Promoted Listing Impressions 45-50% Drop
As of March 3rd we have noticed that our promoted listing impressions have dropped more than half. It has been a gradual decline over the course of March. We use the promoted listings automated. Nothing has really changed on our account. We list everyday, also update old listings, have promotions on, promoted listings are above the trending ad rate, run the store newsletter, top rated seller with no defects and we also offer good old free shipping. Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same issue. We sell a variety of used auto parts with roughly 14000+ items in our store. I think that something has also changed with the promoted listings and fear that the off site ads may have taken prominence at this point. As much as I have spoken with managers at eBay CS, they keep telling me that is not the case, but it is hard to believe some when you always get the wrong information from rep to rep.
I know that the economy is not helping matters and taxes are due in a few weeks for those that owe, but even in years past it has not been this bad. Our accountant also did mention that people are not getting as much back since they received that money in their paychecks and those that are getting refunds, those refunds were coming back a little later than the usual. There is a whole host of things going on for sure that add to this.
I was comparing YOY for March 2023 vs. March 2024 numbers and we are down a good 30% down from last year at this time. I understand that 2024 is different than we were at with 2023 from an economical standpoint. I don't even count the covid years numbers at all, because those were an anomaly or blip on the radar with some over inflated numbers due to people having all this extra spending money. I look at my 2019 numbers as a reference point and even partial point of 2020 before the madness started.
I have been told by eBay management that eBay Motors is down quite a bit from last year. They are not sure as to why it is so down.
@zamo-zuan are you guys experiencing the same issue? I know we have spoken about these kind of issues in the past.
Another thing that I have noticed, and nobody over at eBay will admit if our account is in some kind of beta, but my iPhone app has changed UI now about 3 times in the last few weeks, while my wifes and daughters, since they have their own accounts are still the much older version.
Not sure what is going on here, but usually March-May and August is when sales are really good for auto parts and they are in the dumpster.
jupiter_collectibles
·2 years agoeBay seems to be putting a cap on sellers promoted views/impressions. I just relisted my entire store and organic views and impressions were up 300% and promoted views and impressions were down 40%. That's mathematically impossible....
blacktopautoparts
OP2 years ago@dbfolks166mt we got rid of Hollander about 2-3 years ago if I can recall. We are just using their service for Powerlink.
I know, during a bad economy most of our categories are supposed to be flourishing, but some are not like we used to. Don't get me wrong, we are still getting sales as you can see, but they are not at the levels they used to be. We try really hard to picture and list our items to meet what eBay is looking for in a seller.
As many have mentioned, the search is weird and semi-broken on here. There are times I will place the same exact keywords on an item I am looking for here on eBay, we will get 2-3 different sets of results with each search. It is the oddest thing. I get to a point where its like, what in the world is going on here with this search.
Our sales trends have been odd of late. Two weeks ago, we had a week where one day was down in sales then the next was up, and the pattern just repeated itself for the whole week. Then last week our sales starting slowly climbing each day like a roller going up the tracks, then come Thursday we took a $1000 decline in sales from the day before. Then Friday/Saturday went back up, but nowhere near the numbers we should be at. As you can guys can see my numbers to a degree, they are out there, so nothing for me to hide.
@my-cottage-books-and-antiques
I understand where you are coming from with them having sellers that know what they are talking about and ones that do not. That is where the whole vetting process comes in to make sure that the sellers are good and the information they are providing is not bad information. We have seen quite a bit of that around here.
I think one of the most intelligent sellers that I have had the pleasure speaking with is @zamo-zuan. He is so analytical and the way he breaks the information down is unmatched. Here is a good example, he has even spoken with eBay managers about the numbers and data, yet they end up ghosting him in the end.
