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EBay Tinkers With Sizing Charts in Listings

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EBay Tinkers With Sizing Charts in Listings

Old 01-24-21, 07:23 PM
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UKFan4Sure
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EBay Tinkers With Sizing Charts in Listings

Have any of you ever sought to purchase a bike on eBay? You used to be able to select frame sizes in either inches or centimenters. As I've always understood it, mountain, older road bikes, and hybrids are designated in inches, and road bikes are always in CM. They recently changed that to where only half-inch increments are the filtering selections. There are no selections for say, a 55 or 56 cm frame size any longer. What's even funnier, is you can select to see up to a 32 inch frame, which would be an 81.28 cm. When have you ever seen an 81 cm frame, folks? I contacted customer (dis)service, and they said, "that's the way the system works." No amount of explaining to them that road bikes are measured and specified in CM would change their minds.

So, I guess eBay has decided that industry standards no longer apply to selling on their site. I am beyond exasperated. Now, yes, I understand that one can do the math. But the problem with that is the people who may be listing a bike, may do it wrong when they list. If the frame is listed on a decal as a 56 (or whatever), you should be able to select that exact size on their web site. It was so much simpler when you could select the boxes for the sizing you wanted to see, like 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57... and so on.

You can't even select a 700c wheelsize any more. You can only select wheel size in inches!!

Last edited by UKFan4Sure; 01-24-21 at 07:28 PM.
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Old 01-24-21, 10:41 PM
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It's eBay, think of it like a online global flea market where anyone can sell whatever they want with whatever description they want and who really cares. The people who run it aren't in the cycling industry they are in the crap online selling industry and they will make money regardless. Someone will buy the full suspension bike for under 200 dollarydoos regardless and they will still make their money. If you are looking to buy something of quality hopefully the seller is actually knowledgable of what they have and will write something good about it so you can find it. If not I would skip it anyway.
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Old 01-24-21, 11:06 PM
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I noticed this a while ago. Ebay used to have cm selection and inexplicably they took it away. It's inches only. And no, they don't understand the market nor do they care - otherwise they'd be more open to sensible feedback. I've been on ebay for 20 years and frankly the site only gets worse - never better.

Last edited by Biketiger; 01-24-21 at 11:45 PM.
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Old 01-24-21, 11:42 PM
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I usually just put keywords of the sizing in search, that appears to be most effective, I'm also a seller so I know seller have the option to enter custom sizing in their listing but most won't do that and still just rely on keywords in descriptions and titles to get found.

That's how I found my Specialized Roubaix SL... I simply entered 52cm carbon and filter through price range to find it...
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Old 01-24-21, 11:48 PM
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they are working really hard on their algorithm to be more accessible like amazon, and it's just making things weirder. not just bicycles. if i were you, I would primarily rely on searching for the size just in the search box, i think it will probably also pull up results that have the size listed only in the specs part.
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Old 01-25-21, 07:47 AM
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What ever happened to the metric system? It had to be 50 years or more ago that american students were introduced to metric measurements. And the metric system was the way of the future. Multi color Euro tail lights on cars were adopted not too long after that, and in recent years been ignored by automakers. And universal symbols like used on public bathroom doors. Even the universal typeface, Helvetica, made its world dominance about the same time. But metric measurements never stuck. I measure and compare seat tube and top tube lengths in centimeters but chainstay length in inches. I decorate homes for a living and hang a lot of wallpaper. Most dimensions nowadays on wallpaper are stated in centimeters. My brain converts those cm.'s to in.'s, often comparing to my metric understanding of bike measurement , 54, 58, 63cm as 21, 23, 25in.

I still am frustrated with the seatpost binder bolts on my two vintage Raleighs. Not a 13mm or 14mm but the old Whitworth sizing that I have no other familiarity other than that one nut.

