Locked
Discussion interactions are currently paused.
Significant Drops in eBay Impressions and Organic Page Views: A Huge Problem
Since April 6th, my eBay impressions have dropped significantly from an average above 1 million to around 500k, and now they hover at around 600k. Despite contacting customer service, I received an unhelpful response that everything looks fine. Frustratingly, I have continued to upload new listings every day, but sales have still decreased. On April 25th, a new issue arose where my organic page views showed 0, which is clearly not accurate. I reached out to customer service, but their response was again unhelpful and similar to my previous experience. These ongoing problems have made me feel unstable and unsure about eBay's reliability. I am now considering moving to another platform, but before making that decision, I want to know if others are facing similar issues.
 
 
kh-urvashi
·11 months agoHi everyone,
Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.
Thank you for understanding.
stevemartin60
·3 years ago...or, of course, they could just capture top management, with most if the same effects.
stevemartin60
·3 years agoSuppose the CCP secretly had bought out eBay. Just bare with me a second.
We know elite capture has already happened in D.C., and a lot of farmland is gone, too. Why wouldn't they be buying out corporations with our money spent on their trinkets and trash all these years?
If that were the case, we would have seen an explosion in foreign sellers and rock bottom, sweat-shop prices over the past few years. We would see domestic, long term American sellers getting intentionally short shifted... maybe even shadow banned and "switched off." We would see totally non-responsive "customer service," etc.
All in preparation for the great reset, CBDC, and social credit scores...
zamo-zuan
·3 years agoWhat is frustrating in this case is yet another decline (compounding the drop that already happened) occurred right when the page was "fixed" and switched up completely from the last chart overnight.
Still in a position where all I could hope for is this is addressed and fixed sooner rather than later.
Things were flat lined at that time, (or should I say, flat lined ALL YEAR during the busiest season of the year for this category) now EVERYTHING is red:
This year has been ridiculous. EBay, please get the tech team together and get this fixed already. They can easily reproduce the problem when views are not adding up between the traffic, ad, and charts. It's not like this isn't an issue that occurred multiple times in the past, they should already know what needs to be fixed!
dhbookds
·3 years ago@zamo-zuan
did you see Brian B's answer ? Message #290.............he's saying the traffic metrics are correct.........
zamo-zuan
·3 years agoYes I have followed up on that with Brian B, which is why I've shown the examples that the traffic/ad/reports are not even matching.
Unfortunately this isn't really a new experience with the tech team, as they have had a long time habit of claiming things are fixed when they aren't. Many eBay reps I've spoken to have pushed to get things fixed only to have the tech team repeatedly say it's either fixed or not an issue.
I'm just hoping there's somebody out there that can get the tech team in to gear and hold them accountable. If the pages aren't even matching, that's a clear sign of issues. And when traffic/ad statistics are not even read correctly, it's IMPOSSIBLE for the algorithms to work correctly.
nilis13
·3 years agoDefinitely not fixed along with everything else.
etrusca
·3 years agoThank you Zamo for continuing to share the facts, hold the mirror up and for trying to help Ebay see the severe situation that many of us are experiencing which isn't just the traffic report inconsistencies but the drastic decline in sales and functionality of the website.
i have literally had one - two sales a week for the past month with many being under $20, most coming late at night from mwest or california.... curious, as if i had two hours of viewing- despite all the views or previous watchers which declined after relisting multiple times.
i had my church fair mother's day wknd member / vendor booth where we sell nice things, 5 of us in business offering contemporary, handmade or my antiques & vintage, brought mostly silver vtg purses & jewelry.
i made more sales in 7 hrs in rain than 3 months on ebay - majority were ebay listings $10- 50 each. had to give church 20% , no booth fee. Having to end those listings affects my standing but one has to sell to eat & keep business alive!
i just don't know what to make of this situation, it's beyond comprehension when all their effort is going to extraneous programs and initiatives to make a questionable percentage instead of focusing on core platform health and sales. i have not found any site functionality improvement in 2 months , only more complications - dangerous roller coaster.