Just like how they added all of these useless item specifics a few years ago to all of our categories. All this has done is muddy up the search. Customers are not looking for certain item specific data that they make it mandatory to fill out. They said they reached out to experts for this data. Here is an example, who in their right mind looks for measurements for an ECU/ECM (Electronic Control Module) which is the brain of the car. The most important information is getting the part numbers off of these, not the measurements of the ECU itself.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoI know, during a bad economy most of our categories are supposed to be flourishing, but some are not like we used to. Don't get me wrong, we are still getting sales as you can see, but they are not at the levels they used to be. We try really hard to picture and list our items to meet what eBay is looking for in a seller.
As many have mentioned, the search is weird and semi-broken on here. There are times I will place the same exact keywords on an item I am looking for here on eBay, we will get 2-3 different sets of results with each search. It is the oddest thing. I get to a point where its like, what in the world is going on here with this search.
Our sales trends have been odd of late. Two weeks ago, we had a week where one day was down in sales then the next was up, and the pattern just repeated itself for the whole week. Then last week our sales starting slowly climbing each day like a roller going up the tracks, then come Thursday we took a $1000 decline in sales from the day before. Then Friday/Saturday went back up, but nowhere near the numbers we should be at. As you can guys can see my numbers to a degree, they are out there, so nothing for me to hide.
While ups and downs in sales are normal it depends a bit on your optic. My sales on eBay are nowhere near what they used to be which was about 90% of my sales by volume. I started diversifying across multiple platforms and venues long ago and eBay now only accounts for a little less than 20% of my sales. Some of the diversification was forced by eBay as they continued to expand their restricted and prohibited items list and the mere existence of the VERO program.
EBay used to hold a quasi monopoly on ecommerce but that is no longer the case. Competition is becoming fierce in the ecommerce arena and new sites are starting up everyday. In the next 1-2 years, if it takes that long, TEMU is going to have a major impact on the ecommerce marketplace.
As of February 2024, the Temu app achieved over 29.6 million downloads globally, surpassing Amazon's marketplace app in popularity according to Statista and yes they sell auto parts. Following article has some interesting reading.
There is also little US law enforcement or any other part of the government can do with regards to the applicability of US laws to the Chinese site. Multiple attempts have been made to stem the flow of counterfeit items from China all pretty much to no avail.
https://www.businessofapps.com/data/temu-statistics/
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoI have NEVER worried about impressions, views or watchers. The only thing that really matters is sales. There is NO way to prove that promoted listings does anything to improve/increase sales. It may jack up your impressions or views but it means nothing if the items do not sell.
orientalstyle_au
·2 years agoExactly the same thing is happening with my promoted listings impressions. Over 20k impressions in late January, and now less than 5000 a day.
redlinear
·2 years ago@zamo-zuan
@blacktopautoparts
My Fitment, Guaranteed Fit, My Garage, Compatibilities.
All of this works together for a Salvage Company with 4 million listings...and....related other salvage yards with millions more listings.
You probably know more about how this works than I do. I just assume you inventory a vehicle, take a few pics of the whole car, enter that info into your Yard Management System. And going from there-to-eBay is pretty much automatic and almost instant. (thanks to cooperation between organizations (eBay and Salvage Industry as a group).
All of this was designed to make 20 millions listings as happy as possible (even if most of those listings never sell).
stainlessenginecovers
·2 years agoAll it takes is some 'other' seller from 'another' country (or not) to UP their 'Promotion Percentage' to something ridiculous- 10,20,50% and your items will be down down down the list in an instant.
redlinear
·2 years agoI don't "fully" agree with that.
I've tried ridiculous promotion %, across the board, an assortment of all items, without raising prices.
I've seen an instant, but minor uptick in sales. But only for about a week. Then back to what I consider normal.
At the end of 90 days, my daily average remains about the same as it was the previous 90.
And all throughout, I'll search for items I know I have, and have trouble finding them.
However, I have found that promoting a single expensive item, while raising it's price to such an extent that shoppers have to click on it (just to see why it's SO expensive). Does increase the speed of sales on other related items.
Basically, I'm using one item, and a high promotion %, as bait.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoAll it takes is some 'other' seller from 'another' country (or not) to UP their 'Promotion Percentage' to something ridiculous- 10,20,50% and your items will be down down down the list in an instant.
