Has Anyone Noticed ?

Posted 5 months ago·Last reply 5 months ago

44 comments

stainlessenginecovers

·5 months ago

5484 View listings

This is all 'retail selling 101'.

Ever see an aisle with Peanut Butter on it? There are many to choose from, all with IN YOUR FACE pricing and NOT 1 is the same price.

Been going on before the Flintstones, in stores, newspapers and now 'online selling venues'.

How ANYONE could be 'alarmed' by this is beyond me.

But HEY- We landed on the MOON!!

onefootflipper

·5 months ago

4245 View listings

@stainlessenginecovers wrote:
This is all 'retail selling 101'.

Ever see an aisle with Peanut Butter on it? There are many to choose from, all with IN YOUR FACE pricing and NOT 1 is the same price.

For some reason however ebay sellers think that not only will customers pick THEIR peanut butter for more money. Even in a situation where every jar on the shelf is the same brand, same size, same flavor, same expiration date.

gurlcat

·5 months ago

@onefootflipper wrote:
@stainlessenginecovers wrote:
This is all 'retail selling 101'.

Ever see an aisle with Peanut Butter on it? There are many to choose from, all with IN YOUR FACE pricing and NOT 1 is the same price.

For some reason however ebay sellers think that not only will customers pick THEIR peanut butter for more money. Even in a situation where every jar on the shelf is the same brand, same size, same flavor, same expiration date.

Well ... but that's where the analogy falls apart. If there's a differences like how well you can see the various jars and information about the peanut butter, how many days you'd be estimated to receive the peanut butter, how easy or hard a return would be, and immediately-referenceable feedback from previous buyers on their satisfaction with the companies, then you might find it well worth spending more. I forego the cheapest eBay offering for those reasons all the time.

onefootflipper

·5 months ago

4245 View listings

@afreind4lf wrote:
I have recently noticed that Ebay is using the pages that we have our items for sale on that they are put others sellers items that are the same or equivalent to the one we are selling? They have been doing this for a while, but they have been adding more and more. I my oppinion this could be part of our sales drop. Lets say you are selling an item for $25.00. The buyer decides to scroll down your page and sees the same item for $15.00. Which one is he going to buy? When we join up with Ebay we had to agree to advertisements, which is okay if it's for outside companies. They never said that they were going to put other Ebay sellers on our page. I concider this to be unfair to the seller of the page that their items are on. Another thing I noticed is when I am posting items I search the item first to get an idea of how much to sell it for. I try to stay within range of other seller to get the best prices. Of course I see the items for sale on my pages are at much lower prices then the one I searched. It appears that Ebay isn't playing the game properly. Ebay was a great place for sellers when it first started, but it has change in the past few years. Ebay should concider doing this properly.

If someone else has an identical item to your $25 item for $15 then yours was never going to sell anyway.

If you search solds for commonly listed items you will see that the sale prices cluster around and BELOW what is usually the currently cheapest listed on the website. Listing your item 40 percent more than the competition who is also willing to pay for ad space is not a way to sell something.

If I see an ad on my listing for the same item $10 cheaper than that tells me I am at least $10.25 too expensive for my item to sell.

lakefor94

·5 months ago

122 View listings

@onefootflipper wrote:
@afreind4lf wrote:
I have recently noticed that Ebay is using the pages that we have our items for sale on that they are put others sellers items that are the same or equivalent to the one we are selling? They have been doing this for a while, but they have been adding more and more. I my oppinion this could be part of our sales drop. Lets say you are selling an item for $25.00. The buyer decides to scroll down your page and sees the same item for $15.00. Which one is he going to buy? When we join up with Ebay we had to agree to advertisements, which is okay if it's for outside companies. They never said that they were going to put other Ebay sellers on our page. I concider this to be unfair to the seller of the page that their items are on. Another thing I noticed is when I am posting items I search the item first to get an idea of how much to sell it for. I try to stay within range of other seller to get the best prices. Of course I see the items for sale on my pages are at much lower prices then the one I searched. It appears that Ebay isn't playing the game properly. Ebay was a great place for sellers when it first started, but it has change in the past few years. Ebay should concider doing this properly.
If someone else has an identical item to your $25 item for $15 then yours was never going to sell anyway.

