Search by Post and P&P

[billsstamps]

A feature I often use on the big Eb** is the ability to search on Price and domestic postage.

I can't do it here, and I find that I don't look on Ebid for the cheapest product as much as I do elsewhere, because it takes so much time to trawl through adding price to P&P to see which is cheapest.

When Ebid items can undercut the cheapest items on Eb**, this seems like a missed opportunity to sell.

[bykimbo]

Seconded.

[Pink_Panther]

I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooo cheap

Attachment 19772

[MooseSeeds]

really wish they would add this option to the search

i agree when i am looking for a bargain searching all the listings on ebay to find the cheapest option is considerably quicker and easier than here at ebid.

please please add this option here

[gazza]

Problem 1 .. We've had a relaxed option until now that users enter 0.00 as an amount and "Not Known" for a shipping method if they don't know. This will cause a problem with these results as it would be seen as zero cost shipping. The solution to this is to remove the "Not Known" option to force sellers to enter a price and a shipping method. There will be complaints about this as many users are settled into this way of listing but we are willing to give it a go if you are. Let us know what you think.

Problem 2 .. When an item has Calculated shipping we would need to calculate the cost to the buyer for up to 75 items per page to a single zip/postcode. Mutliply this by 10 pages for the one userif they view 10 pages of results then thousands and thousands times more for the thousands of users making searches each day and we have potential millions of hits going to our shipping partner APIs which they would not allow. Another potential obstacle we are currently trying to get around before we activate this sorting method on search results.

Gazza

[MooseSeeds]

with problem 1 i think it surely must put a lot of buyers off - postage not known.

i've lost count how many times i've seen something i like but then seen postage not known and then not bothered. Alot of my purchases are impulse purchases so if the info isn't there initially its very rare i will contact the seller await the info then buy i usually just move on to the next listing.

I think the postage not known option should be scrapped

problem 2 - i have no idea about lol i am no good at how things work and have no idea how ebay manage to do it all i know is i can search for items over there worldwide and search price+postage and easily find whats the cheapest item and would love this option here.

I really hope you manage to figure it out

[bykimbo]

With problem 1 I'd suggest any items with "not known" get dropped to the bottom of the list automatically when the combined price sort order's chosen. This information might encourage lazy sellers to put their prices in as well, thus improving the site for buyers.

Problem 2... would it be acceptable to hold 1 pre-calculated price, perhaps for the local destination, on each record and use that for sorting? With a suitable "warning" displayed somewhere?

[caramia64]

I also use this method of searching on the other site and to be honest I really find searching for goods here a chore. I have to add I really want to see this site get bigger and more successful, I'm devoting my time, money & energy to this effect. However I still find I buy frequently from the other side, indicating I can easier find what I am looking for over there, this is a shame as its not helping ebid! Perhaps thats why traffic isn't picking up the way it could be over here?

Please note these are just my observations and opinions before someone comes down on me like a ton of bricks!!

[billsstamps]

Ebay sort only on the local postage, or collect from seller price, so it is only the default postage that is in Sort on Price and P&P.

Sell here, but I buy on the other side

There is more than one or two of us admitting to that, and it speaks volumes about what less committed Ebidders would do.
Figuring out this should come up the list of priorities based on the likelihood of increased sales.
I am a pretty lazy programmer and I would probably put an extra calculated field into the database which was simply an addition of the bid price and the default postage.
Then this field would be sortable in ascending order without any onpage calculation.

[johnwash1]

Well, clearly it's impossible, and e*ay is just a figment of our imagination!

I'm yet another who's been around here for 7 years, but rarely search here for things I buy. This is partly because of the lack of a comparable search that includes P+P, but also, I admit, because experience has taught me that too often there are 100's of sellers on the other site, but here just a few, and they have utterly unrealistic ideas of pricing. I don't know how to give such sellers a wake-up call, but they should really smell the coffee.

Possibly they're playing the same game as some book sellers do on eb*y. A few times I mailed sellers to point out that I could get the same book on Amaz*n for significantly less. To my surprise, instead of responding with a price match (or better), their reaction was "Yes, we know, but people buy from us anyway, so why should we care?".