That all depends on how an individual is executing the search.
redlinear
·2 years agoYou are simply not being seen, when you should be being seen.
Your items are not being shown in the results "order" when they should be (based on your reputation).
This is obvious when you compare your listings to Sold listings of the same item.
We don't need a biased fair chance. We don't even need a fair chance.
We just need the search results to show the words that were searched.
And the sort and filters to arrange those results as they claim.
zamo-zuan
·2 years agoWe experienced that LAST YEAR. And it has never recovered. Since basically 1st quarter 2023 onward, things had drastically slowed and never recovered.
Motors traditionally peaks after tax time around April. As of last year, that trend is still happening OUTSIDE of eBay, but eBay itself is just a flatline all year.
It's quite clear this isn't a Motors issue when you look at what is happening with competing listings, and the changes in traffic for the most competitive sellers.
Also ad investment does nothing, it's just an on-off switch, as long as you're investing enough to be "on" is the best you can do (even if "on" is a trash amount of traffic compared to what we used to have). But investing MORE certainly doesn't improve things. If the switch is on, that's all you have.
eBay has stopped assisting with these types of issues. They had reached out to me and I'd given them a list of reproduceable issues with evidence, and they had checked with me to see if they can call me if they have any questions, then ghosted me. No longer even responding when I reach out. Which tells me that most likely, they aren't able to fix it, and can't put anything in writing.
I've all but given up on eBay.
blacktopautoparts
OP2 years agoHi @zamo-zuan, sorry I didn't see your message till now as I didn't get an alert, which is odd. I remember last year when we were having this same issue, but it seems to have gotten way much worse this year than what it was last year.
I agree that Motors starts taking off in March and then slows down a bit later in May, and then starts to pickup again through September when we hit a lull again. While it slows down, it is nothing like what we are seeing now. Sure people do not have as much disposal income as they had a year ago, but this is quite wild to see. I will not disagree with anyone on the economy and where things are at right now, but us Motors sellers should not be in such bad shape, but it appears that we are as even a manager at eBay provided me with the GMV percentage for Motors a year ago when compared to this year, and they are down quite a bit.
I have noticed the same thing with the tests that I have done over the last several years with regards to investing more with the promoted listings. It is like someone controls the narrative with an on/off switch and it depends on the day or week that you will be "ON" or the week where you will be "OFF".
Just like you, we are top 5-10 in many parts of the parts & accessories sub categories we sell in and it is wild to think that if we are doing this bad, what are other, even larger sellers doing?
Tell me about it. eBay has totally stopped assisting with any reported issues like you have mentioned, at this point they do not want to hear from us anymore. I've had to also start to really explore other avenues at this point to help make up for our losses on here.
zamo-zuan
·2 years agoThe most alarming part of Motors drop is that they have been heavily advertising during this time, and like to claim the category is seeing such growth.
Which makes me wondering if the statistics are even correct at all (among other reasons). Traditionally, when the traffic stats don't add up properly, the algorithm acts strange by not highlighting any of the top competitors in the category, and observable drops appear. This is what we've seen for over a year now.
How could it be that all the sellers in the country that have the best amount of stock/best prices of engine mounts do not have the highest visibility in the category anymore, across the board? If I check the top listings nowadays, it's smaller sellers who, based on pricing and ship location, are USING ONE OF THE TOP SELLERS TO DROPSHIP FOR THEM! Their prices are higher, their shipping time isn't as fast, and they are literally using the top sellers to offer their service. So how on earth do they have a top listing, instead of the seller they're using to ship their items whos listing is ~10% cheaper and offers faster ship time/better feedback/etc?
And it's quite telling when the market trends are still happening outside of eBay, but eBay doesn't show them. This means things are being suppressed by the algorithm somewhere.
"Just like you, we are top 5-10 in many parts of the parts & accessories sub categories we sell in and it is wild to think that if we are doing this bad, what are other, even larger sellers doing?"
