Note: Please try not to post customer support questions as comments on the blog. Please go to http://support.audiogon.com for help. Also we please ask to only send us one request as it slows down or response time if you email us multiple times.
We’ve received roughly 500 comments since we launched the new site and we’re working through many of your requests, please understand that we are listening and working to get the site up to our users standards. Here are some of the things we’ve both worked and are working on:
What we updated yesterday:
- Zip Code Search: You can now search by zip code by and we’re actively working on rolling out zip code by radius
- Music listings are now separated from equipment
- Search only includes listing titles: We are considering adding description back into search as a checkbox option as many of you are also requesting this.
- Feedback is now visible on listings: Links to feedback have been restored and your scores should be showing correctly
- Email Fixes: Email notices should not contain any bad characters and we’ve increased deliverability.
- Site Speed: We’ve completed a number of speed improvements and are working on more.
Here are some notes regarding the new site:
- Problems with Listings: if you have problems with your listings, please go to http://support.audiogon.com and try to find your answer there. If you’re still experience problems, please email us but please understand we’re dealing with a large number of requests and give us 24-48 hrs to respond.
- Buy it now, Offer and Bid buttons not being visible on your own listings: Sellers cannot see these buttons on their own listings only potential buyers, this is to prevent fraudulent activity.
- Listing Management: To manage your listing and see open offers, questions or orders just make sure your logged in and go to the listing page from your selling table on MyPage home
- Editing Listings: We’re working on cleaning up editing, for now please use the amending option on your listing.
Thanks to our community for all their patience over the last few days.
The Audiogon Team
Audiogon Blog 
How do you search by zip code? I still do not see that option.
Please add back advanced search, so you can sort by custom price range, by country, etc. It also gives you an easy place to add new custom searching options in the future.
Type the zip code into the search box.
How can we search by first two digits of zip code?
Well that partially works, if there is a current item for sale in the zip code I type. I used to be able to type in things like 018 or 01 into zip code and it would give me items in all 018** or 01*** zip codes. That was fine for doing ranges around me. You need to redo the zip code search to work more like the old one. Doing it by a single zip code is way too restrictive.
Search by country does work now, which is a step forward.
Spoke too soon – search by country partially works. It finds data from a country but also items with the country name in the item name. For example, I searched on Germany and got product from Germany but also one from Australia with Germany in the item name. Trying to have a single search box serve mulitple purposes is just too complicated. WIth the old Advanced Search there was a search by location, so it was easy to sort these issues out. Please add an advanced search option back in. Then you can also do custom price ranges.
This is broken now (again) but in a different way. It looks like only the “item” is now being searched (it was the item and description). So a search for a partial zip, like “17” returns items with “17” in the Item – as in “17 inch faceplate” Full zip searches obviously don’t work unless someone puts the full zip in the item heading – unlikely.
How about multiple search options? Or an advanced search? It’s clear the single and simple search field idea isn’t working.
The new website is terrible. When I do a partial zip code search for 45 I get results such as Tube Audio Lab 45 SET Amp, which is in zip code 54601. While the old website may have been “outdated,” it was SO much more functional and flexible. There is nothing is worse when an “update” sets the product backwards. I hope Audiogon seriously listens to its users because we have clearly spoken. It’s one thing when one or two people are dissatisfied, but when the majority of people are pointing out critical flaws, maybe people should listen. And the partial zip code is one of many complaints.
Thanks for responding to my comment yesterday regarding zip code search. I truly appreciate that you fixed this issue.
Please put the rest of “Other items by this seller” in ads instead of your sponsor ads.
I agreee 100% with DTC re the zip code search
The more i think about it the site is still a big turd. Its going to take a lot more than what’s listed above. Not that it hasnt been said but I really dont understand how someone can take a successful fully functional site and completely screw it up. I mean, why would you give us less?
What everyone wants is the funcationality of the old site with some common sense add ons.
Thus far (like my kids say) its EPIC FAILURE.
