produced similar results. I will wait and see what happens a few months down the road. It only makes sense that less sellers means less cards available for sale that I would like to purchase.

On another note, Ebay sent me a reply within 10 minutes of my email to them. Here it is in all its glory:

Thank you for writing to eBay Customer Support.

Your suggestions are very important to us and will be treated with our
full attention. Our product development team is working to read, discuss
and process the input that we get from our members; therefore, we will
not be able to respond to your message.

To avoid any possible misunderstandings, we must advise you that any
comments or materials you have submitted or may submit to us, including
questions, technical or creative suggestions or ideas, are considered to
be non-confidential and non-proprietary.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please do not respond to this email. Any email sent as a
response to this Acknowledgement will not reach us.

If you have any additional questions or concerns, please contact us by
following these steps:

1. Click "Help" at the top of most eBay pages.
2. Click the "Contact Us" link on the left side of the page.
3. Select the options that best match your question or concern.
4. Enter your message in the space provided.

We appreciate your patience,
eBay Customer Support

eTip!

Need help fast? Visit our interactive Help pages to get instant answers
to your most frequently asked questions, as well as a wealth of
information about all things eBay! Click on "Help" in the menu at the
top of any eBay page.

eNews!

The eBay Announcement Boards contain the latest information regarding
eBay features, system status, and special promotions:

Well, I'm glad we got that cleared up. Just another reason that I won't sell anything on there again.

Wonder how coin collectors would react if eBay merges every subcat under COINS.

Nothing like browsing through hundreds of Zimbabwean and Iranian coins while looking for some silver Quarters!

ncinin, with all due respect this is how it affects the sellers. by the way this is my first official thread post, be kind. i collect cleveland indians pre-war among other things. with the pre-1930's category i just look through and see what shows up. as a buyer i am not looking for a specific card, just a team or just something that strikes my fancy. i might be looking at t206 cards and a e90-1 bradley shows up. i was not looking for that specific card but i put a bid in anyway.

as a seller now on ebay of a e90-1 bradley card a buyer would either have to search for THAT specific card or wade through all the other cards to find it.

this is a very bad development for sellers of vintage material. why would i want to list an odd ball type card on ebay right now, there is no reason because it would get lost.

take care
john

As a buyer this does not bother me. I only search for Old Judge Detroit, so that is no problem, except there usually are none available. As a seller this might cause problems, we will see

Joe

I am now selling 10 cards on ebay and was about to list another 70 over the next month, but now I am cancelling the auctions and holding off. This move by ebay is idiotic. As I told the lady at ebay, ebay is now like a Walmart in which you go in looking for a wrench and never see any other products. She was very sympathetic and after a long hold said that her coworkers agreed. She said she would put my complaints in a suggestion box, along with my phone number. I urge everyone who wants to sell another card on ebay to call and to ask to speak to someone on the listing team.

I'm constantly searching items on eBay looking for pre-war and post-war bargains, I like to consider myself a consummate baseball card flipper. Since 1998, I've been crossing the line between dealer and collector. It's not an exclusive club, since eBay facilitated the buying and flipping of stuff. For the past few years, eBay has kept tinkering with its product and I've just rolled with the punches. They want to go to a "buy-it-now" mode.....Great! As a seller, I've hit on some great deals searching buy-it-now items and as a buyer, I've used this format to make some easy profitable sales. In unison with paypal, they want to screw the seller and make it totally safe to make a purchase. Great! This affords me the opportunity to take more chances then I care to remember with eBay purchases. I didn't think eBay could ever make a change that I couldn't adapt too. From my perspective, this latest change to the sports category is really a hum-dinger.


Will this category change stop me from selling cards on eBay? Yes! To my great regret, I'm done with the true auction format. Buy-it-now, the B/S/T section, and auction houses are the only viable alternatives.


