When will eBay explain what they did around March 20th and why it killed sales?

[jlstanton]

Howdy All,

Around March 20th, a lot of our sales just disappeared.  eBay has claimed that nothing happened and everything is fine, despite countless numbers of complaints, etc.  People across all categories sale their sales halve or more literally overnight and despite our best efforts, they did not come back.  

I was selling around $1000 a week prior to March 1st.  I began adding $14,000 in inventory to my store of $41,000, an increase of 34%.  For every $10,000 I have in inventory, I used to have an expected rate of $x, give or take 5-20% a week up or down, but consistent.  Over a 30 day period, I could expect to see very little variance in my numbers, as everything would pretty much settle down to 5-10% above or below my average.  I've been around for 24 years, have 13,000+ sales, a 100% positive feedback, maybe 15 returns due to postal abuse of packages during the 24 years I've been on eBay and am a Top Rated Seller.  I know my inventory and customers and strive to continually buy quality inventory to add to my store.  I know my numbers.  I know when eBay has done something as they have been doing over the past 3 years under this CEO.  And it stinks.

As I began to increase my inventory on March 1st, I got the expected returns coming in.  My sales increased proportionately and everything was great.  Then came March 20th or thereabouts.  Complete crash.  My sales disappeared by 50% overnight and stayed there.  Normally this indicates an unannounced update and things go back to normal after a week or two of killed sales that you'll never get back.  But sales kept going lower and lower.  The two weeks prior to March 20th, I had gone up to $1500 a week in sales.  The week before June 2nd, I was at $350 for the week.  I had lost nearly 80% of my sales.  eBay says that everything is working fine despite the HUGE number of people across the message boards, eBay for business on Facebook, and on YouTube.  

The only thing I've been able to figure out through a lot of experimentation is that eBay seems to be putting a LOT of crap in between the listings of those who promote at the highest rate versus those at the lower, and those who don't promote, well, expect to see your items buried.  I was at the low end of promoted listings as I know that eBay has decided we need to pay MORE to play as they chase extra pennies, forgetting that giving the customer few immediate choices does NOT guarantee sales.  Making it harder to find items does not give the customer a positive experience.  And based on the number of customers eBay has lost since this CEO took over despite covid leading to huge increases for all other platforms, I'd say I know what eBay's problem is.  I can only imagine what the 2nd quarter stock reports are going to look like.  My guess is huge drops in revenue from normal fees collected, with the promoted fees being the only thing that this CEO is good at.  Basically, taking more money from sellers to feed the stockholders who are losing money from bad policy that is killing sales.  Would love for him to explain what happened around March 20th and how it'll lead to a greater eBay, as opposed to higher fees for sellers and worse experiences for customers who continue to leave the platform at 10% a year.  

I have had to open a Mercari account as well as a local booth at an antique mall because apparently, according to some at eBay, I don't know what items to buy and sell.  The problem with eBay is that there are rules that you must follow in order to be successful on eBay, only, they won't share those rules with you which makes playing the game pretty difficult.  

How about you tell us what you did to kill our sales?  How about you tell us what we actually have to do to get our sales back?  I'm down $1500 a month in sales from BEFORE the time I added 34% more inventory to my store.  With that added inventory, I'm down $3000+ from where I should be, which is a huge thing.  It's not because I don't offer free shipping, free returns, or haven't filled out all the suggested item specifics.  My sales were just fine without these prior to March 20th.  It's not the economy that died 50% on the same day nor is it the 'summer slowdown' which started in March.  eBay did something to the algorithm and it would be nice to know what it was and if this is the new eBay.  If it is, then expect to lose more than just 10% of the customer/seller base this year.  

Seriously, pull your head out.  You're killing a once great platform. 

[siamjane8]

I love it lol... Promoted listings and pay to play after in direct opposition and defiance of eBay's stated and published "no search manipulation" policy!

   Of course that has never honored or followed the very policies and rules that they require us to adhere to. 

    The only upside to this is that it's not sustainable- as seller continue to lose more and more money to eBay, they are stopping the use of PL. It's just not worth it to give eBay as much as 40% on a sale... It's unfortunate that it's taking this long.  

[steve_stuff]

A lot of the stuff we list is the only one on ebay - So if they hid ours, they are shooting themself in the foot.

That being said...

Last year ebay was third on our list of seven income sources, right above the four popup stores we do. This year it's in last place, below 'recycling' and the soda/candy machines. And ebay = more then this account.

Jan 1 thru June last year all accounts - $700. avg/m

Jan 1 thru June this year all accounts - $250.

