Ebay: does anybody like the "item not available so look at this instead" message

[tggzzz]

I used to be that if you found an interesting item on fleabay, bookmarked it, and clicked on the bookmark - then you saw the bookmarked item even if the listing had ended. It has recently changed so that after the listing ends you no longer see the bookmarked item but "The listing you’re looking for is no longer available. Check out this similar item we found for you."

Invariably the similar item isn't similar, is completely boring, and I am not interested in it. Yes, I know there is a link to the interesting item; that's not the point!

Today's example:

• ended: Tektronix A6902B 2-Channel Isolator, 3000v With Probes Electrical Test Equipment
• no way similar: 2.4" DIY Measuring Instruments Oscilloscope TFT LCD Digital DSO138 SMD Set

Does anybody like that misbehaviour?
Has anybody found something useful because of it?
What's the most ridiculous misdirection you've seen?

[mathsquid]

I loathe this behavior.

I like to watch the end of an auction to see any last-minute bidding that happens. Now, when the auction ends, instead of it just showing the item and its final price, I get redirected to some random thing I don't care about.  It's highly annoying.

[Muttley Snickers]

I frequent Ebay and those clickbait and misdirection listings drive me mad, ours down here look slightly different than the listing posted above and if you were to bookmark a listing and then it ended and you returned at a later time there would be a message along the lines of "the listing you were after is no longer available so here are some other items which may be of interest" or a similar. Notice the darker blue listing text, this is in fact a link to the original listing which includes the final price and bidding history but it will eventually disappear at some point.

[bd139]

Ah it's shit. Missed that keysight 3000X MSO ?  What a about a DSO138 instead?

 

It's what you'd call a dark pattern how it is implemented as well.

[rdl]

No I don't like it at all. I also don't like the "sponsored items". When you are shown similar items or items others looked at, if you follow a linked item you end up at "Your Choice", which is not an actual listing.

I've noticed recently ebay racking up a huge tally of items blocked by uBlock Origin. I'm talking hundreds here. The only other site I've seen go that high is youtube. I've now blocked all but the bare minimum scripts and cookies from ebay and will be watching closely.


edit: I've just spent 2 hours on ebay with cookies off and the peak blocked items count was 15, usually only 2 or 3. Funny how some things there don't work without cookies (sort, for example). Seems pretty incompetent to me.

[joseph nicholas]

Ebay is full of bullshit.  One of the anoying things is the disapearance of item details on parts you have purchased after just a month or so.  If you didnt get the item you have to jump through hoops to get the seller to refund.  Why do they keep tinkering with this auction site.  First they have the confusing terminology, like "Want List" and "Wish List", then they eliminate one.  Then the thumb nails appear to small in search, with lots of white space around them.  The list goes on and on.  Don't get me started.

[SparkyFX]

It's what you'd call a dark pattern how it is implemented as well.

These recommendations are simply not a catalogue at its root, but to a high amount are free text search guided - looking for similarities in keywords and titles.

The catalogue part of it is up to the user (seller) to put it in the proper category, but people will and do abuse it. Neither is there a proper filter for properties of the item.

I think ebay is getting forward on this, look at auto parts... they do (at least german ebay) have a proper filter for make, model, engine and year to filter parts, because e.g. try ordering "a water pump".

[Stray Electron]

No I don't like it at all. I also don't like the "sponsored items". When you are shown similar items or items others looked at, if you follow a linked item you end up at "Your Choice", which is not an actual listing.

I've noticed recently ebay racking up a huge tally of items blocked by uBlock Origin. I'm talking hundreds here. The only other site I've seen go that high is youtube. I've now blocked all but the bare minimum scripts and cookies from ebay and will be watching closely.


edit: I've just spent 2 hours on ebay with cookies off and the peak blocked items count was 15, usually only 2 or 3. Funny how some things there don't work without cookies (sort, for example). Seems pretty incompetent to me.

   I've never tried U-Block Origin but I use Ad-block Plus freely on E-bay and other sites and I don't see any of their "suggested" items, "most popular items" or any of the rest of that CRAP.

   I keep cookies turned off for most sites and most of them work without cookies even though they pop up a huge screen block claiming that cookies are "necessary".  I NEVER click to allow cookies, I just kill those screen blocks with Ad-Block Plus and the site works just fine without the cookies.  IMO cookies are not to "enhance your viewing experience" but to track you and your likes and dislikes so that the website owners can market your personal information.

[TheSteve]

The "feature" is absolute crap, plain and simple.

[rdl]

The sort and view dropdowns most definitely do not work for me with cookies off (and only ebay.com and ebaystatic.com scripts allowed). The refinements down the left side column still work fine though. I've mostly figured out how to just manually paste the necessary string on the end of the url, so it's no big deal.

[Cubdriver]

Yes, that's definitely an annoyance.  Seems they started it about a month ago.  As others have pointed out, you can click on the highlighted 'listing' in the message to get to the desired item.  I'm not sure what bright light there thought that was a good idea, but I think it's stupid.

I've also noticed lately that in my case at least I'm not seeing the 'view seller's other items'  tab as frequently on a listing (but often a link to the seller's 'store'), and that I need to click on the seller to then get the 'other items' selection.

They just can't leave well enough alone.   

-Pat

[james_s]

It's less than useless. I have never once had it find me anything even remotely similar to the item I was trying to look at, and it requires extra clicks to get to the listing I wanted to see. The trend of hiding functionality and requiring additional clicks to access it is one of my big software pet peeves.

