@vintagecraze50 wrote:Having the description BEFORE THE BOMBARDMENT OF ADS, seems like the BEST THING TO DO FOR THE SELLER AND THE BUYER. Why put a buyer through having to gloss over all those ads before they can even get to the item they want to look into. JUST PLAIN STUPID.
@vintagecraze50 totally agree and I was hopeful that maybe eBay finally did too when they made the announcement about the new design but it would seem someone in accounting may have overridden the product teams and overwhelming feedback from both buyers and sellers. 
@valueaddedresource wrote:
@vintagecraze50 wrote:Having the description BEFORE THE BOMBARDMENT OF ADS, seems like the BEST THING TO DO FOR THE SELLER AND THE BUYER. Why put a buyer through having to gloss over all those ads before they can even get to the item they want to look into. JUST PLAIN STUPID.
@vintagecraze50 totally agree and I was hopeful that maybe eBay finally did too when they made the announcement about the new design but it would seem someone in accounting may have overridden the product teams and overwhelming feedback from both buyers and sellers.
When you see the comments/critiques after something has been rolled out you get the feeling that whatever was shared they did a 180 and applied the total opposite.
-Lotz
@valueaddedresource wrote:
@pls-consignments wrote:So, let me get this straight... if I'm a Seller paying for Promoted Listings, my single item listing will show up on other Seller's listing page for the same or similar item. At the same time, "other" Seller(s) using Promoted Listings are paying to have their same or similar items show up on my listing page?
So, in exchange for showing my one item on other Seller's listing page, I get to pay for the privilege of showcasing similar items from multiple competing Sellers on my single item listing? It's clear that this strategy is designed to pit Sellers against each other so they have no choice but to pay for PL. It's one things to pay for more visibility on eBay and external search, but this is unfair for Sellers who chose not to pay for PL.
Regardless of "when" this went into affect, it's just morally and ethically wrong.
@pls-consignments - it's interesting to look at the history of PL on eBay.
Originally it was presented as "cross-promotion" and was a completely voluntary quid pro quo system - you could opt in to have your listings promoted on other sellers' listings that had opted in, but in return you would have other sellers' listings promoted on yours as well.
Or you could choose not to opt in, and forgo the possible "bump" from being cross promoted, but also then not have any other sellers' items shown on your listings.
They killed that opt out option in 2019 and we've seen where PL has gone since then....now over 100 competitor ads stuffed on every listing page, increasingly more taking over the top spots in search, being shoved into buyer watch lists etc. with even more new and different ad products "coming soon".
Over my time as a seller on eBay I have routinely watched my traffic numbers when they became available. From past experience my items were "mostly" found/sold via eBay vs some kind of mysterious other search. As standard practice finding what you were looking for on eBay was usually a straight forward process. Put in the appropriate search words, search by shipping cost/distance and you were good to go. For sales my numbers were consistently 5 to 2 for eBay vs external. (30 to 45 sales per month).
Spring forward to approx. Aug 2022 it did a flip flop with most searches being done in eBay. 3 to 2. Sales dropped off the cliff at that point. Now June 2023 its almost 1 to 1. Sales now? A good month 15 total. During that period of time I've gone from 500 to 1500 listings. Really missing the benefits of buyers not being able to "easily" find items within eBay. It definitely has not improved my sales numbers. We won't even talk about the dollar numbers.
-Lotz