Exactly! And it's kind of crazy that all of us sellers are thrown in to the same basket. The reason we're a top seller isn't because any of our listings are super popular anymore, it's because of the sheer amount of listings we have. But then, as mentioned above, we have people who even buy from us and use us to ship to the customer, and their listings (of our items) are somehow more popular than ours, despite being inferior in every way. If we're able to provide service for other sellers, why are we in the same basket as them nowadays? It makes no sense.
blacktopautoparts
OP2 years agoI agree with you that it is very alarming with the drop in Motors when compared to how much advertising is being done with this category. There are TV and radio ads galore. I think the growth in this category reached its peak in 2022. Ever since then, it has been spinning its wheels (no pun intended).
They even bought out MyFitment, and then did such a bad job implementing that with the fitment guaranteed that this now almost feels like an afterthought. People do not even use the fitment chart and there are so many backyard mechanics running rampant. Instead of doing something cool with MyFitment incorporation, they spun it in a way that it would benefit us sellers with free return labels if the customer filled out their compatibility chart. Yet this was never the case since people do not fill these out before their purchase and even when they do, people still buy the wrong items and their charts are not 100% accurate.
I do see what you are referring to with the drop shippers. I see it quite a bit with our items and I have even seen other sellers use our data and information to sell our items if it were their own. I end up just getting them reported, because we are not going to go through all of the hard work for people to do this funny stuff. Again, a lot of this behavior is fostered on the platform so it is why people can just get away with abusing returns and even the feedback system because they have made it so easy to do so.
This is what they have done for years, it is the one size fits all model for everything that gets incorporated on site, no matter if you sell clothes or if you sell auto parts. I think the other problem that I have noticed is that they have also started completely removing people's selling limits so you can list as much as you want without hitting a wall, like ours has, and that has caused some issues. While this is a great thing to have, I feel it hurts us in the end with the algorithm. Do you guys still have selling limits or have they been removed?
zamo-zuan
·2 years agoDon't even get me started on the MyFitment thing, lol. I mean, eBay already owns NexPart. They already had all their fitness needs covered in that company. MyFitment was more of a "for show" thing.
Then the fact that their promoting the fitment tools for Guaranteed Fitment was all smoke and mirrors. They were pretending it was some new tool, when it was literally just the same fitment chart they had for YEARS and all they did was simply rename the vehicle search to "Garage"...
And worst of all, the fact that the fitment tool is (and has been) BROKEN and was broken for over 5 years now. I've even reported this directly to the VP of Motors in a zoom meeting, as well as every person on leadership I could find. So they have been investing money in to advertising a broken tool... lol.
We're nowhere near our selling limit, at least the ones they have in writing. But they make it impossible to beat our average sales(31 days). No matter if we cross that line at 9AM, or 9PM, suddenly traffic stalls. And the days at the end of your chart make it easy to predict what is coming next.
See how much of a slowdown occurs just to keep us from moving up? You can see 3 days from now, and 5 days from now, a "big day" will be falling off our chart. Guaranteed those two days will suddenly be "big sales days" that leave us at the same 31 day average at the end of the day.
blacktopautoparts
OP2 years agoIt is a shame, they do not want to listen to any of us. I've also been on zoom calls with managers over at eBay Motors and it seems like you just get a pat on the head, that is all.
I feel like you, that we reach our sale limits for the day at a certain hour of the day and then sales just go dead. One day last week, sales abruptly stopped at 6:30 PM and then didn't resume again till 9:00 AM the next morning. Something is totally off for sure here that goes beyond our economy and people not having money.
Be lucky that your chart has some ebs and flows, like a rollercoaster ride, mine doesn't even do that much anymore. I will send you my chart so you can get an idea of what ours looks like.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·2 years ago@blacktopautoparts I don't sell auto parts, so won't get into the sales issue itself. Just wanted to comment on this:
"It is a shame, they do not want to listen to any of us. I've also been on zoom calls with managers over at eBay Motors and it seems like you just get a pat on the head, that is all."