Hello, can you please inform me how to “bookmark” an auction or classified. The old site would let you see all the auctions or classifieds you were interested in and watching. Naturally, yhis was a way to keep track of what you were interested in. Were did this go? Also the buying, bought, selling and sold categories are really messed up. I am not “buying” something if I asked the seller a question regarding the item, nor have I bought it if It was one of my past bookmarks.
The data for my account does not seem accurate. Please help. Thanks, Joe
Please bring back the bookmarks! Maybe then I could make use of the site again. Unbelievable…
how many times do we have to ask for bookmarks? It shouldn’t have been left out in the first place! Even this stupid blog has a “follow” button, and every other site on the web have a subscribe, bookmark, or follow function. Can you at least tell us you’re working on it and give an estimate of when it will be available?
We are working on implementing these.
While I heartily agree that zip code search should work as it did previously by allowing wild card searches using the asterisk character, it seems to me that the current search functionality has a much more basic problem, which is that one simply cannot trust the results returned. Here’s an example. Type “bpt” iin the search field. The results returned are obviously incomplete. I know that because on the Audiogon home page, one immediately sees three BPT “featured listings” none of which show up in the search results when one searches for “bpt”. This tells me that the search functionality is fundamentally broken.
partial zip code entry is not working as before. Before when i typed in 60 partial zip, i used to get over 250 items.
I think you’re doing a good job working on the fixes. Keep it up so we can have our Audiogon back! Thanks!
How bout restoring the link at item page between zip code and location of that zip.
please restore “items for sale” to the other related links you get when doing a member search.
You had this before, and it helped finding out what a favorite seller had for sale.
Can’t figure why you deleted this link — even before the “update” …….. ??
zip
For crying out loud, the zip code search function should be the least of your worries!
I see that you were able to get your sponsor’s ads up and running nicely, but there are VERY critical issues with classified listings that need to be resolved ASAP… I have plenty of equipment to sell (and generate revenue for Audiogon), but I won’t post any more listings until you fix the following.
(I know you’re working on SOME of them, but all of them are critical, and need to be VERY high priority… much higher than search and filter functions). Stop worrying about the Buyers and focus on the Sellers, or you won’t have any more new listings!!!
— need to be able to modify the text of the listing, not just add to the bottom of it (I know this is trying to be resolved).
— need to be able to modify the price of an item.
— need to be able to modify payment methods.
— need to be able to add or remove the Buy Now option, or allowing of offers.
— need to be able to modify the photos for a listing.
— need to be able to modify the shipping methods of an item.
— need to be able to modify who pays for shipping.
— need to be able to modify the final description of the item, as was allowed before at the end of the wording.
I cannot use your site as it currently is!!! And I can’t take a chance on posting an ad and hoping these functions will be restored when I don’t know if and when that will be. So I guess I’ll have to wait and see when it happens.
What about putting in the facility for email notifications for updates to certain keyword searches.
e.g. Audio Research – emails new listings with the words Audio Research in them on a daily basis.
Thanks!
There is no way to communicate efficiently with buyers/sellers. I have had transactions that involved many many emails to accomplish but I see no way to email trading partners. Not only does this make it extremely difficult to engage in a transaction, more importantly in the bigger picture it eliminates the sense of community. Please include a way for members to have direct communication.
Your offer process is not working. I’ve had offers/counter offers that are no longer visible and I don’t know who the party is. You guys do realize we are paying full price for this “service”, right?
I’ve worked on five magazine redesigns and two website relaunches. Typically, the rejiggering of an existing product has two purposes: make more money for the owner/publisher AND make a better product for the user/reader. Hopefully, the owner/publisher sits down with lots of readers/users of the products and asks them HOW they use the product, what they like about it, and what they think could be improved. Then the owner/publisher decides what changes can be made, and they hire a designer to make the changes. When the new product comes out the old-time users/readers HATE it, and they are very vocal about it. (Few people actually like change, regardless of what they might say at first.) Then, if the new product is a success, the tone of the letters/emails changes from pure hatred, to mild acceptance, and then, if the product is really an improvement, users/readers realize that the changes are for the good, and they begin to praise it. Let’s give the new Audiogon a chance and see what happens once ALL the bugs are worked out (which will be soon, we all hope). To Audiogon: I have several ideas and suggestions, if you want to get in touch with me.