Will this category change stop me from buying cards on ebay? Yes! On two fronts. First of all, since I'm constantly flipping cards and then using those profits to actually buy cards I need. I will soon reach a tipping point; if I can't flip the cards in a timely fashion at some point I have to stop my purchases. Secondly, although this new format will make it easier to find bargains. A prospective buyer will have to devote alot of time searching for cards/bargains and time is something I don't have at a premium. Looks like, I will hit my mid-life crises quicker then I thought!

Lovely Day...

If you want to find graded cards the following search parameters work great:

190* SGC This search will pull up all 1900-1909 SGC graded cards.

191* SGC This search will pull up all 1910-1919 SGC graded cards.

Substitute PSA for SGC and PSA only graded cards will appear.

You beat me to it...I was going to post the same thing about the *. It is a great trick that someone taught me many years ago and has saved me a ton of time searching on eBay.

Jeff

I don't know why ebay has any categories anymore at all. Why not just lump everything together in one big category? No one can possibly browse the "baseball card" category of 200,000 cards. So, card collectors have no choice but to do a word search. So why bother having categories at all?

By the way, some word searches will be very ineffective. Try searching for "Old Judge" and see how many 2008 and 2009 Topps cards pop up. If only there was some way to screen out post war cards from the search ...

You can...just use the minus sign (ie -topps -2008,, etc.) to narrow down your answer. You can do this in the advanced search feature and save that search for your future searches.

Jeff

As a buyer, I'm concerned with any tactic that chases sellers away. Otherwise though, I am pretty much unaffected, as I very seldom search by subcategory anyway (and believe it or not, in addition to some specific sets and players, I'm also a type collector).

As noted, a search with wildcards (asterisks) works tremendously. In addition to the searches by decade (at least for graded cards), type in 193* Goudey and you'll get the whole panoply of sets by that company for the decade, and perhaps even a stray companion piece. And once in Sportscards, type e9* and you'll hit a bunch of the caramel sets. I have a mild interest in several sets from 1928--the ice cream sets, r315, w502, exhibits, etc. I type in 1928 and I get 200 or so hits, only about 15% of which are useful, but it really doesn't take that much time or effort to gaze past the irrelevant stuff, especially if you change your settings to view 100 items per page. Same if you type in Gehrig--there might be mostly listings for non-cards and things of no interest to you, but it doesn't take long to get used to quickly scanning the thumbnails and separating the wheat from the chaff.

As Jeff just said, type in a minus sign, left parenthesis, the things you wish to exclude, and a right parenthesis. This format will eliminate certain things you don't want to see, BUT... you must be specific!

For example, I did a search of the Sports Memorabilia category for Old Judge. I hit on 134 items. I refined it to this:

old judge -(UD, Upper Deck, Topps, 1995, 1996, 2005, '95, reprint, RP)

This yielded 77 results, which I believe were all pre 1900 vintage cards. But notice, I had to list both 1995 and '95 as exclusions.

Once you refine it the way you want, hit "Save This Search". You then have the option to have Ebay send you a daily email showing anything new that gets listed in that area.

I just did a search of the 200,000+ baseball items....and I minused out Fleer, Topps, Donruss...and I think one more....and my search came up with about 70 total items.....none of them vintage cards :(

Let's do something about it
 

I just spoke with my rep at eBay. She explained that this category consolidation is permanent "for the time being". Basically, unless we all come together and make our opinions know eBay will not be reverting back to have the previous categories within the baseball category. I asked her what could be done regarding this change and she explained that I should get as many buyers and sellers together to contact eBay and express their dislike for this change. She stated that each account rep and customer service rep has a function called Voice of the Customer. They use this to report opinions regarding eBay and changes to actual decision makers at eBay. She said that if I can get enough people to call regarding this and have customer service/account reps log this information into the Voice of the Customer log then we may be able to get this changed. She agreed that this was not a good decision for eBay once I cited this example - would you go buy books at a bookstore that had 200,000+ books all lumped together in no order, or would you buy from the store that had the inventory categorized! So I am asking everyone to please make the call - I know that it may take some time being on hold, but we all know that if we can get this changed we will all benefit! I will be posting this on many message boards today and hope that you will do the same - lets try to get this changed!!