I agree 100%. ebay has a tremendous untapped resource: it's seller base. There are experienced , business savvy sellers here, and I have seen good advice given to ebay by many of them. And you are absolutely right: ebay ignores most of it, convinced that management always knows best.
Don't get me wrong. I've seen a lot of BAD advice given to ebay, too. So, yes, it would take some effort to sort the good from the bad. I've known people with small manufacturing businesses who have prospered by listening to the people who work on the factory floor, the people who actually DO the work. ebay would be so much better off if they would learn how to REALLY listen to their sellers.
blacktopautoparts
OP2 years agoHas anyone else been having this issue?
chariot_badges
·2 years agoI sell similar items to you.
While I do have a decade of experience with on line sales, most has been on Amazon and has been in books.
I've only been at it in Ebay for a year or two, and just learning to walk.
I've done LOT of testing those two years.
I've tested, shipping terms, picture quality and background colors, promotion and amounts, ending and selling similar, SEO optimized listing descriptions, and many more.
I believe that every store is different. Every product niche is different.
For MY store I think I have found a formulae that, while maybe not best for everyone, seems to be optimum for ME.
Though I am always making slight adjustments, and pokes to see if there's a reaction.
I've noticed an increase in volatility in sales ... in all the metrics really these last six months.
To a certain extent, I have to not worry about 'why', and just accept the 'what' and respond (if possible).
That said, I promote ... heavily. I spend, on average, $140 a month for an extra $1500 in sales. I will do that all day long, especially since the $140 doesn't come out of my pocket anyway. If it costs me $2 to advertise something, I add $2.50 to the price.
I recently raised shipping charges to my buyers by $1 to $4.95 to ship up to 4oz (which is 99%).
I am seriously thinking of running a test to see how $5.95 would be accepted.
zamo-zuan
·2 years agoThis has sadly been the reality for us for years.
But this is building a bubble that will eventually burst. Because it's driving sellers from eBay to elsewhere, when the prices on eBay are skyrocketing. And the only one making out from this is eBay with higher profits... But is it really higher profits when they are losing buyers? It's short term gains for long term loss.
And the sad part is, despite finding what "works" for our stores, each year comes alongside more volatility, higher investment in promos, for lower sales.
"To a certain extent, I have to not worry about 'why', and just accept the 'what' and respond (if possible)."
Knowing why used to help - eBay USED to fix things. But for more than a year now, they have just ghosted rather than address the problems. Something changed for the worst in terms of their communication and support. Now we just have to accept it and try to work alongside it as best as we can.
A harsh truth? Our monthly average sales used to be 2.5x/250% what we're getting now before they started going overboard with the promotions. That's how much eBay has dropped. And no matter what we do - whether it's lower prices or increase our promo investment, that monthly average doesn't move. If we end up getting much more sales, once we hit our monthly average, traffic/sales just stop coming in...
Seeing how much of a decline has happened on eBay feels bad. It's certainly did a number on us as an eBay-based business. But when nothing we do moves the bar anymore, eBay is in the lead and not us, so what choice do we have other than watching as the ship sinks?
chariot_badges
·2 years agoThat is on my 'to-do' list.
I've already begun looking at other platforms.
Many do not allow used items, many are not well known for auto parts. There aren't many who would allow my inventory on their platform.
It complicates things further when:
- we can't talk about competition to eBay here,
- other auto parts store owners don't want to tell their competition where the grass is greener.
Both of those items above are logical.
I've been looking at Mercari and may do a test with the Key Fob section of my inventory there.
blacktopautoparts
OP2 years agoMany think that eBay is easy to learn and just throw up your items and they will sell. But it takes way more than that, and this is where many tend to fail in the end. It is good you are taking the time to learn all of the ins and outs so that way you can succeed. Even Amazon is tough and has gotten much tougher of late with some of the changes they have made.
