In every issue, readers soundoff about issues important to them. From feedback to payment services, from increased fees to posting policies, AuctionBytes Soundoff gives you a chance to air your views.

Ina,
ebay again has broken their promise to sellers to not fiddle with functions during the hottest selling season of the year. Among the myriad of usual problems that ebay can never seem to get a handle on, this time it's search. Ebay has started to filter out words they deem as unimportant which brings back 0 search results. The best explanation can be found at ebay's search discussion board under the thread: "Problem with Title & Description search ignoring certain words".

Sadly, Ebay has made no announcement about the problem so most sellers don't even know a problem exists. Nor has ebay even provided a list of the "poisoned" words that will cause a zero search result. Buyers who are not familiar with ebay's incessant fiddling see the zero result and go elsewhere to find their treasures.

Ebay's search discussion board can be found here: Home > Community > Discussion Boards > Search

Medved cumulative ebay auction all data chart (1999 thru 11-2006) shows that ebay has to offer more listing specials to keep their numbers barely even with last year's growth but shows no substantial growth. The increase of spikes on the chart shows the increase of listing specials they've had to have to barely keep the growth even with last year.
Medved chart: http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND

This will be the last season for many, many sellers on ebay due to their fiddling with features, which in turn, causes a downward spiral of sellers' bottom lines.

http://forums.ebay.com/db1/thread.jspa?threadID=1000355771

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Hi Ina,
I know that eBay has like 2,000 people in T&S now (and no category managers) but its unfortunate when legit listings get pulled when they automate different enforcement policies.

Last week was excessive s/h; this week is keyword spamming, next week is ?
Hope all is well with you!
Regards,
Dan

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Hi Maggie,
Saw your picture...
...on the AB home page.

Thought you'd like to know other beagle owners are payin' attention.
Best wishes for a Happy Holiday Season,
Doug

Reply from Maggie the Auction Hound: Thank you for sending pictures of your cute beagles, I'm glad to see other pets are involved in ecommerce.