[ltldpr]

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@76c wrote:

I have been selling on eBay since 2000 and eBay started it's decline when Meg Whitman became CEO and it has been a steady decline since.  My sales have declined to a point where I am starting to take my inventory to a local auction house that does everything on-line.  Their fees are about the same as eBay and the big advantage is that I don't have to mess with packaging and shipping.  I think I have sold 2 items in May and so far nothing in June.  Another problem is eBay's search engine SUCKS!  I buy a lot of classic car parts and when I do a search on eBay, I get over 3000 items in the search and 99% of them have nothing to do with the car part I am looking for.  I guess eBay is now a dinosaur that is slowly going extinct!

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Re: the dysfunctional search. I was reminded of your comment when I did the following, so came to share the results.

I just searched for sold/completed items with the following words (without the quotation marks): "8 point reproduction small clear glass pulls"

And it found zero results but showed me several types of pulls which is fine, several 6" and 8" Subwoofers (the 8 was at least a match) and several things related to the Titanic (so weird), including this: "Titanic Pocket Watch Rose Jack Leonardo DiCaprio Kate Winslet Movie Fob Chain UK". That last one and several others have absolutely nothing to do with pulls, 8, glass - it's not even a knob or handle. 

I don't know when the search became poo, but I'm sure it has an effect on sales. 

[onefootflipper]

I perform at least 100 searches per day in order to find comp prices and set the prices for my own listings. 

I absolutely never have any problem finding the exact item I am looking for. 

Most of the time there will be 50 of them. Of those 50 the only ones that are likely to sell are the cheapest ones to the smart customers who actually search price lowest first or the highest promoted ones to the customer who searches best match and just buys the first thing they see.

No one is scrolling past 10 cheaper ones to buy the much more expensive one 10 items down the page, of the one 3 times the going rate on the second page. 

You can try to sell to smart customers based on price or try to sell to clueless ones based on promotions. 

Or in the case of categories without exact names or that are heavily browsed and absolutely flooded (clothes, glass, postcards, antiques) you can either attract customers with good prices or attract customers by paying for placement. I feel like vintage books of specific themes can fall into this category too, sometimes people want a specific book and other times they are searching topics. I know I search books that way sometimes.

Expecting sales when you neither have good prices nor pay for placement isn't realistic in any way.

The best match system cannot show every single person's items at the top, particularly in flooded categories and with items that are hard to comparison shop or don't have exact names. So they are going to show promoted listings and people whose items tend to get clicked on and tend to sell when they get clicked on. 

I am familiar with the original poster JLStanton and the ebay algorithm has definitely decided to push his listings to the bottom. He has 600 vintage LDS Mormon books in his store, and he uses a distinct background that is easy to pick out in search. Searching his store for LDS Mormon Book I find 595 of them. Searching ebay for the same phrase there are 9500 results, the first listing from him shows up over 600 listings in. This is a market that he personally owns over 6 percent of by number of listings. If the algorithm didn't pick favorites then he should show up 3 times on every single search page including page 1, instead of first showing up on page 11 and not showing up again until page 18 (60 results per page). In fact he didn't start showing up regularly until about page 50 of the searches. 

I don't envy your position JL and I don't really see a way out of it aside from doing all those things the various clothing sellers do to improve their rankings. 

[jlstanton]

Once again I have to explain things to you which you seem to be ignoring over and over and over again.  I had sales.  For 24 years.  Then one day eBay did something and it cut my sales in half.  It cut my views in half.  It coincided with other people having their sales cut in half.  Many many people.  We had this discussion on your YouTube channel where you professed no knowledge of the books I sell OR the record industry as a whole as you do not know that market either based on your own listings which do not include gradings.  You just throw stuff up at cheap prices and hope it sells.  

Now, again, won't you explain what eBay did around March 23rd to cut our sales in half?  You keep ignoring that fact in your analysis.  You keep ignoring that for 24 years the sales in my vastly different items just dropped off the planet.  You ignore the fact that it's continuing to drop.  I see it (and others do as well) that eBay started clocking views down expecting us to raise what we pay in promoted listings.  You ignore the fact that they're having massive problems with searches which are documented elsewhere.  It seems like you want to make it personal because I called you out for your lack of knowledge about the items I sell and how overnight (in one day) they don't just get cut in half unless there's some kind of manipulation.  Meanwhile, everything is just fine on the other platforms I deal in.  I'd agree with you that I'm doing something wrong, which is not to pay extortion fees at high amounts to get views.  I shouldn't have to pay fees on top of fees to be seen, as witnessed on other platforms.  

And again, regarding price.  You're a gamer.  You ignored my pointing out condition of my books equaling higher prices like they do with CCGs and say, Advanced D&D books from the 80s (which people pay and did pay before eBay's change around March that you keep ignoring in your analysis).  People do buy based on price.  But people buy based on condition.  Better conditioned books, which I sell, cost more than books with markings and highlighting in them.  Yes, there are cheaper books, but as we talked about and you ignored on YouTube, condition means a lot to buyers just like it does in regards to Magic or Pokemon cards.  You buy cheap and sell cheap.  That's your model.  Good for you.  But you have yet to explain why sales for so many people would just drop off the face of the earth in one day.  Can you do that?  Seems you're taking it personally while ignoring the fact that eBay did something major to the algorithm but won't share what that was so we can adjust in the proper manner.  Too many sellers who are much better than you haven't been able to figure it out and are getting killed, as witnessed by the responses to this posting.  