Like you, we have tested everything and anything under the sun with eBay. I am not sure at this point what makes the platform tick from account to account.
Our problem is that we offer free shipping since eBay made it almost a "standard" for the special "benefits" they give you as a TR+ seller (yet those benefits seem to dwindle overtime) and we have been due to many of our competitors doing the same thing,
redlinear
·2 years ago@blacktopautoparts
Check out eBay item number 386882988682 (compatibilities and item specifics)
We may have to resort to similar tactics if eBay doesn't do something about search pretty quick.
redlinear
·2 years ago@blacktopautoparts
Oh, and promoted seems to work just like normal listings.
They start out hot, then taper off as time goes on. Then all of the sudden hot again.
Then, if promoted, they get a boost.
But, that tapers off again rather quickly.
Then you increase the promotion %, and hot again...but not for long.
redlinear
·2 years ago@blacktopautoparts
You mention the economy. Not sure how long you've done this, but when the economy is bad, our sales increase considerably. Always have.
I see compatibility is filled out as well as Hollander interchange part number in item specifics in your listings.
I almost think e-link listed or something like that. BUT, I look at your listings, descriptions, and sales....and it makes me think y'all are listing one at a time.
As opposed to an item, with a picture of the whole vehicle, no description, and.....no sales.
Basically, to me, it looks like you're doing it right.
We had 1,000 listings on one account a few years ago. Averaged 10 sales a day.
All the way to 10,000.....average 10 sales a day.
Split that 10,000 listings between two accounts. (5,000 each).
Sales now average 20 per day.
I have several theories and all revolve around when items are seen during a search result. And where.
Example: I have a car that has four fender emblems. Two on the left, two on the right.
If I search that vehicle/fender emblem. I was seeing all four (best match).
I then filter to Used and Lowest$ 1st. I lose three emblems in search results.
I find one down under "results matching fewer words" (but the words are still exact match of my search query).
The other two emblems? Probably on page 10 or something....I have no idea.
Seems whatever controls the search results gives everybody a chance, every so often. And everybody gets hidden, every so often.
The sales ups and downs appear to have more to do with search results than any other factor.
blacktopautoparts
OP2 years agoWe've been on eBay for 21+ years. We started off selling collectibles in the early days such as action figures, DVD's, Blu-ray's, toys, magazines, etc. Then about 8 years ago we started selling used auto parts. We have seen it all throughout the years on the platform from the ups and downs. This appears to be something new that has started recently with the huge drop in impressions. We also had a few hundred collectibles on this account and I have slowly been moving them off of this account to a specific account just for collectibles.
In terms of the listings, we have everything filled out to the brim on these from the eBay compatibility chart, we are a Hollander member and used to used eLink many years ago (eLink sucks, lol!), but dropped it for a much faster internal process. We still use Powerlink for our interchange data. All of our item specifics are filled out the best that we can. We try to get 10+ pictures per listing on white backgrounds and even have been going through this huge inventory we bought 2 years ago to re-picture some of the stuff because the images were not that great at the time from the persons account. We have almost perfected the listing process on our end. We were also a MyFitment client well before eBay bought them.
The issue that I am seeing here all of a sudden is going from selling 40-50 items a day, all the way down to 20-25 which is quite the drop.
You are correct about the search. It has been wonky for years, and I know last year they made a change that affected everyone. I think they made another change recently where you can't find anything just like how you have described.
That is the crazy part as you mention having to split our accounts into lets say 2 accounts to garner up sales. I know many that have had to do that so they can increase their amount of sales.
redlinear
·2 years ago@blacktopautoparts
I don't know when we got rid of hollander, been a while. (Wyse 50 terminals on dial-up is what we had)..LOL
During any poor economy, our sales always increased. eBay or no eBay.
Your listings look good. Unlike most "big" salvage yards. Which, explains your sales that I can see.
Most "quick list" salvage yards have thousands more listings, and they only sell one or two things a day.
