FLAWED & INACCURATE EXPIRED LISTING SEARCH RESULTS

Hello Halem. Expired listings search has always been unreliable. In the entire history of TM. But don't forget it only captures the title of the listing. Not the description. 

It only works on the "old" website, which is why you need a separate link and it kicks you out to new page when you click on it. It disappeared for a while, but came back when people complained it was gone. This is why it appears in a pretty obscure place that isn't intuitive. Possibly it's going to be dropped for good eventually. 

Hi Callum, thank you for your reply but I don't mark sense of your comment "But don't forget it only captures the title of the listing. Not the description". As the search pertained only to key words in the title. Expired listings searches have never been as unreliable as they are at present. 

Yeah. Shrug. I doubt expired listings is anything TM are currently working on. It's just an old legacy part of the website. I don't know for sure but I'd imagine it doesn't grab listings created in "new look." I've always taken it as a temperamental thing and am relatively happy if I get any sensible results out of it at all to be honest. 

Just a matter of playing around with it, like you have done, to try and get some results. 

Do Trade Me not care that the expired listings give useful information regarding what listing price might be reasonable or successful? Keeping in mind a successful sale generates income for them....

No, they do not care. It is one of the many problems that has dogged Trade Me for some while now & it's basic stuff. Saving an item to your watchlist no longer guarantees that it will stay there & you are able to find the outcome of the auction. If Trade Me wishes to continue to increase their fees, & force Ping on sellers, then it would be nice if they could at least provide a service that functions semi-smoothly, which it no longer does. 

That thing about watchlists is so strange. I'm finding my watchlist items keep getting automatically returned to my watchlist if the item is relisted. And I have the same watchers on my listings over and over, so I have no idea whether I have new interest or not. I could write quite a hefty tome about all the bugs they aren't fixing while they make 'improvements' that make the site less and less accessible. Perhaps, as someone else mentioned, there is now an opportunity for a genuine rival. They need only set what what Trade Me was to begin with, and deal with the original bugs, and they'll have a winner!

cataholik. This is not a bug, it is a feature. Personally I like it, but some don't. If I want to watch an item I am happy for it to stay on my watchlist if it closes and is relisted. If I no longer want to watch it for whatever reason, I remove it. That all seems like common sense to me. I think it's better than having to continually manually re-add something to my watchlist just because it closes but is not sold. Especially when some sellers only list items for a duration of 2 days. 

Callum, unfortunately what is common sense to you is not common to all, and I have no way of knowing if it's genuine interest (so why no bid, or question on my listing?) or just folk who don't think to check or cull their watchlist. Why put the effort into making this a feature when time could be better spent on fixing bugs, like the never ending expired listings issue?

Callum. The bug pertains to items not remaining on members watchlists and promptly disappearing post-auction. But you already know this, as have Trade Me for a good year plus. It'd be common sense if Trade Me did something about fixing their various mounting problems before the rot set in any further. Must be time for a fee increase, albeit only for in-trade NZ sellers.