The audience in this case has every reason to hate it. The site owner took a perfectly functioning site and stopped it from functioning. The site owner said they worked for a very long time with a group of power users. If they did they either don’t know how to conduct usability tests or their chosen group was clueless. I suspect it’s the former.
The fact is, this site should never have seen the light-of-day. The relaunch is a failure of epic proportion on that which matters most—content and functionality.
Regarding your offer to help, you might as well start typing your ideas and suggestions out right here for all to see, just as everybody else has been doing. Be warned though, your input will fall on deaf ears.
Audiogon has over a thousand solid suggestions between these blog articles and their woeful support channels. Most of them aren’t new, but have to do with the functionality that used to be. Their best and most cost-effective bet at this point point would be to bring back the old site and update its database with the transactions that have recently transpired, all the while not charging the membership one red cent for anything that overlapped into, or was started in, the new year.
Kolledog, please don’t take what I’ve said personally. I think your comments are positive, helpful and true. It’s just that after following this mess for a time, and not seeing Audiogon take any sort of responsibility while offering scant assurance of fixing things proper, well… it just sucks.
Thank You!!! I can’t get these people to relist an ad that I paid for before the so called upgrade. They actually want me to pay for it again. Unbelievable!!
Please send us a case in support.audiogon.com so we can help you with this issue.
Please bring back item listing sorted by type. On the old site if I searched for “Ayre” or “Mark Levinson” I would see CD players, DACs, transports, preamps, amps, etc all sorted into their respective groups, all nice and neat and very easy to look through at a glance.
Now if I search using the same terms, I get a jumbled mess of results with no sorting at all. If I want to see just Mark Levinson DACs I have to click three or four things to get there. This is not an improvement.
Also, it seems like the site is now actively trying to discourage users from listing auctions rather than classified ads. $1 No reserve auctions? Gone. Featured auctions? Gone. Instead the front page is dominated by the same 5 *expired* classified ads. How is that better? Auctions are now just thrown in with the classified results, seemingly at random instead of being first, followed by featured ads.
Paying for a featured listing used to get you to a section right at the top, and was a big help at getting more people to look at your listing. Now you get a gold star and apparently that’s it, your listing is buried in the random mess with everyone else. Your potential buyer must first click to see “featured listings” if they want to see your result first. Who is going to click featured listings? Why does being featured matter to a buyer? Why would buyers specifically click to see what sellers chose to pay extra for their listings? That makes no sense.
All in all the redesign seems badly conceived. The site is generally just harder to use.
What happened to the items I was watching? There was a plus sign in the upper right corner of the screen that allowed me to edit and add to items I wanted to follow. It would be very useful if you brought this back.
Look and feel is much better. However I appreciated the “Category” feature which informs in a glance the kind of materials is advertised (amp, pre-solid, CD, video, interconnect or speaker cables, full-range or monitor speakers, etc.). It helps the search for specific items.
I do not understand why you guys do not listen to us (your customers that is slowing moving away from you) and bring back to old site? I really do not understand.
3 MAJOR problems – In MY Page/Selling the data is useless in that it is sorted randomly. It should be in the order that the listings were posted (as in the old site) or at least have the capability to sort by oldest/newest. Same comment also for the Sold & Expired columns. I can’t even find the listings that I sold this week on there!
– The 2nd problem is that not all of my listings are showing even though I use the ‘Show All’ option. I had approx. 580 listings (records/Music) active before the ‘new site’ went active, now it only shows approx 430 items. A disaster! Even the ‘Sold’ column only shows 100 items sold by me – I have been active on Audiiogon since 2007 and have sold somewhere in neighborhood of 1800 items!