If you search solds for commonly listed items you will see that the sale prices cluster around and BELOW what is usually the currently cheapest listed on the website. Listing your item 40 percent more than the competition who is also willing to pay for ad space is not a way to sell something.

If I see an ad on my listing for the same item $10 cheaper than that tells me I am at least $10.25 too expensive for my item to sell.

@onefootflipper knows what he is talking about. A seller needs a solid presentation and then price will be king, @afreind4lf

tobaccocardyahoo

·5 months ago

5533 View listings

Amazon has two skills in abundance.

1. They know how to run the numbers.

2. They know how to keep the multiple on their stock astronomically high.

Running the numbers, they know exactly how many more sellers they have that they can afford to lose and how many products are listed which are unlikely to sell in numbers which approach the quantity listed.

And they know how to monetize the overabundance of seller and product for the benefit of Amazon.

Ebay is always behind the curve, and still worries about losing sellers more than Amazon does.

Many sellers, like myself, who were selling collectibles on Amazon, returned to Ebay when it became clear that we were being affected by Amazon's efforts to fight counterfeit products. Imagine being asked for wholesale invoices for a 1930's Electrolux vacuum cleaner brochure. It really happened to me.

I have no sympathy for sellers who are selling currently in production products on Ebay who complain about the sponsored advertising appearing on their listings. They have the option to pay for advertising, and expecting to be shielded from competition when their choice of product in in oversupply is unreasonable.

Ebay is losing sales of NEW, in production, product to Amazon and Walmart, and says so in their financial reporting. The small Ebay seller offering NEW product is often uncompetitive or their product looks NEW but isn't. Savvy buyers know not to count on manufacturer's warranties being in effect on their NEW Ebay purchases, but the odds are better with the higher volume sellers who may actually be authorized to sell the products.

Better to have the big sellers sell for less money, collect a smaller FVF plus promo fees and have happier buyers.

When I look at many items, I can see just how desperate all of the sellers are by gauging the number of ads on a listing. As a seller, I choose my merchandise so that I do not have to feel desperate.

When you are not desperate, Ebay does not seem to be a bad place to sell. They do some stupid and annoying things but none of them leads to the hatred of Ebay many sellers have.

gurlcat

·5 months ago

@tobaccocardyahoo Couldn't agree more. Every single word. And not just new/in-production items but even some old ones. Best example: books, especially ones printed since 1970 when they introduced ISBN numbering.

grann-4629

·5 months ago

You must be at the wrong meeting. Amazon is over there

chapeau-noir

·5 months ago

No bad meows!6575 View listings

The 'Well, your products will show up in other sellers' listing's, too' justification doesn't wash with me - it a simple matter of odds.

There's so much rubbish to pick through that shopping here is getting pretty worthless, particularly with all the competition elsewhere.

lakefor94

·5 months ago

122 View listings

@chapeau-noir wrote:
The 'Well, your products will show up in other sellers' listing's, too' justification doesn't wash with me - it a simple matter of odds.

There's so much rubbish to pick through that shopping here is getting pretty worthless, particularly with all the competition elsewhere.

@chapeau-noir

Do you rate AMZ as better as far as fewer useless ads for products you don't care about?

They were the listing ads pioneers.

chapeau-noir

·5 months ago

No bad meows!6575 View listings

@lakefor94 wrote:
@chapeau-noir wrote:
The 'Well, your products will show up in other sellers' listing's, too' justification doesn't wash with me - it a simple matter of odds.

There's so much rubbish to pick through that shopping here is getting pretty worthless, particularly with all the competition elsewhere.
@chapeau-noir
Do you rate AMZ as better as far as fewer useless ads for products you don't care about?
They were the listing ads pioneers.