[dbfolks166mt]

Last year ebay was third on our list of seven income sources, right above the four popup stores we do. This year it's in last place, below 'recycling' and the soda/candy machines. And ebay = more then this account.

Jan 1 thru June last year all accounts - $700. avg/m

Jan 1 thru June this year all accounts - $250.

     My experience has been similar although over a longer period of time. EBay used to account for about 90% of my sales. That percentage has dwindled to under 20% over time as I diversified across multiple platforms and venue and set my prices based on my selling cost on those venues, which in most cases is 10-15% less than what I have to list an item for on eBay. Buyers have also become diversified in their shopping habits and eBay may or may not be their first venue to check when they are looking for something. I know it is not mine. 

     My main source of sales these days is local platforms and venues which also allows the buyer to do local pickup and not have to worry about the shipping cost or all the issues that go with it. Most of the other venues I use of course do not have the buyer base that eBay has but the buyer base means nothing if they are no purchasing items. 

[jlstanton]

Oh, and I forgot to add in this post.  We've done experiments for weeks at a time.  Paying the extortion fee is what works somewhat to get you the sales back that eBay clocked you out of.  Funny how that was their intention all along.  I mean, eBay, "let's change the algorithm to hide peoples' views until they pay us more via high promoted fees."  

It's not a problem with my items.  Wasn't for 24 years, again, something you conveniently ignore.  It's all about making us pay more in fees or not get the views we had before.  That's it.  It's that simple.  How much are you paying in fees to get what you had before March?  How much extra are you putting in eBay's pocket because they changed the system to screw you if you didn't pay them more money?  That's extortion.  And that's what they're doing.  Can you just be honest and explain that instead of tiptoeing around the issue?

I've done things outside of eBay that have made up the difference in lost income and am slowly building off of that.  I use eBay for getting new customers, then send them information on how to buy from me on other platforms at 5 to 10% cheaper.  In addition to getting my sales back, I'm helping build other platforms that don't try to extort me after 24 years of great sales just because they want a bigger piece of my income.  But, it would be nice for eBay to fix all their glitches and other problems.  But again, you ignore those facts.  How could I ever take you seriously as a YouTuber when you won't address actual problems and instead try to blame it on someone who again, had a history of sales for 24 years until eBay changed things but won't explain what exactly that is or how to fix it.  If they choose not to show your items because you won't pay them whatever the suggested promoted fee is, guess what, you won't have sales!  Glad you decided to dive into my business model AFTER the fact.  I wonder what conclusions you'd come up with if you saw my sales before eBay's March changes.  You'd say I was doing just fine.  But you don't have those data points, so (insert emoji with arms thrown up).

[kalyoth]

My sales died over two years ago when ebay tweeked search. This is not a new thing.

[jlstanton]

There were some issues here and there, but they usually fix them after a week or so of bad sales.  This is different.  Basically, a bunch of people across all categories had their sales just drop 50% or more around March 23rd.  This was ebay clocking sales and then expecting us to increase what we were willing to spend if we did promoted or start doing promoted.  In essence, we're going to take away views forcing you to come to the conclusion that the only way you can fix it is by paying us more.  That's it.  Has nothing to do with what someone is selling.  Pay eBay and they'll give you views again.  Don't pay them and they won't.

BTW, I've been keeping track of stats and how the algorithm reacts to a ton of factors.  Even promoting at low rates is losing steam and being lumped in with the no promoters due to all the people throwing money at eBay in the hopes of being seen.  It's a pyramid scheme and will eventually chase everyone who won't be extorted off the site or they'll adapt and just cross list.  It's great that I can just cut and paste to other sites what I have up on eBay and offer it at a lower price there because I don't have to pay so much.  Eventually another site will come along and replace eBay at the prices and views ebay should be doing now and that will be that.  I do wonder when someone will get an anti-trust lawsuit going and perform a surgical Discovery on eBay during the trial.  I'm pretty sure what we'll find out has been true all along, which is eBay clocked our views, which in turn kills our sales.  My sales elsewhere are just fine and I've already managed to replace what I've lost on eBay every month with an antique mall booth.  Much of what eBay would have gotten goes there and the great part is, it's much much easier to process for sale than listings are on eBay.  

Oh well, hopefully the CEO gets fired and someone who is competent replaces him.  But they'll let him live for this year before cutting him loose.  Can't interfere with 4 quarter sales, though having him in charge IS doing just that.  He's awful and will never go back to what worked, lest it show how bad what he did for the past three years is and will continue to be under his leadership.  So, he'll keep killing the goose.

