Sometimes eBay is a must

[apudelek]

I have to say, I'm pretty happy with eBay's customer service right now.

I bought an N Scale Bachmann GG1 in a Congressional paint scheme and I never received the package.  The seller closed out the account and sent a phony FedEx tracking number, turns out.

eBay gave me a full refund.  This is the first time I've ever had a problem on the site after nearly ten years of using it and they took care of it within 24 hours.

But like you said, their new search function SUCKS!!! No scale separation like there used to be!

[NtheBasement]

Dunno if this helps but I long ago created a favorite, aka bookmark, for my typed-in eBay search, like "n scale coal csx", which seems to work OK.

[Maletrain]

Dunno if this helps but I long ago created a favorite, aka bookmark, for my typed-in eBay search, like "n scale coal csx", which seems to work OK.

I use that method, too. 

But, since the new search procedures, I now get a lot of non-N stuff when my search starts with "N scale ..."  So, I get a lot more unwelcome stuff to look through, and too often get pulled into reading an item listing that turns out to be some other scale that is not in the listing title.

[peteski]

I have to say, I'm pretty happy with eBay's customer service right now.

I bought an N Scale Bachmann GG1 in a Congressional paint scheme and I never received the package.  The seller closed out the account and sent a phony FedEx tracking number, turns out.

eBay gave me a full refund.  This is the first time I've ever had a problem on the site after nearly ten years of using it and they took care of it within 24 hours.

But like you said, their new search function SUCKS!!! No scale separation like there used to be!

For the very  few problematic eBay buys, eBay (or PayPal) always came through for me.  That was never in question.  Over the years they also  seem to have become more and more buyer-centric. That applies to getting refunds, or even sellers not being able to leave anything but positive feedback for the buyer.

The real problem is the recent (well few months ago now) changes eBay made to their categories.  Well, eBay has been getting more and more sucky over the years (member since 1999), but the resent major catrgory revamp made it pretty much useless for me. But then again, I'm getting older, and instead of adapting, I just yell at the clouds. (at least that is what some members here think about me).

[Maletrain]

"Yelling at clouds" was the old way.

Today, you are supposed to store your rants in the cloud.

Still the same result, though.

[muktown128]

You can filter by N gauge and then search for stuff.  Seems to work pretty good for me. 
Category:  Toys & Hobbies > Model Railroads & Trains > Gauge N (check the box) > type in whatever for search (Pennsylvania) > 1600+ items
I have it saved as a bookmark. 

I have a bunch of stuff that I want to sell.  Probably will use the Trading Post here since I'm not happy with all of the changes and fees with eBay and I don't do Facebook. 

[thomasjmdavis]

You can filter by N gauge and then search for stuff.  Seems to work pretty good for me. 
Category:  Toys & Hobbies > Model Railroads & Trains > Gauge N (check the box) > type in whatever for search (Pennsylvania) > 1600+ items
I have it saved as a bookmark. 

I have a bunch of stuff that I want to sell.  Probably will use the Trading Post here since I'm not happy with all of the changes and fees with eBay and I don't do Facebook.

Does not work that way for me.  Anytime I search for anything in "Toys & Hobbies > Model Railroads & Trains > Gauge N (check the box)" eBay removes the N scale check, and shows me everything in Model Railroads and Trains that applies to the search term- regardless of "gauge" or other category, also removes the "auction" check box, although mysteriously leaves item location "North America" checked.  It is also annoying that it redoes the search automatically every time you check a box, instead of letting me set up the search and only doing it once. 

And then there is the question of where everything else went.  My old "N scale" "auction only" "North America" search resulted in 7500 hits the day before the change.  The day after, the search "N gauge" "auction only" "North America" resulted in 4200 hits.  That is, they "lost" 3300 items into the ether- or the seller  just did not check the "gauge" box.  They have never recovered.  I don't think I have ever had over 6000 results since the change, even in the weeks before Christmas.

Yes, I can (and have) saved individual searches, but the old system was more convenient, and provided more hits. 

[JMaurer1]

I think that EBay has been trying to shoot itself in the foot for years. I used to sell stuff there, they made it harder to do and now I don't. The latest category change has chased away most of the sellers I followed. I used to go search for things everyday, now I don't. Auction listings have dwindled to half of what they used to have and more and more I can't find anything I'm looking for ...except the stupid Hallmark Hi-Speed SP freemiums (and those are even overpriced. Sometimes EBay is a must, but lately its become a must not. Instead of their shooting their foot, I think they finally shot themselves a little higher and are in the process of bleeding out...