Your sold listings % compared to the amount of listing you have running is really good. That means you're doing your listings right.
We've noticed some really strange trends when it comes to sales and search.
My locations are dated. If I list 30 items today, and put them all in one location? At some point around 90ish days? I'll get to work one morning and be pulling several un-related parts out of that one location to ship.
It's not a coincidence either. Every day most of my trips to pull parts for shipment, is going to one location.
I miss the old days. LOL
blacktopautoparts
OP2 years agoThank you! I really appreciate the kind words. Since I've been on the platform way long before doing the parts, we have been trying to be consistent with our listing structure. I hate where some yards just take a picture of the door mirror on the car and then its all interior parts of the car. On the flipside though, I do understand as to why these yards are doing this due to resources and trying to get items listed. Then you go into the listing and then there is barely anything filled out.
Hollander is good for data, but even some of their data is not accurate at all. The scary part is that this data feeds into the eBay compatibility chart and most of the time things are not correct.
We have also noticed some weird things going on with the trends from the traffic, sales, and the promoted listings reports.
I did check out the eBay item number 386882988682, and wow, they are messed up. The other thing that I have noticed too is that search is terrible when I did a few keywords and the full title. Then I looked at the item specifics, there is quite the keyword stuffing in there.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years ago@blacktopautoparts
I don't know when we got rid of hollander, been a while. (Wyse 50 terminals on dial-up is what we had)..LOL
During any poor economy, our sales always increased. eBay or no eBay.
Your listings look good. Unlike most "big" salvage yards. Which, explains your sales that I can see.
Most "quick list" salvage yards have thousands more listings, and they only sell one or two things a day.
Your sold listings % compared to the amount of listing you have running is really good. That means you're doing your listings right.
We've noticed some really strange trends when it comes to sales and search.
My locations are dated. If I list 30 items today, and put them all in one location? At some point around 90ish days? I'll get to work one morning and be pulling several un-related parts out of that one location to ship.
It's not a coincidence either. Every day most of my trips to pull parts for shipment, is going to one location.
I miss the old days. LOL
A lot of posters claim there are "strange" things with search or search is not working correctly but never provide any examples. The results you get back from a search are entirely dependent on the parameters that are used to execute it.
liawri-75
·2 years agoI don't have promoted ads but if you go online to the Resell influencers it seems those sponsored ads is not worth it.
I know as a buyer, I normally DO NOT buy from sponsored ads because I scroll through and find the cheapest and best deals, and sponsored MAY NOT/or MAY be the best deal. I normally buy supplies.
blacktopautoparts
OP2 years agoI agree with you. A lot of these sponsored ads are a real problem on how they surface. When I do searches in general, just like you, they tend to surface the most expensive crap at the top of the search. It ends up hurting search, but then also for those looking for a good seller/deal. Promoted listings suck, but we have learned to adapt to them as sellers and if you do not use them, you will barely be visible to make sales. What is even worse is that eBay had triple downed on promoted listings where they now have the PLS/PLA and then they added both the Store and Off Site Ads. They expect you to also use those too. How much can they squeeze out of someone at the end of the day on ads. PLS/PLA used to also be the offsite ads, but now they are more for just the search on eBay. What I think is hilarious is that I had a rep tell me they split these out to create the offsite ads, because customers wanted to know where their offsite traffic was coming from. I turn around and tell the rep that this is **bleep** and if eBay IT wanted to give us that data with the PLS/PLA, they can, but they just created another way to make money off of the seller and muddy up their site. Everything that I have heard from many reps and managers, the off site ads has very minimal use. If you had issues getting people to use PLS, what says they will use PLA and/or Off site ads.
I don't know what they have done here in general, but with our economy being in such bad shape, I don't think that eBay can afford to keep doing this crazy stuff they have been. If we are not selling and making money, they are not making money. It is time they stop with all of the changes and try to do more to get traffic back to the site and rebuild their brand. The problem is the board and upper management is so worried about different goals that at the end of the day to not help the site, but help their pockets.