They at least have a FEW better matches. But since I only buy commodities on Amazon that i can't get locally, I only purchase there periodically - the rest of the time is audiobooks and Kindle books, and they're pretty cool with those.

I look on Ebay for unusual or thematic stuff you can't get so easily, and seeing rows and rows of badly focused, too dark messy photos of stuff not remotely related is annoying.

grann-4629

·5 months ago

wrt advertising: Are there any advertising experts/execs here? If so, I have a simple and serious question.

Is continuous advertising of a product like twice in one tv ad break, or 20 times a day an effective means of advertising? It's very expensive, very annoying and I have always wondered why advertisers do this?

For me, this kind of advertising puts the product on my 'never buy' list. I'm trying to understand the reasons for doing this ... maybe eBay is on to something that works.

broto_64

·5 months ago

0 View listings

There's a lot more to it than that...
* The search for "Lowest price first" is broken, in fact so is Highest price.
* Not all those other sellers items listed are compatible with the item listed. - This to me is highly irritating, I hate catching INADs because some buyer selected my "other" item thinking it was the same as what they were looking at.

le-5262

·5 months ago

838 View listings

I kinda like it...

lakefor94

·5 months ago

122 View listings

Wow, just wow. When on earth did these ads start popping up? I see them as well.

Crazy stuff right there.

slippinjimmy

·5 months ago

4 View listings

@lakefor94 wrote:
Wow, just wow. When on earth did these ads start popping up? I see them as well.
Crazy stuff right there.

It started about 10 years ago, got cranked up about 5 years ago and went to the hyper level about 3 years ago.

I don't understand how any seller could just become aware of this. Even if you never buy anything on eBay how you have not seen them until now totally baffles me.

sfau

·5 months ago

9964 View listings

It is incredibly annoying especially if you have trouble focusing.....You forget what you are looking at by the time you scroll down the seller's page.

inhawaii

·5 months ago

Ebay's most handsome seller.4909 View listings

If you had the BEST item at the BEST price with the BEST feedback, you would be happy that ebay shows other similar items on your page. People would want to buy yours.

afreind4lf

OP5 months ago

Thats true if that were happening.

theteamsetguy

·5 months ago

20356 View listings

@afreind4lf ,

Instead of complaining just lower the price of yours to $13.00 and they will buy yours instead. Have you thought about doing that? With the lower prices you will increase your sales.

I'm not joking but trying to give you advice to sell more items.

afreind4lf

OP5 months ago

Your not wrong. But if I wanted to just about give things away for almost nothing I would be wasting my time trying to make money, I could have a yard sale and sell a $100 item for $5.00 and call it a day. How fun would that be. Why does ebay have to be the only ones making good money doing nothing and we break our butts doing all the work?

grann-4629

·5 months ago

With the lower prices you will increase your sales.

I had a friend that used to use that as his secret selling strategy. Just keep lowering the price until they buy it. That worked for awhile until he was fired for selling below cost.

Hope it works out better for you. I don't know what eBay sellers expect their profit margins to be, but their time in advertising, packing etc. must be worth something.

christworks

·5 months ago

1329 View listings

@afreind4lf wrote:
I have recently noticed
Not too observant, are we?

I my oppinion this could be part of our sales drop.
It could be, so what are you going to do about it? Are you going to be like 99% of others who complain about low sales: Continue to moan, blame eBay, blame buyers, and everybody but the man in the mirror? Or, are you going to give your buyers every reason to shop with you. If they clicked into your listing, you already doing something right. If they aren't hitting buy, you need to figure out why (I have some ideas after looking at your stuff). Using the ads by other sellers as an excuse may let you take the easy way out of the problem, which is to stick your head in the sand. It does nothing to actually turn your business around.

