posted on September 14, 2001 08:50:36 AM new
Well thank you eBay powers-that-be! Once again you have fixed something that WASN'T broken, while continuing to IGNORE those things that are!
I signed on this morning and began to search my fav catagories to find that "Vintage Toys" now has a EXPLANATION attached to it: "PRE-1970". What a friggin' joke! Even the most expert toy collectors and dealers have difficulty nailing down an EXACT year of production on some items, and now eBay has picked an arbitrary date to define "vintage" with, to make it even MORE difficult to find things! Half the sellers that list under the vintage catagory are lucky to get NEAR the right couple of DECADES when they describe a toy, much less the headache this causes for those of us that collect & deal in items that go up into the 90's!! Now we can search an ADDITIONAL catagory because someone at eBay thinks this will make sense!
ATTENTION eBay "brains": While you are on a quest to DEFINE things so there aren't misunderstandings.....How about defining the biggest pile of word definition confusion on eBay for everyone:
WHAT DOES THE TERM "ACTUAL" MEAN WHEN APPLIED TO SHIPPING?
To my knowledge, eBay has NEVER had the guts to put into print what the word was MEANT to mean when it was choosen!
Posting THAT definition on eBay would be much more welcome than playing around with catagory titles! If you can TELL people what the term "vintage" means...then you can also dictate to buyers & sellers what the term "actual" was intended to mean from day 1 of eBay!
.....but then THAT would be being RESPONSIVE and RESPONSIBLE to buyers and sellers wouldn't it?
In the meantime, I will shove my soapbox back under my desk and see how many NON-vintage toys I can find under the vintage catagory today! Man, I really miss the days when eBay was fun; was community; and made sense!
(Hummm? Could this become a new valid reason for deadbeats? "Sorry, but I don't want to buy your toy now since it was made in 1972 and you advertised it as PRE-1970!"
Somedays you get to be the top dog.....some days you just get to be the fire hydrant!
[ edited by thepackratsattic on Sep 14, 2001 08:53 AM ]
posted on September 14, 2001 09:01:06 AM newhttp://pages.ebay.com/catindex/catvintagetoys.html
I don't see the pre-1970 thing. But anyway ebay's categories are a joke, they simply have too many of them in stupid little sub-categories and they don't have some major categories that they should. And because of this I don't believe intelligent buyers search by category anyway, so I just throw my stuff into something close rather than spend 30 minutes searching for ebays idea of a proper category.
Vinnie
[ edited by capotasto on Sep 14, 2001 10:31 AM ]
posted on September 14, 2001 09:54:14 AM new
actually, having undefined categories is something that *is*, in fact, conceptually broken at ebay. Having category definitions is absolutely the RIGHT thing to do, rather than let everyone try and guess where to put stuff, using their OWN definitions. ("vintage..hmmm..I think it means 1950s...no wait..*I* think it means the 30s...wait, *I* think..." ).
I don't know why this means that you have to search an additional category. If there are, for example, two categories, "vintage" and "non-vintage", with NO definition, you are forced to search both. How are you worse off now?
Of course, *some* people will still ignore the definitions, or may not know where their item goes even with a definition, but that doesn't mean this change is bad.
The bottom line: if you are going to have non-obvious differentiation of categories, you need a definition. There is no simple, 100% complete solution to the question of "where do I list my item?" (imagine you have an antique toy advertising item...is it an antique..a toy..or advertising?), but setting up a bunch of categories with vague words and then letting everyone choose their own definitions is something that is "broken".
PS - I fully support their clarifying the shipping categories also, but the fact that they don't fix that doesn't mean I want them not to fix other things.
PPS - I also think ebay ought to collapse about half of their categories, so that you can be assured of searching the "right" one to find an item. The days of scrolling through a category (yes, i've been here long enough to have done that...) are just about done...
[ edited by captainkirk on Sep 14, 2001 09:56 AM ]
posted on September 14, 2001 09:56:02 AM new
I think it helps for ebay to define vintage toys being pre 1970 so everyone is on the same page. Could you imaging a buyer looking for a "vintage" toy from 1991 and not finding it in the vintage category because it's in the contempoarry toy section?
"Actual" shipping means the seller is not making an estimate; he knows his costs for shipping and charges the buyer that amount.
posted on September 14, 2001 09:59:01 AM new
MY pet peeve is the TWO stained glass catagories they have set up. One under GLASS and one under HOBBIES. I wrote and asked them why 2 and funny, they never answered.
posted on September 14, 2001 10:01:00 AM new
Ebay loves to brag over how many categories they have...as if that makes one bit of difference. ("wow, I'm going to bid on ebay, they have 99 billion categories!" ) I've argued with them as well, to no avail.
posted on September 14, 2001 10:03:49 AM new
eBay has been doing this for some time now, and as a seller & a buyer I appreciate it.
The Native Americana category has had a sub category of Pre-1940 for as far back as I can remember.
Why?
So that buyers don't have to wade through 150 pages just to find the 3 pages of Pre-1940 items.
If a buyer was to search the entire Native Americana category for "moccasins", they would still bring up several pages of items that were made in the last 6 months.
At the moment when searching the entire site 222 pairs of 'moccasins' are found.
Searching the Pre-1940 category brings up 28 pairs.
Imagine these same results in 2-5 years from now.
For those that want to see *every* pair of moccasins on eBay the search feature [for the entire site OR category specific] will handle the task.
For those buyers that don't have 2 hours a day to wade through 200 pages of items the new sub categories will be a god send.
eBay doesn't care what year your toy was made, and any seller with an ounce of brains can ballpark the date of manufacture & decide which category will best suit the item.
The Cookie Jar category has the same sub category, and it's been a blessing for most buyers of 'vintage' jars.
eBay is planning ahead for a change, and IMO it's about time.
The days of 1-3 pages of listings for each category [with no sub categories] is long gone.
I certainly don't agree with everything eBay has been doing with regards to the categories, but in this case it's welcome with open arms.
