That seems to be the way
ebay works now - watch and wait for an offer.
Irritatingly it seems sellers also have the ability to make offers on items even if you've only just looked at them; which means I get a steady influx of spam relating to stuff I have no intention of buying..
Not sure if this trend towards offers is a reflection of a diminishing appetite for consumption; certainly seems that people aren't falling over themselves to spend their money on non-essentials..
I've also noticed that ebay searches have become increasingly "fuzzy" - often returning results that lack keywords entered or include keywords that were specifically excluded; again forcing you to trawl through reams of stuff you don't want. I wonder if this is ebay's effort to make you buy more crap by unintentional exposure - like shops rearranging their floorplan every ten minutes to prevent you from just going directly to the stuff you know you need.
It seems you might be able to un-enshitifcate the search process by putting keywords in quotation marks, but you really shouldn't have to game the search process just to make it work properly.
Yet another reason to shop elsewhere and for new stuff I now try to treat ebay more like an introductions platform - if I can find the seller elsewhere and buy from them direct I'll gladly do so to deprive the site of some revenue; it's often cheaper too.