24 loyal years on Ebay and now i don't feel rewarded for all my effort, dedicated customer service & as a trained professional in the field , patience with the hiccups that have turned into gross malfunctions & negligence.
All i have ever wanted is to make buyers happy, do well and be part of Ebay's once iconic & unique complexion & success.
mybigsale
·3 years ago@zamo-zuan
@etrusca
...24 loyal years on Ebay and now i don't feel rewarded for all my effort, dedicated customer service & as a trained professional in the field , patience with the hiccups that have turned into gross malfunctions & negligence....
I have been on eBay for over 20 years and have been a Top-Rated seller since first qualifying years ago. I don't agree with all of eBays rules, I do follow them. At this point, I do not expect eBay to be responsive to the needs of sellers. I suspect some of the report issues are by eBay deliberately fixing numbers to show sellers numbers eBay wants them to see. I do believe if serious "glitches" are found and eBay wants them fixed, they will eventually be fixed.
The only "reward" I want (and it's not really a reward as eBay would benefit the most) is for eBay to streamline a path for sellers' feedback to be part of the process for eBay improving eBay. Instead, it's an uphill battle with sellers needing to "push" on eBay support and eBay moderators who then need to push their way on up to eBay management and development. Currently, only the most serious of "Glitches" will make it through - as eBay currently doesn't have a clear path to address user/seller concerns with the eBay platform.
I do appreciate all sellers who have the conviction and dedication to push eBay platform concerns up the eBay Hill to try and get issues resolved!
siamjane8
·3 years agoEbay has never been transparent or forthcoming with any information.......they deny responsibility and redirect blame to sellers.
It is a shame, because as far as customer service goes- when a company admits an issue and is working towards a solution, it builds respect and trust with the customer.... when they deny and divert blame it is off-putting and undermines the relationship.
Just look what happened to Bud Lite- they screwed up royally and made a huge advertising mistake- instead of admitting it early on and addressing the issue head on, they watched as the company's net worth quickly dissolve- loosing billions. First mistake was pushing a political/social agenda on its customers who simply wanted to buy beer. Second mistake was not owning the bad decision and apologizing which would have earned the respect of the customer base they were losing. Now the damage has been done and they are not recovering.
Ebay should take note: all we want from ebay is a competent & functioning selling platform that helps buyers find our products. We need a rock solid search engine that shows people all the relevant listings and not PL that have nothing to do with search. We need the basic functions of the site to work without myriads of glitches. We need transparency when changes are made so we can adjust our businesses.
stevemartin60
·3 years agoHas anyone seen any communication from eBay of any type--email, PM, notice on this mssage board, newspaper ad, skywriter, carrier pigeon-- giving us any idea what the h#%^ is going on?
Thanks in advance.
thevegasbroker
·3 years agoHi there,
I also seen a 50% decrease in traffic the last 30 days which never happened to me. I bet you it is connected to the new paid ad marketing that eBay recently introduced.
oldedale
·3 years agoWe also see huge drops in traffic impressions from a certain date onward. 40,000 impressions for weeks, drops to 20,000 or LESS from one day onward. example 40K until 5/1 then traffic drops to 20K and stays at lower rate. The day EBAY pushes out quarterly updates. This has happened every quarter for 2 years.
oldedale
·3 years agoWe had steady daily sales until eBay went to ITEM SPECIFIC SEARCHES. We averaged 2K month for 5 years. After the change, sales decreased to 800 month. 2022 was down -55% from any previous year. 2023 sales, if traffic stays at this low level, 2023 annual sales will drop another -55%. 17 years selling on eBay, we were successful until ITEM SPECIFIC SEARCH. TRS 17 years.
hk-resale
·3 years ago@zamo-zuan @valueaddedresource @blacktopautoparts
Any thoughts on our Promoted Listing Standard Data? Our numbers are inverted compared to Zamo-Zuan's graphs.