[**selling**stuff**]

You can blame it all on Promoted Listings.. The thing that will 100% for sure bring ebay down.. And it has slowly been happening daily.. Every day it gets worse, and ebay is doomed.. If they were smart, they would do away with promoted and go back to the old way of just letting everyone have fair market shot of selling.. Right now, its pathetic how ebay is ran. 

[tjs_needle_and_hook_book_nook]

I have the same problem.  I called multiple times and was able to finally get to a person after a few calls and saying the "right/wrong" thing to not get bumped off the phone with the message to go to the website for help, which is of course not helpful at all.  They have become unresponsive and unfriendly to sellers.  They used to have the best search engine to find what you needed, so much better than Amazon by far.  These changes are not for the better.  The unfortunate girl who took my emotional/angry phone call was very nice.  I told her I pay my subscription fee each month for people who click on my listings to see "my listing" and not sponsored items which are put at the top of my listing before the person ever looks at what I am selling.  She offered me a refund on my monthly subscription.  I told her that was not helpful at all.  She said she had no way to remove the sponsored items from my listings.  I told her ebay has killed my small business and asked if the goal was to get rid of all the small businesses on ebay.  She was very apologetic as there was nothing she could do but pass it on.  We ended the call with her refunding my monthly subscription even though I told her that was not helpful and didn't even respond when she said she was going to refund it the second time.  It makes me wonder if it's even legal for sponsored items to be advertised on another vendor's listings who is paying for a subscription.  They need to change it back before it's too late.   People selling the same type of books as I do have lowered their prices to almost nothing.  What to do..............

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@tjs_needle_and_hook_book_nook You were given a courtesy refund, primarily to get you off the phone...as you note, your call was angry/emotional. She was 100% correct in what she told you: she has no power to remove the ads on your listing, and sending your message on to someone else will just mean ebay has noted your dissatisfaction, not that they are going to make an exception for you.

What ebay is doing is legal, per their User Agreement. Some sellers are under the misimpression that their listing "belongs" to them...it doesn't, ebay can add whatever it wants.

As I believe you were told on another thread, there have been listings on your listing page for some years now. ebay is currently running some tests that are actually reducing the number of such listings directly on the page, and what you describe is actually LESS listings than used to be stuffed onto the page.

If you have looked at other sellers' listings over the past few years, you were seeing these ads. However, if you looked at your own listing, you were not seeing them if you were logged into ebay. If you had logged out and looked at your listings in incognito mode, or looked at your own listings on someone else's computer, you would have seen the ads. Apparently, you never did that. 

It was only recently, as part of this testing I think, that ebay changed it so that we see our own listings with the ads even when we are logged in. This is why the Board has recently been filled with posts from people like yourself, who come here denouncing something that , in fact, has been on their listings for years, which most of us have known about for years, but obviously some other sellers never noticed.

At present, with the ongoing testing ebay is doing, it is hard to know what your listing page will look like when they are finished. One thing we can be pretty sure of....it will still have ads somewhere on the page----probably fewer than it had back when it was stuffed (at least 100 ads), and maybe not between the top of the page and the description.

But ads aren't going away completely. What you should keep in mind is: they've been there. If you've survived this long---with more ads on your page than you are now seeing---then you can probably survive with fewer ads on your page.

[kalyoth]

I truly suspect 1 out of 2 listings are AI generated phantoms right now. Far too many are exact duplicates & I have to be honest, it's not the early 2000's for ebay traffic. Anyone running a business properly will not dump loss-leading merch on ebay only in the 10,000's of pieces. I would assert they need to strip away all the mass-produced crap coming as dupes from China & maybe you will get more realistic volume. China knockoffs already sank other ecommerce sights incorporated in California. Guess it's just ebays turn...

[vintagecraze50]

With thepromted listed at much higher price points it may be driving away customers as well. If they start a search and see how unaffordable the item is here they may not bother to look any further.

[siamjane8]

There is no doubt that all the promoted listings are driving traffic and sales convertions away. As a sheet I want. My search results to be accurate, conclusive, and complete for the item I was looking for. Right now when I click on a potential purchase it looks like an advertising company threw up on the listing page. Why would I click on a promoted item that should have already been in the search results the first time? The search is where my directions should be. Easy, obvious, and not confusing to navigate. Once you start clicking on promoted ads you can't find your way back to the initial listing, causing frustration and buyer friction and loss of sale. 

Keep it simple, make the initial search actually accurate with ALL relevant listings, and buyers will enjoy a refreshing and fun buying experience and then come back for more. Right now eBay is a giant waste of time and energy to find what you want-in fact 80% of my searches start from Google now because of how bad the eBay search is. eBay is training shoppers to go off-site to find eBay listings!!!