Also, I found a link to a way that you and others can make suggestions
(in addition to the Voice of the Customer that we talked about).

http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/suggestions.html

The biggest problem comes when you decide to sell some cards that don't appear for auction very often. I know that there are people who don't search everyday for e126's or w573's or E102's but who would consider bidding on them if they saw them appear among the newly listed cards.

also
 

another way to search for Old Judge, or the searches I have bookmarked anyway, is to type n172 judge, or 188* judge, or 188* goodwin. That should hit the mark while leaving out the reprints and garbage.

I'd still like to know what "extensive research" showed that people prefer to have their items buried with tens of thousands of unrelated items, rather than logically categorized only with other similar items. Who makes these decisions?

I dont envy VCP, trying to track recent sales.

There ar currently 2,583 pages of baseball cards on ebay. I looked at the first 20 through ending soonist. These 20 pages will end in 1Hr 55Min. On these pages was 1 pre 1930 card. HAHAHAHAHA. Good luck hunting.

actually
 

I found three in about two minutes of searching, a t205, a strip card Tris Speaker and a BIN T206 Cy Young

oops. Missed the date on the Young, the t205 was Fred Clarke

What will be missed are the pre-war non-graded gems that do not have years in the title. Mom and Pop in New England with a great find will get killed posting these on ebay! I mean Amazonbay!

At last, my Westlaw and Lexis training from 1989 will serve me some good....

I used the suggestion tool...

http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/suggestions.html

Titles vs. Categories
 

I feel everyone's pain about the elimination of the categories and really do not understand how eBay thought it was a good idea to consolidate all into 1 big category...that being said.... As a seller the most important thing to me is the title description. I have paid attention to my statistics from sellathon and traffic reports from ebay, and it is my experience that most buyers come from keyword searches and not specific categories. Granted, I rarely sell cards, so maybe in the card arena it is more important, but for vintage sports memorabilia, a descriptive title is key.

As a buyer (I have a total different identity on eBay) I have about 20 different saved searches that are e-mailed to me daily. They are all by title. I have checked many times what category items are put into and it is amazing how items are mis-categorized by sellers.

Or you're a seller who knows nothing about the nomenclature who finds 5 strip cards in grandpa's desk, and used to just put them in as "Old cards" under the pre 1930 category since they look old, they will be less likely to be seen now because they aren't labeled properly.

I usually search by key word but often also search through a year or years looking for cards that interest me.

I guess I could type in 1963 card in the search, but then I'll get football, hockey, Christmas cards, etc... when it was simpler to just check the 1963 box and have a peek.

I started buying on ebay in 1999. I generally restricted myself to dealers I knew from the real world. My transactions break down as follows:

1999-48
2000-68
2001-44
2002-63
2003-98
2004-119
2005-50
2006-51
2007-51
2008-24
2009-10, with nothing since May

Zero negative feedback. 622 positive.

2 neutral, both from guys who sold me altered cards.

If I were ebay, I would want me as a customer.

For reasons already well documented by others, I'm done, and also in large part because so many of the sellers I trust have left as well.

If ebay can't analyze their own data and figure out that their policy changes are counterproductive, someone else will come along and fill the void.

ebay cancelled one of my major searches as "category no longer available."
The search was:1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899) -mswsports, -AAA, -Reach, -Spalding, -Putnam, -bsva, -Whitman, -Conlin, -NASA

Also cancelled: T207, T-207

Thanks, ebay.

An idiotic move, that likely finishes my Ebay buying.

I again urge everybody to complain to ebay. This is such a stupid move that it is bound to appear so to somebody there.

I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop as far as search results go and what I normally specialize in.

I can't even keep track of the number of websites I've come across...........including many that were supposedly trying to compete with ebay in which the word "Boxing" automatically defaulted to the word "Box" and all forms of the word "Box" (boxer, boxed, boxes)............even if I put it in quotation marks.

