eBay Mess

iggyman · #1 09-22-2009, 09:56 AM

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...

Jacklitsch · #2 09-22-2009, 10:24 AM

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.

ibuysportsephemera · #3 09-22-2009, 10:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jacklitsch

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

paul · #4 09-22-2009, 10:46 AM

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 ...

ibuysportsephemera · #5 09-22-2009, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paul

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

Leon · #6 09-22-2009, 10:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibuysportsephemera

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

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

chris · #7 09-22-2009, 10:59 AM

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

Mark · #8 09-22-2009, 11:01 AM

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.

nolemmings · #9 09-22-2009, 11:16 AM

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.

David W · #10 09-22-2009, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark

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.

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.

Jim VB · #11 09-22-2009, 10:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paul

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 ...

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.

nolemmings · #12 09-22-2009, 10:58 AM

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.

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