Lets say you are selling an item for $25.00. The buyer decides to scroll down your page and sees the same item for $15.00. Which one is he going to buy?
Price is but one factor. It is not the only factor nor is it always the main factor.  I sell plenty of things for over market value. There are many buyers who aren't concerned about price. I look at some of your your things. I knew before looking you did not accept returns, because sellers who do not accept returns and who have not figured out how to make that model work, are always going to complain about low sales. Before buyers ever see the ads by other sellers, many will already have decided not to buy from you because of that no return policy. Buyers in 2026 want to know they can return something they do not like. No returns makes sense for some sellers and there are some who make it work. When sales aren't going your way, rather than only look at and blame the external factors you can't control, you have to look inward.

The other thing is you have a lot of stuff nobody is going to want and it is overpriced. Let's look at this listing:
Weekly Medicine Pill Box Organizer Twice a Day 7 day AM/PM Organizer Case
I can get two of those - the same thing - shipped to me for $8 out the door from probably a couple dozen sellers. I could also walk down to the Dollar General and buy them for $5 and not have to input my information online. It would cost me $15 to get one unit from you.

Let's look at this one:
Kess Giant D20 Dice 5.5" RED Foam Critical Hit Dungeons Dragons
There are about a dozen of these listed. You are priced on the mid to high end. Only one has sold in the past 90-days. If you do not lower your price, that will probably sit until Christmas.

Wall Drawing Picture Of Michael Jordan
That's a cool piece for Jordan and Bulls fans. Very poor title. I can think of a half dozen or more key words that will put more eyeballs on that listing.

Canon Calculator Business Receipts Large Keys & Display MP41DHIII
That's in my wheelhouse. It's modern though, maybe 10-15 years old. There is a good market for vintage printing calculator. 90s and older. I would have still bought that at an estate sale if I could get it for $5 or less.

Mattel Magic 8 Ball Toy Vintage Game Fortune Teller Kids Lucky Answers
You say that one is vintage, but toy collectors know better. That's modern. They are going to scroll by that listing, and you miss the chance they might check out your other listings simply because you are not upfront in the title.

You complain about buyers ads causing you a problem with your sales. There is a lot more going on at home though. That's my point.

When we join up with Ebay we had to agree to advertisements, which is okay if it's for outside companies. They never said that they were going to put other Ebay sellers on our page.
You are wrong on two fronts. First, both the TOS and the Marketing T&C state eBay may place ads from other sellers just about anywhere, including within your listing. Your listings may also be placed just about anywhere, including other seller's listings. The other place you are wrong on is that it would be okay for them to place ads for "outside companies." Why in the world would a sales platform want to send people elsewhere to buy? Why would they want to give buyers a link that will take them off the platform, even if the ad itself isn't for a classic competitor? eBay wants (and so should we) buyers to stay on the platform as long as possible. The longer that they stay on the site, the greater chance they buy something. Even when a buyer does not buy from me, I want them to buy from eBay. There have literally been times when a buyer and I cannot come to an agreement on a price, that I have found another seller on eBay who appears to be decent, maybe they are closer to the buyer so shipping isn't as much, and I send the buyer the link to that listing. Each sale strengthens the platform and gives eBay the ability to reach an even larger buyer pool which we all benefit from.

I concider this to be unfair
Then close up your shop and go elsewhere. Sellers shouldn't keep selling on a platform they feel is unfair to them. To say that something is unfair you must have somethig in mind you are comparing it to that you feel is fair. That's where I'd be going.

Another thing I noticed is when I am posting items I search the item first to get an idea of how much to sell it for. I try to stay within range of other seller to get the best prices.
I hope you are looking at sold comps, not just what people have things listed at. Sold comps tell you where the market is. Active listings tell you where sellers want the market to be.

Of course I see the items for sale on my pages are at much lower prices then the one I searched. It appears that Ebay isn't playing the game properly.
What game? It isn't a game. It is business. Again, the TOS state that when a buyer (or a seller looking for comps) conducts a search, not every item that meets the search critera will be shown.

