MSE Local eBay Deals tool discussion

soolin

Since this tool is now 8 years out of date I will ask the Forum team whether it should be closed as it is confusing for new members. 

dj.s

I am bemused as to why the tool now will only look for specific items rather than all collection only items within a specified miles.
I don't know I want something until I see it advertised. My purchase frequency will become NEVER.
Why the change.

py32675

I have used this tool for many years and found it incredibly useful for local finds.
It has suddenly changed so that you need to know what you want to buy to use, which means it is no use for browsing for a variety of items. Please change back.

Paul

Rodsley50

I totally agree with Paul's comment.  Please change back

dj.s

I have been a little slow in realising that what the Mapper will now do I can of course do directly on ebay. The mapper is POINTLESS.
Please give us back a useful tool.

MSE_James

Hello - just to say that I've passed your comments onto the team that looks after the tool.

They had to make some updates to the tool in response to changes on Ebay's side, but they're looking to see if any adjustments can be made to make it work closer to how it used to.

Edited to add: In the meantime just putting the letter A into the 'What would you like to buy?' box seems to return quite a variety of results.

MSE_James

Hello again @py32675, @Rodsley50 and @dj.s - our team have now taken a closer look at this and I'm afraid that as a result of the changes eBay made on their side, it's no longer possible for us to provide the ability to browse all items without specifying a search term. 

GaryTheGolfer1

I agree with the comments above. The value was being able to find something close by that was a bargain whether it was a wheelbarrow or a carriage clock. Having to specify a search item makes this tool totally useless.

However, following the suggestion of searching for [a], I discover that you can search for any of the vowels EXCEPT [e]. Now it turns out that EBay uses boolean logic so you can tell it to search for anything that contains, say [a] or [i] by entering (a,i). The next step is to get it to include [e] somehow.

It turns out the workaround is this: (a,"e",i,o,u). Not much listed doesn't have ANY vowels!

Now if we could just get MSE to hard code that into the "What would you like to buy?" line, we might have a solution of sorts.....

GaryTheGolfer1

....or maybe just make it the default input to that line...that can be overwritten if someone IS looking for something specific locally.

Rodsley50

Thanks James.  Putting an "a" into that box seems to work.  Thanks