Damn..........I hope ebay reps aren't scouring NET54 for ideas. :cool:

The following post appeared a little while ago on the Ebay message board. It was made by someone in the company (garnor@ebay.com). It is message #92 in this thread:

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Spo...53170&start=90


Hi all,
We are aware of an issue that is causing members to be unable to narrow down the search results within some areas in Sports Trading Cards. This is not a permanent change and we are working to resolve it as quickly as possible.

Regards,
Garnor

Wow, one hand doesn't seem to know what the other one is doing.

One post contradicts the other. Is it a permanent change or just an error that needs to be fixed? This is ridiculous.

My guess... it WAS a permanent change. One which created problems they had never imagined. 24 hours later... it's a systems problem that they are working tirelessly to fix.

It probably never occured to them what would happen when 200,000+ items went into one single category that could not be narrowed down.

Look at it this way, if they now reduce the classifications by 50%, we'll all think it's fine. If they had just made a 50% cut to start, everyone would have gone nuts (just like we did.) Now, they can "fix" it and be "great guys."

I think Ebay needs to streamline their operation and cut loose all these talking heads, reps, marketing people and programmers that think they need to throw the whole freakin' system into a tailspin every couple of months in order to justify their jobs.

There's a Mental Giant at eBay .....
 

There's Mental Giant at eBay with a death wish for eBay, and he/she might get their wish.

Their slogan is: "We're working to make eBay easier to use." -- What a joke.

I wondered where the creative minds behind the Pontiac Aztek landed-- it's eBay. I've probably dropped off 90% in what I buy off of eBay over the last year - there are a couple of dealers whose stores i will scan occasionally, and a couple of saved sellers, but that is it.

I just searched 1987 Topps set and got some hits, I don't see a problem here??

I complained to ebay and got nowhere other than the run around that the change is NOT permanent and they had to do this in order to streamline things and get them back to normal. Huh?
To answer the question way up the thread from ncinin about "does anyone do blind searching?" Absolutely. I collect certain caramel cards and some tobacco cards from 1909-1919 but if I happen to run across something I like, like a nice Old Judge or a sharp Fatima for a good price, I'll buy it, tuck it away, and use it as a trader or let it appreciate it and flip it. I don't collect E92, E99, E100, E101 or E102 but if I find a nice example at a deal, I'll grab it. I think a lot of collectors do the same thing.
Finally, the search tips are nice and useful, thanks for providing them but if you have noticed the tiny number of new offerings on ebay, it won't be long before buyers are punished simply because sellers are tired of screwing around with the new rules and stop listing. I am a collector but I constantly upgrade and sell cards to buy others I want more, again, a lot of us do this, but I will be damned if I will list any more cards on ebay for sale until this gets rectified :(

I'm with Barry. I think one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. It's possible that the change is permanent. If so, those telling us that it is not permanent are probably referring to some other minor change that has been made, not realizing we are complaining about the major change. It's also possible that the change is a mistake that they are trying to fix. The people at ebay who say the change is permanent are again referring to some other minor change. Or it's possible that our complaints have made an impact, but somehow I doubt that.

ebay problem
 

Hello Everyone,

I don't know if it will do any good, but I just called Ebay and told them that I wouldn't be listing anymore auctions until they resolved the sub-category problem. I just became a Power-seller a couple of months ago, so maybe if they get enough complaints/threats they will resolve the issue. I certainly hope they listen to us.

Best wishes,

Joe

Joe- Do you remember the number you called? I'd like to call the same guy to make the point also.
Tbob

Telephone number
 

Hi Bob,

The number is 1-800-701-3229. When you call you will need to provide a pin number. This is nice to have because the person that you speak with knows exactly who they are talking to. If you don't have a pin number you can click on the help button and get a temporary pin number that is good for one hour. You will need to click on a question to get the pin.