With several instances of purchasing bikes where the stated size was not the actual size, I am very reluctant to trust anyones ability of reading a tape measure. I even worked with a carpenter that would call out a measurement of 23 and three lines. Thats 23 3/16". And don't get me started on (") and ('). Brake and break, pedal-peddle, your-you're.........

Waiting for the "okay boomer" reply.

Last edited by big chainring; 01-25-21 at 12:09 PM.
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Old 01-25-21, 09:32 AM
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Just type in '64cm bike frame' or whatever you want. That will pull up results where 64cm is included in the title or body of the posting.
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Old 01-28-21, 06:40 PM
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Originally Posted by mstateglfr
Just type in '64cm bike frame' or whatever you want. That will pull up results where 64cm is included in the title or body of the posting.
While true, query results are way down when you do it that way.
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Old 01-28-21, 06:48 PM
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Originally Posted by big chainring
....With several instances of purchasing bikes where the stated size was not the actual size, I am very reluctant to trust anyones ability of reading a measuring tape...
Or doing the math to provide a metric to inch conversion. For instance, a frame labeled 55 cm, one would have to pick either 21, 21.5, or 22 because it's actually a 21.65 inch frame. I've even found it confusing because some manufactures measure at different places to arrive at their spec. You have to have the geometry chart to know.

All of that said, why in the world eBay would force one to "guess" as to the size of the frame is beyond me. It was nice when I could do a search and filter to 54/55/56 cm by checking those 3 boxes and clicking "search". Now, who knows what you're going to find as you can no longer search by the INDUSTRY STANDARDS!.
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Old 01-29-21, 09:51 AM
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I always look up the model and find a geometry chart online. I never go by what people put down. Some of them don't even know where to take the measurement, or make guesses at the height range of people as a fit metric. Never assume the other person knows what he/she is talking about.
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Old 01-29-21, 11:24 AM
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Originally Posted by UKFan4Sure
So, I guess eBay has decided that industry standards no longer apply to selling on their site. I am beyond exasperated. Now, yes, I understand that one can do the math. But the problem with that is the people who may be listing a bike, may do it wrong when they list. If the frame is listed on a decal as a 56 (or whatever), you should be able to select that exact size on their web site. It was so much simpler when you could select the boxes for the sizing you wanted to see, like 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57... and so on.
It could be that they changed picking by size to match the user's preference for units. Maybe, people who use inches complained about needing to use centimeters.
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Old 01-29-21, 12:02 PM
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The bike sizing and wheel listings could still use work. I've scored some wheels and other stuff in the past probably because they were half listed wrong half in the wrong section or something. Gotta be careful listing I guess.

It doesn't help that for some brands the whole M/L/XL and centimeters measures aren't good enough either as the centimeters measure is taken at an odd spot.
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Old 01-29-21, 12:17 PM
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To add to the confusion, a lot of modern sloping TT frames are now sized by the length of the seat tube, so a 48cm is really a 52 or 53. I post all pertinent info, like stack and reach, or an entire geometry chart. Many buyers don't understand stack and reach, so they ask about head tube length and TT length.
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Old 01-29-21, 02:17 PM
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Originally Posted by UKFan4Sure
While true, query results are way down when you do it that way.
Really? If the other way to search isnt available, how can the way I suggested result in fewer matches?
I type in '64cm bike frame' and a bunch of results come up. If I typed in '58cm bike frame', probably 5x more results would hit my screen.


...maybe I am misunderstanding the issue.
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Old 01-29-21, 02:36 PM
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Originally Posted by DaveSSS
To add to the confusion, a lot of modern sloping TT frames are now sized by the length of the seat tube, so a 48cm is really a 52 or 53. I post all pertinent info, like stack and reach, or an entire geometry chart. Many buyers don't understand stack and reach, so they ask about head tube length and TT length.
I'm sure they aren't the only brand that does this, but Kona really screws this up. The big brands mostly list effective seat tube length. Kona might do that as well, but they are way off.
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