eBay Users Report Missing “Sold” Filter & App Text Bug Following Recent Updates

eBay users frustrated by recent changes to search and sorting as Sold filter option goes "missing" on desktop and text entry bug renders app practically unusable for some.

Sellers often use the Sold filter option when doing product and pricing research, but over the last few days, some say that filter selection has gone missing.

No longer search by sold?

Is this feature missing? Today I went to search for sold items, and it only gives the option to search by completed only missing the ability to separate sold from just completed.

I can't see the sold in filters when looking up sell thru rate, where is it?

I use the sold in filters to figure out the sell thru rate. I was listing yesterday on my desktop and saw it the first part of the day but now it's gone.

I tried several items I know sell daily so it's def not there and still could not see it. What did Ebay do with it?

Thanks eBay for another "useful" update!

No longer a "SOLD" filter??? Just "COMPLETED" option so no I have to ignore all the ones where the price is NOT in green!! Why?!?!?!

In testing to try to replicate this issue, it appears that the feature may have simply been moved to a new location where sellers are not used to looking for it, rather than removed completely.

It also appears this may be an A/B test eBay is running which could be account or browser specific, so not all users may be seeing the same thing at the same time.

Currently, when using FireFox, I still see the Sold Items filter option in the same place as it has been for a long time - under the Completed Items filter at the bottom of the filters section in the left side navigation area.

When doing the same search in Chrome, the Sold Items filter is no longer in that location.

Instead, it has been moved up closer to the top in the left navigation section, just under the list of categories.

As with many eBay tests and changes, this may be a positive and helpful update - but only if users actually know about.

Lack of communication is one of the top complaints I consistently hear about eBay from sellers and it erodes trust and seller morale when things are constantly changing with no notice or official announcements.

And in the eBay app, the Sold Items filter is also still available, but users may be having a hard time finding it as it now requires tapping "Show More" to see those options in some versions of the app.

Users are also reporting the latest app update has introduced major bugs into the search experience, making it very difficult to type or edit text in the search box.

The latest incredibly stupid eBay search problem

In the app, you can no longer edit your searches, because all key presses only act on the end of the text you entered. If you click in the middle of the typing box, and the cursor appears there, it will nonetheless only act on the end of the string.

So the developer's assumption is that all edits will occur by people backspacing from the end and re-typing.

From a software development standpoint, this is an amazingly dumb bug. How did you make this assumption to begin with, nor test it adequately enough to catch it? sloppy work.

And this isn't the only bug like this related to search that has gotten through to production:

• After searching, search text displayed doesn't reflect that search, but a previous pattern you entered (also making revising a search very difficult). You must copy each pattern before submitting to search if you want to keep revising it.
• Search results contain a large number of irrelevant search results, that eBay AI thinks you want regardless of what you explicitly searched for.
• Search results will not contain a large number of items that do match your explicit search results.
• Search results will vary from one search to the next, even using the same explicit search pattern.
  
  

And that's just search. I could go on about problems in other areas that have come up in the last year and were never fixed despite being reported.

Back in 2019, eBay and then CEO Devin Wenig faced activist investor pressure from Elliott Management calling for changes at the company, with constant site glitches and technical misexecution called out explicitly as one of the major problems plaguing the platform.

7 years later, it's shocking just how much of Elliott's "Enhancing eBay" plan still rings true today - particularly critiques around glitches constantly plaguing the platform and lack of leadership prioritizing operational and technical excellence.

Ex-CEO Devin Wenig infamously said at eBay Open 2018 that technical glitches are unacceptable and really pissed him off.

eBay has since removed the video they had posted on YouTube of the event, but the interviewer asked:

There've been a lot of site glitches recently on eBay. What are you guys doing to get rid of them?

Here's the simple answer - unacceptable, unacceptable. And we're making a lot of changes. When you make changes there are times that things happen but that's not an excuse and it's not ok with me and this summer in particular there have been a number of issues that directly impacted sellers like people not being able to see their view counts and a few other things and it's just not ok.

I'm extremely proud of a lot of things we've done, I'm not proud of that and in fact I hold my team accountable and it's not important, it's an internal matter but, we made changes to people and teams because shipping product that isn't ready is not ok. It's not ok with me and it's not ok with my team.

So the short answer is it's not like we don't get it. We are making a lot of changes and I want to make those changes, we need to make those changes, but making changes and then having to back up and fix things is not cool and I totally get it. Most of the issues from this summer have now been remedied but I was pissed off.

Mazen Rawashdeh was Chief Infrastructure and Architecture Officer at the time, but somehow managed to escape the wrath of a "pissed off" Wenig and was promoted to Chief Technology Officer, a title he still retains today despite the fact the site continues to experience near daily business impacting "glitches."

Are you experiencing these problems with search in the eBay app or the "missing" Sold filter? Let us know in the comments below!