Impressions, Clicks & Sales:
nells250
·3 years agoWhen I joined Ebay in 1999, I was able to sell spare items from my various collections, and other items that needed a new home. It was fun and provided a very small amount of "play" money.
Fast forward to 2023, and I pay fees for listings that get NO HITS, thus NO SALES. I don't know if Ebay is on the ESG bandwagon, but after 24 years I no longer have any faith in being able to sell ANYTHING here.
Perhaps they would rather we all just toss our unsold items in the trash... instead of giving them new homes... not very "green" now, is it? }:-(
mybigsale
·3 years ago@nells250
Perhaps they would rather we all just toss our unsold items in the trash... instead of giving them new homes... not very "green" now, is it? }:-(
Have you tried promoting your items with a 100% Ad Rate?
You may not have to trash your items AND eBay will be where they want to be with fee earnings. A win-win situation. 🙄 A very "green" solution for the environment AND for eBay. Not so much for sellers. ☹ï¸
nells250
·3 years agoYES, I did for some, but NO RESULTS. Most of the time I don't list high dollar items, so ANY additional fees are a burden. And when I DO list more expensive items, EVEN ONES THAT HAVE SIMILAR EXAMPLES LISTED BY OTHER SELLERS, they don't sell. I usually try to list those items LOWER that other examples and STILL they don't get hits or bids, while the others sell. There's something wrong there...
zamo-zuan
·3 years agoUpdated image with a comparison that I quickly aligned the dates as best as I can in short time:
The fluctuations seem less in the recent chart than the past ones, but minor ones (particularly in Organic impressions) is still there.
Numbers are still off comparing to the traffic report. I'll use the 10th and yesterday as examples:
toolz4youltd
·3 years agoThe problem is ebay main search bar (what buyers use) is conflicting against what we are selling. eBay are adding new categories and making sellers put items in the new categories, but the ebay buyer search is searching in old categories, meaning that the potential buyer is not seeing all items on offer. Just try searching for something you're selling and then try listing it for sale, look at the categories.
stevemartin60
·3 years agoIt has become totally obvious that eBay does not consider itself to be in a partnership-- even metaphorically--with its sellers.
At this point, it feels like they will continue to say or do anything they want to us and our withering accounts if they they think it will somehow (?!?!) add to THEIR bottom line. (Talk about ODD thinking!)
I know, based on past efforts to clean up truly fraudulent sellers with them in the fine arts category, that being above board and honest is not a high eBay priority. Now, obviously, neither is having a platform that is in anyway fair, or that is at all above being just marginally functional.
stevemartin60
·3 years agoMethinks someone went to politician school...lol.
brian_burke@ebay
LOL - I don't think I could ever pass off as being a politician, and that school sounds a bit boring (no offense to the politicians 😀)
an-57470
·3 years agoI am having the same issue. There are many sellers who are frustrated with whatever eBay is doing that is drastically impacting views and sales. It seems like they are trying to push sellers into their new promotions which is set up to simply take more money from sellers.
Several days in the past couple of weeks the site just kept crashing as well.
The people working in IT need to get it together. I feel like this is a huge reason sales are slow.
I am branching out to other platforms since my income from eBay has dropped so dramatically.
femmefan1946
·3 years agoSince April 6th, my eBay impressions have dropped significantly from an average above 1 million to around 500k,
On the third hand....
It sounds as if Impressions are pretty meaningless, if it takes a half a million impressions to make 120 sales so far in May.
Or about 300 in April.
Feedback isn't very useful since few buyers leave any, but it seems that you normally get about 110 FB a month and the past 30 days you got 145. Still- outliers.
The question should be how did your April 2023 sales compare with April 2022? April 2019? April 2018?
