eBay wants lots of quick sales, so Long-tail sellers must go

[timemachine777]

If your a long-tail seller on eBay, your days are numbered here. eBay only wants fast selling items. Long-tail sellers are seen as just site clutter, that take up space and search resources in regards to bandwidth and placement. Spring cleaning on eBay has all these sellers in their sights. The only way to get around this would be to have a race to the bottom with deep discounting to put you in any small amount of favorable light with eBay.  

[kyal]

Never done a GTC listing in all my time on eBay. I always worried that folks would get tired of looking at the same old thing for months on end when they visited my items selling page.

If it doesn't sell after tweaking the listing a time or two, it probably needs to go somewhere else. Local auction, charitable organization, dumpster.

[rschissler]

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@coolections wrote:

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@moondogblues wrote:
 I have been telling my hubby for quite a while now that this must be happening. Why else would I find an auction listing for a dozen items that I collect that start at .99 and I bid on each and every one of them and WIN. So in 7 days no one in a very highly sought after collectible cat saw all these for .99 and didn't bid? Makes no sense to me.

And it happens all the time...

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What I think is those items are not as collectable as you think. I've been buyng here at auction for over 15 years and have NEVER won an auction at 99 cents. I can count on one hand auctions I've won as the only bidder.

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I'll agree the the 99 cent collectable with no other bidders probably really wasn't that collectable.  Maybe at one time it was, who knows.  I also agree that It makes no sense for eBay to "hide" them.  If that was true, why would moondogblues be able to see them?

But, I won an auction at 30 cents once.  Also, most  winning auctions I see only have one bid.

[coolections]

You've only sold 20 items or so in the last 250. They've been there for some time now and not sold.

[pauliesthriftshop2016]

Here is my 2 cents on this: 

1. We pay EBAY to sell here. 

2. We should be able to sell what and how we want here if it doesnt violate the terms of service. 

3. EBAY makes money whether we sell items or not. 

Items that go unsold for a while still make ebay money in listing fees.  Once they do finally get sold if they are expensive items EBAY again makes a tidy sum percentage.

[coolections]

If you were a buyer you would have a better understanding of why Ebay needs to remove old product. When items sit and go nowhere Ebay loses money not makes money. Also buyers get tired of searching the same old stuff week after week. Newly listed items result in more items being sold then items that collect dust.

[ymeagainlord]

paulie is only a buyer now

[pauliesthriftshop2016]

Wrong. EBAY gets a monthly listing fee for each item whether its sold or not. 30 cents an item per month. Multiply that by the millions of items on here? Do you even buy or sell here? You ought to know that.

[sockmonkeydave]

@pauliesthriftshop2016

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@pauliesthriftshop2016 wrote:

Wrong. EBAY gets a monthly listing fee for each item whether its sold or not. 30 cents an item per month. Multiply that by the millions of items on here? Do you even buy or sell here? You ought to know that.

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Funny, I have never paid ebay a listing fee, and I have been here for years.

Sure I pay FVF when it sells, but never an insertion fee...

[timemachine777]

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@vintagecraze50 wrote:

If an item has been sitting for 1 year with no interest perhaps you need to look into listings such as this and see what might be turning off potential buyers. Ebay is NOT against long tail listings. If that were the case all the major higher end retil type store here would have all their listings removed. Even they have to use sale prices to make the items move.  All they are really asking for you to do is LOOK at these listings before 1  generous year and adjust them in some way with better pics, description or whatever  to help them sell. If they remove them involutarily after 1 year, then relist with a better price, pic etc.

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I always monitor my listings and reference them here and there. As to this type of business. I've been in it for over 30 years and you can never compare it too retail. More than half your inventory will sit for a year or more. The only people that will buy these items when you slash the prices are those that buy anything on sale regardless if they want it or not, and other dealers. 

They are naturally slow movers, and eBay has made it worse over the past few years with the Cassini search algorithm, and their major issue with Google, Plus too top it off, all their site an app glitches, etc. Those compound the slower sale movement. 

Also, there is always eBay there to block your sales. I put up a bunch of vintage over sized sample pinup calendars from the 1930's in NM and excellent condition and  they would not sell in the auction format nor the BIN format, ( I've posted this story a few times before ), So after a few months of not selling another seller on eBay contacted me.

He noticed the calendars would not sell and thought it was odd. He offered to buy all of the listed calendars for 10% off, and he would relist them. I was game. 90 days later (he wanted them out of the search query), he relisted them using the same condition and description, plus the photos were the same. They all sold as soon as he listed them. One calendar that I couldn't get 100.00 for, he got 250.00 for it. They all got way, way more than what I had them listed for. 

After that nobody can tell me that eBay doesn't block listings from selling. 

[timemachine777]

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@coolections wrote:

You've only sold 20 items or so in the last 250. They've been there for some time now and not sold.

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Isn't that sad numbers. and that after an argument with eBay, my sales would plummet on all my accounts at the same time. This account was steadily selling 15 items a week, and then overnight it dropped to 1 per week, and has stayed like that for the past 2 and 1/2 years regardless of what I do. Mark down mgr, promos, etc. nothing moves the needle.  That's a sales restriction plain an simple. 

[timemachine777]

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@pauliesthriftshop2016 wrote:

Wrong. EBAY gets a monthly listing fee for each item whether its sold or not. 30 cents an item per month. Multiply that by the millions of items on here? Do you even buy or sell here? You ought to know that.

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I can top that...

eBay used all our listings for affiliate fee ad bait. Once they did away with the sponsored ads within the listings, they no longer have a need for all our listings as portal bait. So...It's spring cleaning time. 

[ymeagainlord]

Well that makes sense.

As long as they could use the listing pages for placing paid for ads they didn't care how many not selling listings you had up. Now, not so much

[timemachine777]

You got it. eBay just uses us the best way they know how. If you manipulate the platform, then all the members become mice in a maze. Different mice need different bait. 

[rixstuff]

Collectible to YOU but not necessarily the whole world.  Wanted PASSIONATELY by some folks but not that many.  It could also be a timing factor - end of the month, Sunday nights, payday Fridays best time for me.  Just before folks go on vacation or holidays that require gifts maybe not.

[timemachine777]

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@ymeagainlord wrote:
Well that makes sense.

As long as they could use the listing pages for placing paid for ads they didn't care how many not selling listings you had up. Now, not so much

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Talking about bait just a little while ago. eBay just sent me 3 emails about their new single quantity promoted listing feature. Have a bite. C'mon just a taste.