Good luck,

Joe

I've always searched by individual card as well, but this still seems like a ridiculous move since obviously a large number of people do search by category.

Thanks Joe. I got a well meaning young woman to talk to and I had to spend 15 minutes building the foundation of how valuable these cards are and how ebay and paypal will suffer financially by this idiotic decision. I had to explain to her that the items I bid on are not 50 cent items but generally between $75-2500. That got her attention. She is currently checking to see if this change is permanent and when I find that out, I will post it to add it to the mix.

I'm a category checker and I review every single pre-1930 card each day.
"Hi, my name is tbob and I am a category checker." "Hi Tbob" :p

Bad news
 

She checked with the higher-ups and this is a PERMANENT DECISION. Crap...

Well, that means Dave B and Barry were correct and one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing.

Different sources continue to say on the ebay boards, that they're working on it while phone reps tell people it's permanent.

In fact, they have already fixed the basketball card section and it is back close to the way it was before.

What a disaster of a company.

Not for me - basketball cards are still all lumped together in one giant category. My guess is that this was a thought out and planned decision that eBay made, knowing full well it would alienate a chunk of their customers. As such, I doubt calling to complain is going to make them change their mind.

If they're not taking us serious .....
 

If they're not taking us serious, the only thing left is the language of money.
Every move that they've made during the last couple of years, have been to try to squeeze every penny they can from the buyers, and sellers.

Now, if the buyers, and sellers are really serious about this ... the only thing that might get their undivided attention ... is a boycott by both the buyers, and the sellers.

With the economy being what it is ... even a Mental Midget at eBay will agree that that's the last thing that eBay needs.

We can all use a month off anyway :D ..... Can eBay???

Try refreshing your cache memory. (Note to many on this board, but not Matt: This means after the page you want to look at has loaded, press the F5 key in the top row of your keyboard. To help your computer load faster it sometimes "remembers" what a page looks like from the last time you went there.) After someone on the ebay board said it was "fixed" my first attempt failed. Refreshed and it was better.

My Baseball categories now shows this:

Refine search
In Baseball Cards
ProductBox (1,555)
Pack (1,462)
Single (67,104)
Single - Insert (15,287)
Single - Parallel (2,858)
Set (3,912)
Team Set (1,800)
Lot (13,997)
Choose more...Card AttributesRookie (24,478)
Serial Numbered (17,309)
Autograph (12,497)
Piece of Authentic (10,884)
Not Specified (100,335)
Choose more...Year2009 (15,526)
2008 (10,799)
2007 (7,735)
2006 (4,338)
2005 (4,591)
2004 (3,246)
2003 (2,952)
2001 (3,135)
Choose more...PricePlease enter a minimum and/or maximum price before continuing.$ to $
Card ManufacturerTopps (37,001)
Upper Deck (14,427)
Bowman (9,930)
Donruss (4,441)
Fleer (3,907)
Leaf (1,338)
Goudey (759)
Score (677)
Choose more...Professionally GradedNot Graded (69,886)
Graded (23,470)
Not Specified (50,333)
Choose more...Original/ReprintOriginal (78,706)
Reprint (761)
Unknown (253)
Not Specified (63,969)
Choose more...SellerSpecify sellers...

Preferences
Buying formatsAuction
Buy It Now
Include Store inventory
Choose more...Show onlyCompleted listings
Free shipping
Choose more...LocationUS Only
North America
Worldwide
Choose more...DistancePlease enter valid zipcode.
Please select a valid popular city.
Please enter valid zipcode or select a valid popular city.
Within 10255075100150200250500750100015002000 miles of ZIP

Customize preferences

I don't understand why ebay would make a decision that they know would piss off some buyers and sellers, unless they thought it would make other buyers and sellers more happy. I still haven't heard any explanation of who might like this restructuring.

By the way, the F5 trick is a good one. I do now have more subcategories, like "parallel", "insert" (is there a difference between these), and "uncut sheet." Maybe they've just been getting advice from people who speculate on modern shiny stuff and forgot that the rest of us exist. If these categories are better for the modern stuff, fine. But why did they have to dump us in with them?