Ignore 2020 and 2021, which are outliers due to the pandemic surge in online buying.
wilsonharborsales
·3 years agoIn the past 45 days I have spoken to project leads, developers, a VP, and customer service multiple times. My sales dropped 40% on April 1st and have never recovered, with the exception of 4 days of normal sales interspersed between. I have had reps cry on the phone that they are overwhelmed, I was given the email of someone at eBay to contact - and they replied that they were on PTO and not to contact them, I talked to a rep who put her brother on the phone because her kids were crying. I have been told my items are no longer on trend, my browser needs to be refreshed, the economy is bad, the pandemic is over, I had a return and that is why, my prices aren’t competitive, I need to promote higher than 25%, there aren’t enough item specifics, there are too many item specifics.
I am not a rude or confrontational person. I list daily, top rated, free returns, promote up to 25%, 100% feedback, etc etc. I am supporting my children and two elderly parents with this business and am working my hardest at it, as people are counting on me.
I can not compare my numbers to 2019 because my store has grown exponentially since then. My feedback is a lagging indicator as many of those buyers purchased items prior to April.
Anyway, I just feel done talking about it and running into brick walls. Hundreds of other large stores (10,000+ items) have experienced the same fast drop in sales and are feeling the same frustrations as I am.
Good luck everyone. Hang in there.
blacktopautoparts
·3 years agoI have gotten to the same point like you have and at a loss with what is going on. I'll give a good example of some whacky things going on with our account. On Thursday we had an $1100 drop in sales from Wednesday, which Wednesday we had $2400 in sales. So doing the math we were at $1300 for Thursday, then on Friday after a very slow morning into the afternoon, someone at eBay hits the sell button and sales pickup where we end at almost $2900 for the day. Then come to today we have only sold $1200 with a $1700 drop from the day before and it has been super slow. This up one day, down the next and vice versa every day is just ridiculous. We no longer have any ebs and flows like we did before May 2022 when they started making all of these changes to promoted listings and removal of the bots to start a chain of change after change.
Even today my son goes to list brand new listings, and they have made changes again to the Item Specifics on our account. I am not sure what in the world is going on over there, but someone is bored and they love to just keep playing around with the Item Specifics.
We are in the top 15% of sellers in the eBay Motors category, and I know @zamo-zuan is in the top 5%. What does that tell you when many of us that are higher up in our categories and have a decent sized inventory are suffering the way that we are in many different ways?
Even the Listings Quality Report doesn't have accurate data and they were going to completely sunset this feature and then for some odd reason decided to keep it around. I have had conversations with many in the company besides CS with regards to this report and how its a joke with inaccurate data.
bamboovintageclothing
·3 years agoFOR THE ATTENTION OF EBAY
what are you guys playing at? This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever witnessed a multi million company do.
Stop replying on these boards with the same old “as per our IT department, the glitch has now been resolvedâ€.
The glitch has not been resolved at all. What ever stupid unneeded updates you guys are working on has really messed things up this time.
If the glitch has been resolved, why are so many people on here and on YouTube still complaining about horrendous sales?
HELLO EBAY, ARE YOU LISTENING?
Your software is broken. The fact that it has been broken for over 1 month is plain and simply ridiculous. There is no way your competitors would have let this issue carry on for all this time. It’s no wander your company has been on a steep decline for the past 10 years when glitches like this continue for so long.
HELLO EBAY! This is some peoples lively hoods. This is how we pay bills.
Why don’t you get the top IT teams to have a meeting, gather the data, figure out what’s causing this stupid issue and work around the clock until it’s finally resolved.
I MEAN SERIOUSLY GUYS, ITS BEEN OVER 1 MONTH AND STILL ONGOING? READ THE BOARDS, WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDS. WE ARE NOT MAKING THIS UP! HELLO! THERE IS A SERIOUS ISSUE THAT NEEDS RESOLVING.
bamboovintageclothing
·3 years agoCan some at EBay just give us a honest explanation to what is going on behind the scenes?