[SparkyFX]

For a website that gets a direct revenue for every auction the whole additional advertisement and preferential listing is like negotiating a tradeoff between user annoyance and profit.

The sort and view dropdowns most definitely do not work for me with cookies off (and only ebay.com and ebaystatic.com scripts allowed).

Whats the problem with deleting cookies after the session?

[rdl]

As far as I'm concerned, no entity has any right to leave cookies on my pc unless there is an obvious benefit for me. I allow several sites and ebay was one, but no longer unless I need to log on for some reason. In my opinion cookies should be abolished. Surely a better way could be found for the few useful things they can do.

[tggzzz]

Some topic drift is inevitable. However, it would be a shame if points about this and similar ebay usability mis-features became drowned in a generic cookie discussion.

As someone that heavily de-scripts and de-cookies websites, I regard any problems I experience thereafter as being self-inflicted and my choice.

[DC1MC]

So you have a shit load of programmers, UI/UX alternative lifestylers and other related cruft, and the boss comes and asks:

"- Uhmmm..., I see that the site is stable and the features are OK, anything new in the pipes or should we start downsizing ?"

"- No sir, absolutely not, we have this extraordinary AI and deep learning driven auto-suggesting feature, we make sure that once a bid is lost we replace it immediately with a similar item, the customer has the urge to buy and we'll steer him in the right direction, he doesn't need to do another difficult and painful search, millennials hate it, they want instant gratification... !!!"

"- Good, good, sounds interesting, is it working yet ?!?!?"

"- We're still ironing a few quirks and the customers kind of hate it, but as great Ford said, if we ask customers what they need, they will say faster horses..."

"- OK then, carry on, what about you UI/UX xirs ?"

"- We have finished removing any useful way of reporting frauds, replaced all easy to find contact numbers, and simplified UI with the new "discoverable" concept and we have this faaaabulous new colour scheme "

"- Not any more of this light blue on very light blue shite again !!!"

" - Oh, no, no, no, this is so passe, it was a faux pass, not material design enough, now we have light grey on very light grey, the latest trend on ahm... the other site as well"

" - I see that you're on the right track, do continue, I have to finish my report to the board..."

[SparkyFX]

In my opinion cookies should be abolished. Surely a better way could be found for the few useful things they can do.

They are kind of useful for keeping a state machine´s state persistent instead of trying to do it in the session handling of the server - depending on the way they are implemented.
Try programming a website that keeps variables persistent across page loads, that´s harder the more users are online concurrently, because of load balancers and no guarantee that the same user will always connect to the same server.

There are ways around using cookies, but abolishing does not help you anyway (check how the e-tag is used).

[factory]

It's complete shite, now if you want research completed items or save the pictures from something interesting that has ended, you now have to click three times & wait for each page to load, something that used to be possible with one click. 

David

[Fsck]

no, super annoying.

[Johnny10]

Yes, Super annoying !!?!?!!?!?!?

I agree I usually want to go back and see what last second winning bid was or want to make sure before I ship item that I included everything in the description.

Instead I have to dick around to find actual item.

[bitseeker]

Not only is the automatic redirecting annoying and misleading, it also breaks existing functionality.

When a listing ends without being sold and is relisted, the item in your watch list has its Bid button become View Relisted Item. Clicking on it originally went to the new listing for the item that ended, just as you would expect. That's what the button says (UX 101) and it's what eBay should want you to do since you're more likely to buy the item if you were previously watching it.

Now, however, when you click that button that still says, View Relisted Item, it goes to...you guessed it...eBay's poor excuse of a similar item. This makes no sense at all and appears to be an unnoticed consequence of a poorly thought out "feature."

eBay's ongoing site disability projects just scream, "I'm a monopoly and your experience doesn't matter as long as we stumble upon a site change that makes us more money in aggregate. After all, where else are you going to go?" Normally, such shenanigans would drive traffic to the competition thereby initiating a change at or death to the misbehaving business. There's no such negative feedback mechanism with a monopoly.

I'm on the verge of making I made a quick Greasemonkey script to "click" the miniscule link to go to the correct listing anytime it appears on one of their item pages. This uses location.replace() so that the offending intermediate page doesn't remain in the history buffer (i.e., hitting the Back button won't go back through the suggested page).

Code: [Select]

// @include  https ://www.ebay.com/itm/*

var anchors = document.getElementsByTagName( 'a' );

for( i in anchors )
{
  if( anchors[i].innerText == 'listing' )
  {
    location.replace( anchors[i].getAttribute( 'href' ) );
  }
}


[Muttley Snickers]

I must say that one thing we are not confronted by on Ebay down here is that horrendous cookie monster of a banner at the base of the page, I looked again yesterday at the listing in the first post from the smart TV and that blue banner covered half of the page vertically, what's more is it wouldn't accept the acknowledge when I clicked the accept icon from that device either.   

Cookie Banner

[rdl]

I've not seen that and I was just there. I read it and I didn't see a single reason why I would want to accept any of it.

[james_s]

The law that spawned all those banners is useless, all it did was cause a whole lot of annoying banners to click or block. It would be nice if the law actually regulated what data could be collected and what it could be used for rather than just providing information that is either useless because you already knew, or useless because one has no idea what it means anyway.

[helius]

All the complaints above are correct, but there is actually an additional problem, which is that the link back to the original item is unreliable in cases of similarly named items.