Ebay is slowly dying.

[acidtactical]

Ebay management isn't doing a good job at promoting ebay and advertising on other platforms.  We've been selling on Ebay for over 20 years.  Slowly it's dying and will soon be replaced by something else or taken over completely by Amazon.  Management has allowed it to die and are doing a crappy job of promotion.  

[zamo-zuan]

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@12345jamesstamps wrote:

Those on eBay who sell the same stuff like Amazon are slowly dying because the prices are cheaper on Amazon...cheaper shipping...and so on. 

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Hence why people are upset about having to pay all the additional ad fees to list on the platform.

The thing about eBay for "new" products is, their niche used to be "cheapest prices compared to the competition".

The huge focus on ads, and the statistics/math adding up to where a seller can get more income by raising the price to compensate for increasing ad fees (due to how much of an influence ads makes on visibility), they have now thrown away that advantage.

The question is now "Why would anyone pay more to buy on eBay over competition if they aren't offering any advantages over the competition"?

[zamo-zuan]

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@aeparts1 wrote:

eBay has been constantly promoting eBay Motors for well over a year. Constant TV & radio advertising. I see or hear eBay Motors advertisements almost daily, sometimes I see many TV commercials in one day.

eBay feels Motors is where there will be growth, & that is where they are spending their $$$$. I guess they don't feel there will be much growth in wristwatches.

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Funny enough, we're a top seller in our category of Motors, and Motors has flatlined this year. We've saw a huge drop in sales at the busiest time of the year compared to last year (Feb-April). It was just a flatline, no upward trend, even though the same trend happened outside of eBay. And we're still #1 GMV in our category, meaning all the other sellers in our category must have had just as much of a drop.

Total sales -39% compared to last year for the peak time of year.

I have my theories as to why, but one major one: the vehicle tool has been broken since 2019 and often times says the customers vehicle is NOT COMPATIBLE even when the vehicle is on the compatibility chart.

Why is this such a major one? Because in their Motors push the interface now guides you to search by vehicle. They're promoting a tool that has been broken for 4 years. 

Example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/281095856201 - try choosing your vehicle as the very first one on the list (2008 Acura TSX).

This is on top of the other issues, such as the traffic numbers not even adding up, and that having an influence on performance this year for a number of sellers. 

[nells250]

I don't have a store... I tried it once and it wasn't worth it as STILL nothing was selling.  So I just got whacked with over $10 in listing fees for my last batch of items relisted... again and again...

[mam98031]

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@nells250 wrote:

I don't have a store... I tried it once and it wasn't worth it as STILL nothing was selling.  So I just got whacked with over $10 in listing fees for my last batch of items relisted... again and again...

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@nells250 

You may be looking at a store differently than you should.  A store will usually save a seller money.

When you don't have a store, you have 250 free listings per month.  Beyond that you will pay a listing fee.  The various levels of stores will give you more free listings and if you really need more free listings, that alone will often pay for the store fee.  But there are other benefits of having a store too.  You should review this a bit closer to see what a store actually offers you.  And if you do list more than 250 listings, whether Auction or GTC, per month, the Basic Store will likely fit your needs.  

One of the benefits I like is the lower FVFs.  

https://www.ebay.com/sub/subscriptions

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/store-fees?id=4809

[lloydsteventaylor]

i have experienced the same with sorts. lowest does not give accurate results. is as if ebay is doing something to keep buyers from seeing all the listings for lowest.  

[lloydsteventaylor]

youre wrong. that is not how its working. sort by lowest gives significantly less results than the other sort options.  the number of items should be the exact same as the other sort options. 

[a_c_green]

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@lloydsteventaylor wrote:

youre wrong. that is not how its working. sort by lowest gives significantly less results than the other sort options.  the number of items should be the exact same as the other sort options. 

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@mam98031 : I can confirm that weirdness being discussed in how the number of results is affected by the choice of result ordering. "Price + Shipping: Lowest first" returns significantly less than half of the full result set seen in any other search ordering.

For example:

1. I'll enter "Schwinn speedometer" as part of my daily searching for things to buy. I make no other search restrictions; I just enter those two words.
    
