Thursday, April 1, 2010

Something to Mull Over...

I run a Nancy Drew search. The default is "all items" with a total of 8,738 items. I click on "auctions only" and see 649 items. I then click on "Buy It Now only" and see 8,122 items.

8,122 + 649 = 8,771 items

Why does the "all items" tab only show 8,738 items instead of 8,771 items? Which items are dropped?

Regardless of whether the cause is a bizarre conspiracy theory or gross negligence on the part of eBay, it is a fact that not all items are showing in some of the search sorts. Why?

Since the item totals do not add up correctly, how do I even know that the totals are correct for the different tabs? How do I know that I am seeing all items that are auctions or all items that are Buy It Now?

5 comments:

Kate Butler said...

I don't think it's a conspiracy, but it can probably be attributed to a) sloppy coding or b) different teams responsible for these sections. Amazon is notorious for this sort of thing -- the totals displayed on the left are often different than the actual number of results displayed on the right.

At work (a public library) we have a database that holds all the circulation information on every item. Depending on what report we run, we may get different answers for how many times an item has gone out in the past year. It has to do with the "same" information being available in different locations in the database. Some reports get it from one spot and some from another.

It's ridiculous but obviously a low priority for vendors to correct.

beautifulshell said...

Just wanted you to know that Ruth Fielding Clearing Her Name showed up today, in the 4th DJ, photo here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/beautifulshell/4483773195/

Next time I'm around a scanner, I'd be happy to send you a better image, if you'd like.

Jennifer White said...

Thanks for mentioning your dust jacket. I have changed the format 4 information to state that #1-25 were produced with that style of dust jacket.

Congrats on the great find!

beautifulshell said...

Thanks! Things things always seem to come along when you're not looking for them.

Paula said...

The discrepancy is due, I think, to items which are listed as auctions, but also have a "Buy It Now" price. Those items show up in the "Auctions Only" search AND in the "BIN Only" search, but they show up, and are counted, only once in the search results for all items. The interesting thing is, if you look at these items in the "BIN only" tab, you aren't shown the auction price at all in the search results, and if you look at these items in the "Auction Only" tab, you aren't shown the BIN price. But both prices are shown in the search results for "All Items". So it's not obvious that the items are shown in all three lists.