eBay's "Great Selection Tailored to you!" ...Really?

porto_bello

I'm receiving periodic emails from eBay titled "recommended just for you" and with "tailored to you!" written in the body of the text.

It doesn't seem to be very scientlific though, it seems to simply promote items the same as those I most recently viewed... in my case the items I have for sale...
...so I'm receiving emails promoting items that I don't want! :T
Surely 'tailoring' an email to highlight items most recently bid for or bought is likely to be a more successful strategy?

DELLBOY_2

well if there sending you items you have looked at there doing that to others too some of which may be your for sale items

porto_bello

My point is that the “tailored search” is drawing upon the items most recently viewed, whether I be selling, buying or stumbling upon by accident. There’s no point in eBay highlighting my items to a seller trying to sell the same thing… except provide an opportunity to undercut my price.

If it was tailoring on the basis of what the eBay account holder recently bid for – especially what I’ve unsuccessfully bid for, it’s more likely to throw up an item that I’m interested in and result in a sale.

Given eBay’s huge marketing budget, including TV advertisements, it strikes me that this is an obviously simplistic approach, which hasn’t been thought out.

Never mind, I'm sure a marketing consultant did rather well out of it!