2. The first results back have an unwanted Category restriction applied, so I have to clear that and re-search. I now have (in my latest test just now) 459 items, which will be ordered as "Best match" unless I choose a different order.
    
3. Any other results ordering will return 458 or 459 items, except for "Price + Shipping: Lowest first" which returns 160. At this moment I cannot see why that might be.

[mam98031]

That search is a squirrelly and fickle function.  Ebay has just made it way too complicated IMHO.

[a_c_green]

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@mam98031 wrote:

That search is a squirrelly and fickle function.  Ebay has just made it way too complicated IMHO.

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Well, yes (and I share the general annoyance at how "Best Match" seems welded in as the default; it can be overridden with another default ordering option in desktop mode, but not in the mobile app).

However, the "Price + Shipping: Lowest first" looks just plain wrong. My first thought is that it's failing to show multiple listings whose price and shipping happen to total exactly the same, possibly allowing one to be shown and omitting the rest in a misguided de-duplicating operation.

[inhawaii]

Ebay "slowly dying" is kind like a ship that is "slowly sinking".

In each case, you pretty much have the same options.

[theteamsetguy]

@zamo-zuan ,

Maybe this will help.

https://chainstoreage.com/ebay-acquires-auto-parts-and-accessories-e-commerce-platform

[reallynicestamps]

It's been my experience that the logarithm "learns".

So if I Search a term "purple wazoometer"  with "Best Match", I might get 1000 results.

If I redo the same words with "Highest Price First",  I might get fewer results, all slightly higher priced and possibly some of those results would be items not shown in the first Search.

Because I didn't  View or buy any of those first items-- so the logarithm learns they were not of interest to me.

If I redo the same words with "Lowest Price plus Shipping"", I might get yet another group of results again some I never saw before, because the first two Searches  did not provide any results of interest.

Why would anyone write a program that always gave the same exact results, just in a different order?

Of course if a Search is unsuccessful, the logarithm will not repeat the bad results-- or shouldn't if it is a well thought through program.

[joliztoyco]

I keep posting up Ebay's own numbers that show that in less than 4 years they have LOST close to 20% of their buyers and sellers.

Must be just a coincidence that it has happened at the same time as the promoted Listings scam?

Hardly a " thriving " business. 

[a_c_green]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

It's been my experience that the logarithm "learns".

So if I Search a term "purple wazoometer"  with "Best Match", I might get 1000 results.

If I redo the same words with "Highest Price First",  I might get fewer results, all slightly higher priced and possibly some of those results would be items not shown in the first Search.

Because I didn't  View or buy any of those first items-- so the logarithm learns they were not of interest to me.

If I redo the same words with "Lowest Price plus Shipping"", I might get yet another group of results again some I never saw before, because the first two Searches  did not provide any results of interest.

Why would anyone write a program that always gave the same exact results, just in a different order?

Of course if a Search is unsuccessful, the logarithm will not repeat the bad results-- or shouldn't if it is a well thought through program.

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To clarify: I'm not referring to how the search should be conducted or which items should be selected. The Sort setting is simply to determine in what order the results should be presented. There are six options available; five of them return the same number, but the sixth ("Price + Shipping: Lowest first") returns a dramatically lower number for no apparent reason.

My theory (based on minimal research so far 😉) is that its ordering algorithm for the Lowest First option is also de-duping the results, throwing out all but one listing for each different calculated Price + Shipping result. "Price + Shipping: Highest first" does not de-dupe the results, nor do any of the other result sorting options. Try this yourself, using either my "Schwinn speedometer" sample procedure given in a preceding reply in this thread, or try any search of your own that will return a good number of results to test with.

[a_c_green]

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@a_c_green wrote:
My theory (based on minimal research so far 😉) is that its ordering algorithm for the Lowest First option is also de-duping the results, throwing out all but one listing for each different calculated Price + Shipping result. "Price + Shipping: Highest first" does not de-dupe the results, nor do any of the other result sorting options. Try this yourself, using either my "Schwinn speedometer" sample procedure given in a preceding reply in this thread, or try any search of your own that will return a good number of results to test with.

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Sorry, that link above to my prior post went wonky somehow; ignore that one. This link will get you to the steps I took in a prior post that shows the problem with the Lowest First sort order.