– The 3rd problem is on the Listings themselves – Where under the old site you had ‘Other Items by this Seller’ you listed ALL the other active items/listings for the seller – now you only show 3! At least on the old site you always had the ability to look up the member and see feedback as well as their ‘other listings’ but you have eliminated that also. Many customers want to know what other items we have for sale so they can bundle them together for a savings on shipping costs, discounts etc. That capability is now gone.
I have contacted customer support numerous times over the last week and have not gotten back even 1 response. I have always exclusively used Audiogon for my sales and was always very happy with the old site. I don’t want to use any other site so PLEASE resolve these problems ASAP and provide more feedback to us users so we know what’s going on and what will go on. I can’t be in the dark about 150 listings of mine disappearing and not even getting a courtesy feedback from customer service. HELP!!!!!
Things seem to be coming together a bit more…Keep up the good work and listen to your user base.
So far so good keep up the good work.
Bring back the bookmarking feature. Without it the site is almost useless!!!
Are you going to add the items category?
To display the information like the old AudiogoN when I search CARDAS we need a sort of:
*** category, days remaining (days remaining within category)
Do you want to display information like the old AudiogoN?
Yes! Bring back the Category column and get rid of the “Type” column. I don’t care to see “Classified” repeatedly, it’s useless. I one of of few people who liked the look of the look of the new site but as I spend more time on it, now I hate it. I takes me twice as long to get at my search results.
I want to modify my virtual system, I can’t figure out how to do it.
A item I bought has arrived but I don’t see it listed on my page.
I can’t find my Audiogon balance.
I feel like a total newbie when I try to use the site.
How do you leave feedback now ? Their is no tab to hit, nor are the user names available at the order pages …….. ?
what has been improved ? i see nothing on my end that has been improved
hell i don’t even know if my bid or email went through to the seller , i don’t even get a copy on my end. also before you could click on the zip code and find out the city/state (this was very helpful in determining the shipping cost . and waht happened to the UPS shipping cost estimater ?
Can you bring back the old Audiogon
I also asked about the zip code location option. I hope it will be restored.
Imo the shipping cost estimator is not needed. It is not even close to the actual cost. There are too many shipping variables to make the estimator useful.
zip
– Adding a photo after initially posting will not work. All that one can do is “Amend” and that doesn’t work either. My posting now has the original posting, which had TWO items, PLUS I had to start a new ad for the remaining item. As soon as one item sold, the classified listed as “expired.” Not a user-friendly way of posting classifieds in the least.
– Changing the Price does not work
– Changing the Title does not work.
And what in world would possess someone to add the “We cannot recommend it, but you’re more than welcome to cancel your account” comment??? It seems that if someone disputes your dictums in disputes (I’ve had 3 disputes, two of which were resolved in my favor: the third: questionable), you suggest they cancel their account?! It could easily come across as retaliation. You might want to remove that.
I’ve bought and sold a few big ticket items. As a buyer I sometimes like to speak with the seller. via phone to wrap things up. Is this going to be impossible on the new site?
Have just received a purchase offer… and noticed that since I have several methods of payment available (specified in the add), the offers do not indicate what method the customer (buyer) want to pay by! A offer in payment via Cash/MO/Check vs PayPal (with the inherent fees incurred on PayPal transactions) are quite different! PLEASE have buyers specify their payment method when they make an offer AND have that displayed in the offer, so a seller can make a decision whether to accept, counter or decline a offer!
I think the powers to be at Audiogon are really only concerned with the advertising that they can sell for their site. News flash, it is about the users! The buyers, the sellers, these are the people that also support this site and made it what it WAS.
You should contact the people at e bay for some advise on how to set up a buyer / seller website correctly. Sorry to be so negative, but to this point no questions from users are actually being answered. REAL BAD deal for the users of this site.
Sorry but I now find this site totally USELESS.
Can not bookmark.
Can not click on Zip code.
On and on…….
Took a long time to even find where to post a comment on the terrible state of this new site.