Everyone who works at Ebay should be required to sell at least 10 items per month by auction.

Andy

Jim - it's not fixed - they just changed around the site to look more like the category browsing, but it's still using the same "Item Specifics" information, as you can see, only 64,000 listings will be missed when browsing that way...

The categories are back! I just went to do a search and they are all there. Maybe someone actually listened.

e bay mess
 

as of 8:50 NY it is NOT working even w/ refresh, overall categories are still lumped, just searches are more refined, you cannot list items by decade.

keep calling e bay every day-

not fixed
 

not fixed.....just more useless categories.......pre 1930 where are you?? anyone want to spend all day searching through hologram cards?? no more rare items like the Old Put I lucked across years ago when the seller did not list it that way.....no more blue back crofts when the seller does not list it that way......oh well.

I think this might be all the "fixed" we're going to get for a while. I didn't say it was back to the way it was, just that they expanded the sub-categories.

I don't sell on Ebay, so I'm not tuned in to everything you have to go through to list, but my understanding is that the "Item Specifics" info requires more attention to detail by the seller in the listing set-up, but if it's done well, random searches should work OK.

They may not have a "Pre-1930" category but you can search for multiple years by checking the box next to each year you're interested in (1929, 1928, 1927, etc., all the way back to 18xx). Once you do this search, click "Save this Search" and you don't have to do it again.

This issue really wasn't/isn't effecting searches that much - it effects browsing - people want to sit on the 1930's category and watch all the interesting stuff that comes in. There was a very cool Mordecai Brown flip book that was listed last week by a board member; I don't think the year is even known and I doubt most of the people bidding have a saved search for "Mordecai Brown Flip Book." They were browsing the category and saw it. I don't think it would pull in 1/3 of what it did if listed now.

And again, as I pointed out, by using the item specifics, you're still missing 70k of the 200k listings.

e bay mess-still a horrible scene
 

:mad::mad:

Hi Net 54-

I just finished my 5th call...each supervisor is more robotic than the prior, each one says to me , this is the first time they have heard any complaints, as has been stated over and over, please turn up the heat, KEEP CALLING, keep e mailing........no search method will replace browsing era categories........

This is the only opportunity we will have to get this browsing method back, era categories, lots, sets etc.....all now lumped together without EXPLICIT CATEGORY SEARCHES and with all of ebay lame changes, this one should make ALL SELLERS of any item realize that they are now going to have FAR LESS eyes on their products which means, less to offer you COLLECTORS. When those that have quality merchandise now ONLY WILL SELL/LIST WITH THE GREAT GUYS (major auctions), the collector and the dealer are BOTH hurt....we have no alternative at this time as much as we want to be positive, you will now have very little offered thru e bay and will have to pay buyers fees to auction houses so collectors, dealers and hobbyists large and small...KEEP IN E BAYS FACE and hurt them in their pockets.

Not trying to be difficult here, but your complaint is that, last week you found a flip book, which was incorrectly listed in the Pre 1930's baseball card category, and now you wouldn't find this mis-listed item?

Yes you are :)

I have no complaint - I think this latest eBay change will end up being great for everyone.

I think the seller of that item, which doesn't fit neatly into any of the "item specifics" categories and was listed as correctly as it could have been, would now not get 1/3 of what he got.

eBay Mess Reply to Thread
 

I agree with Jim (VB), I just tried searches and on the left side there are many options you can play around with including years, lots, packs. Trust me I am not happy with the change and emailed them twice already, will call asap too. I just think there are ways around the changes eBay makes and my search only was about 10-20 min more. I am sure I can cut that time down as well and I search almost all sports cats not just cards. I am disappointed, but I can work with it and the search is almost the same, just need to click a few more buttons with each sport. Keep calling, it will not hurt because they did mess up and did not think about sellers and buyers that have built in searches.

Jimmy