[jargonlet]

eBay aside, is anyone aware of the new tax codes for online selling. Not to get political but it was passed last year and went into effect at the beginning of the year. The way that I understood the email from eBay was that in past years if you sold over 200 listings or above $20k in a year it got reported to the irs and it was count as income. In 2022 the amount of auctions that you sell no longer matter and if you sell over $600 in a year it gets reported as income. This isn’t just through eBay. It also counts as payments from other places such as Facebook market. This has pretty well killed any shot me selling online.

[Philip H]

The tax code - meaning what you have to pay to whom on what - hasn't changed.  What has to be reported to the IRS has changed. Is that a good thing?  Remains to be seen.

[Maletrain]

The post by thomasjmdavis about missing hits when using the "N scale" filter prompted me to do a test.

I searched for "N scale western maryland hopper" and used the "Newly Listed" ordering for the results.  I got 80 results.  I then used the "More Filters" button on the bottom of the left side filter lists to get to the "Scale" filter and clicked on that, to reveal choices specified as ratios.  I clicked on "1:160" and my list of results immediately dropped from 80 to 14.

Then I used the <- and -> arrows to change back and forth between the lists of results with and without the "1:160" filter to identify what had been excluded.  The items excluded were all listings that explicitly stated "N scale" in their titles!

Some of the listings did use a hyphen, so read "N-scale" instead of "N scale", but some of the ones with hyphens showed up in the remaining 14, so that is not an issue for the filter.

So, the "1:160" filter was not only not helpful, it excluded 82.5% of what I was searching for.

All I can think to do is not use filters at all, and search using the titles in everything, everywhere.

That does get me junk in some searches.  The worst is probably "N scale leather", which usually turns up multiple hits that do not even include the word "scale" at all, but do have "leather and an "N" in some context such as "Alfani Women's Sz 6.5M Grey Faux Leather Step N' Flex Cashh Low Block Heel Pumps"     I got some that had no "N" but did include the words "scale" and "leather", and one that did include all 3 words but was not a 1:160 product: "Munro American Brown Size 8 N Leather Scales Mules Slides Sandals Heels Shoes".     Only 1 result was an actual N scale car with the word "leather" in its listing - "Roco Brand N Scale #28905, The Sole Leather Line Boxcar Made in Austria".  And, trying to use the "Scale" filter on that list was not workable because the only choice it gave me for those results was "1:6" and no "1:160".

What seems to make no sense, is that there were 2 actual listings that matched all 3 search words, but they were not where at the top of the list, and there were 34 other results that matched fewer words.  Usually, there is a results list that matches all words in the search, often followed by a warning that says "Results matching fewer words" followed by results that actually seem to be more a matter of what I had looked at previously than actually having to do with the words other than "N scale" in my search parameters.  Why that doesn't happen with my "N scale leather" search is a complete mystery.

So, my take away is to not try to filter anything, and use the "Newly listed" ranking to avoid reading through the same improper results more than once.

I would never want to try to sell anything on such a screwed-up site.  Not so much because of expectations that buyers would have trouble finding my items.  More because of how illogical I expect them to treat sellers, based on their apparent inability to apply perceive reality and respond logically.

[Maletrain]

eBay aside, is anyone aware of the new tax codes for online selling. Not to get political but it was passed last year and went into effect at the beginning of the year. The way that I understood the email from eBay was that in past years if you sold over 200 listings or above $20k in a year it got reported to the irs and it was count as income. In 2022 the amount of auctions that you sell no longer matter and if you sell over $600 in a year it gets reported as income. This isn’t just through eBay. It also counts as payments from other places such as Facebook market. This has pretty well killed any shot me selling online.

Check with a real tax consultant, but my memory as a non-professional is that sales of items from a collection of similar items are not taxed as profits on an individual basis.  At least you used to have to make a profit by selling enough to more than recover the costs of buying the whole collection.  There must be some limitations to the individual values of items, because a collection of N scale trains is nothing like a collection of original paintings done by the classical masters.  But, for us model railroaders, there may be some sort of off-ramp to the detailed accounting of minutia that the IRS doesn't have the staff to look over anyway.

[Chris333]

I search for very specific things and it will tell me there are no results, but I might like these. The ones then listed have the exact word I searched for in their titles. What a pain.

Just like Youtube. I search for something and get about 10 results, after that it is just stuff they think I might like.

They are trying to direct you to a certain thing no matter if you want it or not.

I have never found Amazon search worth a crap. I use Google to find things on Amazon.

[mike_lawyer]

eBay lost it's niche years ago when it became Amazon-lite instead of an auction site for used goods.  Now, there are very few true auctions and mostly stores selling new items like on Amazon.  I still buy and sell occasionally there, but not nearly as often as I used to.

[wazzou]

^^^ This. ^^^