All auctions and item sold default to the same day. My Audiogon login is unsecured. Link to contact customers after sale does not work. Can’t contact buyers. Can’t determine which item sold when or in what order. Have several of the same items. Can’t determine how to contact the buyers. Not responding to my emails when I try to contact Audiogon. Will not issue credit for on account balance. Change of format contradicts the way I was using the site for sales. I no longer want to use this website for sales due to the changes. It does not work with my business model any longer. Would like a refund on my account. This has been dragging on for weeks and I do not see an end in site. Site itself is unsecured.
font is too small, who cares about it being classified or auction – at least make the name smaller. i.e. make an “a” for auction “c” for classified. shouldnt automatically go to best match – it should go by newer listing as these should get higher priority in viewing imo.
also please bring back the listings by category – like power, interconnect and speaker for cables. i know you can search further….but…
did i say the font was too small…loads are slow. keep the days listing smaller – make other stuff bigger. pictures are even too small.
overall, not impressed. a big step back so far.
will continue to post other comments. ….this needs a lot of work
Sad story. I used to check Audiogon everyday for items around me. Now – forget it. The new website is a disaster. FIX THE ZIP CODE SEARCH… REPEAT!
Had to cancel my auction because the word reserve was not shown on the listing. I had e-mailed Audiogon numerous times during the period the auction was open for an answer to why the reserve notice was not displayed on the listing like it was in the original format?
I opened the auction under the original format with a reserve figure included, but when I open the listing it appeared under the new format without the reserve notice listed. As my time was running out, I could not take a chance (not knowing the status of my reserve request) of someone getting my item for a 1.25 bid. So frustrated, I cancelled my auction, lost a week of trying to get an answer from Audiogon plus forfeit a fee.
I guess the bottom line is.. Will we be able to see the reserve notice etc on our auction listings in the future?
I know you have been very busy trying to get things squared away, but I would think some type of mail should receive priority especially when it could result in a loss for a customer who plays by the rules. IMHO.
This post is very well written. Thanks a lot for writing good quality posts.
Old Site Operating since 1998 – January 5th 2012 Over 13 years! We All loved this site! We’re all asking you to bring it back, Please! before this site goes the way of the Dodo Bird! (meaning Extinct!)
You’re losing many many long standing AudioGon members every day that this new site is not functioning at 100%.
Over 500 Members have spoken, Yet the core issues have not been fixed!
Contacting a Seller:
Buyer Gets a reply with [email protected] with sellers response and no contact information
Not even a Link to the Ad, Link to Sellers Feedback and their email address! all these features were working on the OldSite are now gone! Please bring these features back!
Seller: Buyer question and your answer are posted on the Ad for all to see. This is Wrong! and should be treated as Confidential between the buyer and seller!
Editing Ad:
We can no longer change any aspect of our ads, i.e. pictures, removing/Modifying Text, Reducing the Price, and more! Please bring back the EDIT Button! This is Vital to us selling on your site!
Thank you, Jeff
I second, third, fourth and fifth the request to go back to the old site. Where the old site was simple, easy to work through, intuitive and very easy on the eyes, the new site is visually clunky, non-intuitive, poorly laid out and executed. Simply for instance: Why would one have to log in repeatedly…especially from links on their “my page”? Makes no sense and waistes time. After having conducted a transaction, the new format is a huge step backlwards in comparison to the older format. There is no way to mark an item paid, shipped or recieved. There is no shipping calculator. If I make an offer to purchase and it is accepted before the shipping charges are added, can I not be overcharged for shipping? I have no way of knowing anything about what the extra fees are encompasing – again, far different from the old site which had transparancy in the full transaction. Please, beta test this site more and go back.
I can’t post an ad and have a balance of $48. I want my money back!!!
This is a temporary issue. Our new system does not recognize the old accounts for posting ads. We will have this fixed soon.
Any updates on the partial zip code search? Hard to believe its still nor working…
We’re in the final testing stage before we launch it. Thanks for your patience!