Ebay was a great place for sellers when it first started, but it has change in the past few years.
eBay is still a great place. You will make more money on eBay than any other selling platform. There are always exceptions, but with the stuff you are selling, eBay is the best option if you are going to sell online.

Ebay should concider doing this properly.
Have you bothered to tell them?

grann-4629

·5 months ago

Nice long post with some good comments ... some not so good.

Bottom line though is sellers of anything generally don't want to see their competitor's items on their listings (flyers, catalogues, etc.). What sellers should do or should have done is not the issue here.

ten_o_nine

·5 months ago

7508 View listings

eBay’s goal is to keep the buyer on the site, whether they buy from you or someone else.

ryry-jj

·5 months ago

1913 View listings

Ebay knows what they are doing, and they know whether it leads to sales or not. They dont care what seller get the sale, either. They have determined that this works for buyers. Us sellers are on our own to figure it all out

roastedsaurus

·5 months ago

20 View listings

They will keep adding more and more until they reach the point of confusion/dilution, which they might be at right now. The customer interface used to be clean, focused. Now its just a overwhelming hodge podge of unrelated crap. When I shop for something I scroll right by 90% of what is being displayed. They apparently have not learned the lesson that presenting the customer with too many choices is actually self defeating. I think when you are having to scroll down 2,3,4 pages to get to the "end" of a listing you are making a huge marketing mistake.

afreind4lf

OP5 months ago

You might have a point there.

afreind4lf

OP5 months ago

I absolutly agree with you. It's to bad Ebay won't listen to the sellers. Eventually it will catch up with them like you said.

grann-4629

·5 months ago

I agree with you 100%.

The proliferation of advertising everwhere all the time annoys me to no end. When eBay adds your competitor's listings to your paid for listing, it's not right, but it is a sign of the times.

eBay is probably profiting by charging your competitors to allow them to advertise on your listing and you may have to ante up to get the same advertising on their listings.

Tough to be a seller on eBay these days 🤥

redmodelt

·5 months ago

1243 View listings

Not sure why you are just seeing this, it has been this way for several years now. Remember your stuff could be shown in the same place when other people are looking. Do sellers like it, not really but it's eBays site.

bgt_masters_of_tiki_d

·5 months ago

5522 View listings

Your items are going to be diluted by mega-sellers unless you also have a large amount of listings and if you promote. Another issue is if I remember correctly the ads also interfere with a potential buyer scrolling to the bottom where the item description actually is. I'm not a fan as a buyer or a seller, its just too cluttered and I find it annoying.

afreind4lf

OP5 months ago

I agree, So what do you think? Should we mention it to ebay? Or just leave it along .

bgt_masters_of_tiki_d

·5 months ago

5522 View listings

Ebay doesn't care. It benefits the largest sellers and they are the real bread and butter of ebay. Small time sellers no longer matter. We are a dime a dozen and easily replaced.

redmodelt

·5 months ago

1243 View listings

"Ebay doesn't care. It benefits the largest sellers and they are the real bread and butter of ebay. Small time sellers no longer matter. We are a dime a dozen and easily replaced. "

Don't kid yourself about big sellers, they post all the time about getting their selling accounts closed or demoted. The big difference between the big and small is that the big sellers can get their boo-boos diluted over the year.

afreind4lf

OP5 months ago

You say: Do sellers like it, not really but it's eBays site.

Thats why ebay does it, because no one will argue with them.

gurlcat

·5 months ago

@afreind4lf wrote:
You say: Do sellers like it, not really but it's eBays site.

Thats why ebay does it, because no one will argue with them.

@afreind4lf What would "arguing" with eBay look like? Describe it please.

afreind4lf

OP5 months ago

One person doing would be a joke. A few thousand would a reminder that we make them money. With out our stuff we sell they would have nothing but a computer system that sits idle doing nothing. How much would that make them. Its like General Motors , If there is no one to assemble the cars, hom many cars would they sell? How much money would they make?

gurlcat

·5 months ago