Does Top Rated Seller or 100% Positive Feedback Even Help Sales Anymore?

[tankedupthreads]

Hello my fellow ebay sellers!

Serious questions for ya'll out there....

Since all these changes to promoted listings, promoted listings advanced, and all the item specific changes we have had added recently, how do you feel your listings show up in the "natural" search?

What I mean is that as a seller, I consistently strive to deliver the best items, in the best condition, shipped with the utmost care, and handle my customers with the service I expect when purchasing an item online. Which I am sure you do as well.

So to my point. I am a 100% positive feedback seller. I am top rated. After listing a handful of items this morning, like I do daily, I decided to search for a few listings I have just to see where I stand in the search "queue". 

As you can imagine, not well. You would assume that being one of ebays top sellers that search would put me on top or near the top below the promoted listings. What I found might or might not surprise you. There were new sellers (less than 50 feedback), sellers without top rated status, and sellers with less than 90% positive feedback on the top of the search.

My point in this is....

If ebay wants to keep customers from going to other platforms to purchase goods, why wouldn't they want top rated sellers, those with 100% positive feedback, and experienced sellers to be higher on the list so the buyers are almost guaranteed a better purchase and more likely to buy again?

Am I wrong thinking this folks? Help my tiny pea brain understand why, other than monetary reasons, that ebay isn't doing it this way?

Thanks, and have a great weekend!

[stainlessenginecovers]

I believe there is only 'Top Rated' and then 'Below Standard'; Those with Below Std' cannot use Promotions. 

Although a seller may have 40 by their name, is may be 'another account' where they have 200000 by their name, so- you never know. But, if not, a seller with 40 by their name could just be new and still as honest and legit as anyone else. 

Promotions work great if you have items with lots of competition and also want to keep the competitions items from showing up in YOUR listings when a customer clicks it. You want YOUR items showing. 

The overall formula for successful selling is

A.) Use Promotions to get noticed (1st page)

B.) Have the best price (worthless, to me, to be priced higher than a buyer can find it here from someone else

C.) Take care of your customers if there's an issue

D.) Of course, have a good written description, good pictures and good title. 

[dhbookds]

I think it's been pointed out by Ebay as well as this board........that not all searches return the same results.....they can be influenced by buyer behavior or other factors...... so discounting the two factors you name may not be a good idea........ 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Best Match considers a whole range of factors, and TRS and feedback are only two and not the most important two. That was the case before Promoted Listings, it is the case now. 

[katzrul15]

So many shop on a smart phone - their visual is very different and for me, my search results on a phone vary with the app vs on my laptop.

Really depends on what you sell.  If you are selling unique items, collectibles, PLs make little sense.  Many categories though, they do work.  We use PLs (not PLA) on about 50% of our listings.    Since the intro of PLA, we have had to UP the PLs % to maintain prior impression levels and sales. 

We are TRS and 100% FB, offer free shipping on many items....but without PLs our sales waned/stagnated after PLA was launched.

[chapeau-noir]

A lot of stuff I list I don't even use PL and they sell fine, so it's definitely not necessary.  I don't have 100% FB and I sell fine, so that's not necessary.  I'll never be a TRS-plus but here I am, so that's not necessary.

It comes down to what you've got listed and how well you present it, and not freaking out over ups and downs in sales.  This is a huge site with 1.5 billion items - eBay hasn't been a guaranteed sale in years.

[skeletonstore]

You can't measure your search standing by looking things up yourself.  Ebay is all robotic and picks and chooses winners and losers.  There's no way of knowing where you are.  When ever I do exactly what you did ebay shows me at the top of best match.  There's no way I am.  all that i've found is you need to list often and vary items.  Some items are very long tail whilst others have severe competition.  clothing has severe competition.  If I was selling clothing I would have to come up with some ridiculous photoshop renderings just to get looks.  I don't think top rated means anything anymore.  100% may affect sales if a buyer is scrolling and trying to decide between sellers.  However just look at those with 99% feedbacks and hundreds of thousands of listings.  They're so active and moving things ebay is definitely going to favor them. 

[luckythewinner]

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@tankedupthreads wrote:

If ebay wants to keep customers from going to other platforms to purchase goods, why wouldn't they want top rated sellers, those with 100% positive feedback, and experienced sellers to be higher on the list so the buyers are almost guaranteed a better purchase and more likely to buy again?

Am I wrong thinking this folks? Help my tiny pea brain understand why, other than monetary reasons, that ebay isn't doing it this way?

---

eBay wants items that are most likely to sell to be at the top of the list. 

Best match is a scoring system that considers dozens - if not hundreds - of factors, and Top Rated and feedback % are only two of them. Best Match considers also many other factors, including some that you do not see.

Some of these factors are (or may be) price, return policy, handling time, free shipping, sales history for the item, DSRs, sales history for the seller, views, watchers, age of listing, how often the seller gets returns and disputes, recommended item specifics, negative correlation to search terms, correlation of search terms to category, positive correlation to search terms, distance from buyer to seller, etc. etc. etc. 

So to reduce it to simplistic terms ... if being Top Rated adds 20 "points" to your listing's Best Match score, another listing might have gotten 20 Best Match "points" from 10 different factors that each contribute 2 points. 

And don't forget that Best Match was designed to help eBay make sales, not necessarily to help you make sales 🙂 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

Everyone else has said it all.   May I just add how thrilled I am to see the word utmost, spelled & used correctly!  🙌

[meme6253]

I Understand Your Point 10000%, I Have Been Frustrated With The Same Issue, & I Can Go one Further as well, Most of My Work with Item Specifics, Works Better For Other Sellers who use My Info., My Work, & Their Listings also get put in front of Mine!!, It Is one Messed up System, & makes those of us who do all of this Feel Unworthy, When It Should be the Opposite!

[mr_lincoln]

@tankedupthreads   Good post and good topic ... I tend to agree with much of what @luckythewinner outlines and would add some of my own comments ... the first of which is your brain is CERTAINLY NOT pea sized.

A Seller's rating and the FB score has nothing to do with the filters Buyers use when they search and my view is that they shouldn't.

Savvy Buyers will review a Seller's FB and I think that can weigh heavily in their purchasing decision ... even if Sellers have some less then Positive FBs Buyers can filter those out based on what the FB actually was.

In a number of categories I sell in I consistently sell above the average price I find from doing Sold Search research ... and when I see other Sellers selling the same thing for half I think they are missing out by not asking for more ...

The other potential issue for Sellers IF their Rating and FB% were part of search is this ... it would be open season on competitors opening 2nd, 3rd or more Buying accounts, purchasing from their competitors then filing INADs and leaving Negative FB ... I would not want to see this venue sink to a Feedback War is what I am getting at.

One thing that may help you when you do searches for your own items is see how many there are on the site. If yours is one of 3 million guess what?  It may not sell for a while if at all ... if it's one of 300 it has a better chance to sell quicker.  There have been a few times over they years where I have had the ONLY ONE of a particular item for sale on eBay ... those sell really fast LOL!  But that is rare. 

[fernandsanto-34]

7212GPS Garmin 

doesn't have a Built-in antenna

[pegasus32]

Same here. I am top rated plus, 100% positive feedback , all 5 star DSR's, lots of pictures, lowest prices, researched my titles, have a store, paid for advertising only to find most of my listings are now ( as per traffic report)  down 90% in ranking. I was doing ok about a half a year ago and now I can't sell anything. I don't know what to do. Cash out?