I like this new sort search results by category thing that eBay.com has just implemented. The default sorting remains ending soonest, as it should be, but I can see this working nicely for example when my mother is searching for the china she collects, which can appear in any one of half a dozen categories. For collectors who buy thematically (Mickey Mouse, say, or things related to your own small town), this might also be useful.
As usual, sellers have found plenty to complain about, and have found some bizarre ways of ‘proving’ that it’s a bad idea. But as Esteban has said, “‘Category’ sort is aimed at organizing results for queries that match many categories. It may not add much value to queries that are heavily concentrated in a single category or return low results.” I think that if you use it for what it’s intended to be used for, it might be very useful indeed. Now can we have it on the UK site please?