We are paying for store subscriptions, we are your customers and we deserve real honest answers.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=279Hvh7IV0U
Just read the comments. Do you think think everyone in the comments and everyone that has commented here are complaining for nothing?
The evidence is all over the internet, everyone is complaining about lack of sales. It ranges from small stores like mine, through to large stores with 10000+ items.
Why not get someone from your PR team to make a video and be honest and transparent about what has been going on and when the problem will be resolved. We just need to know when this will fixed so we can work around the problem.
COME ON EBAY, GIVE US SOME ANSWERS.
nilis13
·3 years agoWell said, as my freefall of sales along with others continues!! I also have a store subscription and will most likely downgrade by year's end..
brian_burke@ebay
@bamboovintageclothing Thank you for the post. The reported issue was about the metrics on the traffic report, not a sales decline. My response was specific to that issue, which the team confirmed has been addressed. It was not to deny any sellers perspective or experience with a sales decline. If it came across like that I apologize.
Slow sales or a sales decline can be caused by multiple factors, and rarely is there a single response that would apply to all sellers.
Brian
bamboovintageclothing
·3 years agoThe sales decline started when the metrics on the traffic report occurred and has not improved since. So when you say the the issue has been resolved, sorry, but I have to disagree with you. I made 1 sale on Saturday. My average conversation rate has been hovering around the 1% mark for years so even with a small store of 400 items, I should be selling minimum 4 items per day.
I was one of the unlucky ones to have been affected around the end of March.
I called customer service and escalated the problem to management and was fobbed off with the usual “we have spoken to our IT department and there is nothing wrong with your accountâ€.
It was obvious to me something went wrong. I was listing multiple items daily, most with a medium to high demand and getting 0 or 1-2 views per item. Then some of these new listed items were showing having 2 or 3 watchers with 0 views. When I called called customer service, I gave them item specific numbers to check the view count. These items were showing as 0 views on my side but on your side they were showing as 10-20 views in the first 2 days of being listed.
My suspicion is your view counter is totally broken. This whole thing started when you introduced the update to get rid of bot traffic and things have never been right since then.
Whilst I appreciate the point you are trying to make with your “Slow sales or a sales decline can be caused by multiple factors, and rarely is there a single response that would apply to all sellers†comment. I have to disagree with you on this occasion.
I think your view counter is still not working and has never been correct since the update to remove bot traffic.
Its difficult for me to prove this now as I haven’t purchased new stock to list as sales have been so bad, I’m genuinely wandering if there is any point in re-stocking.
There have always been ups and downs but I think it’s never been this bad before. Yes the economy is a mess, however I was out in bars and restaurants at the weekend and they were jam packed so people are still spending money.
At the end of the day, there are hundreds of sellers on here and thousands of comments on YouTube videos complaining about low views and sales at the moment. My question is, why is there not a team of top level employees sat around a desk right now working around the clock trying to figure out what exactly is causing this issue and how can it be resolved asap.
The fact that you seem to think the problem has been resolved and the lack of transparency from EBay is extremely frustrating.
magicwandprices
·3 years agoThese new changes are making ebay confusing. Have you all seen this??? This is something that should be asked when the customer is checks out, not when they are trying to add an item. This window pops up if you click on "add to cart". If you click on the "x" the item doesn't get added. You actually have to scroll down to click on proceed. This is ridiculous. The item should be added to the cart regardless if the customer chooses a protection plan.
the-hook-and-the-loop
·3 years agoI'm interested to know how Allstate is insuring items that are 40+ years old. Basically, every claim will be denied but for the buyers that do purchase the protection plans, they will receive a piece of mind(because they are obviously missing a piece if their purchasing this), and eBay will get their cut of course.
etrusca
·3 years agoHi thanks for sharing this - a warranty is totally inappropriate for your collectible. it sounds like this was meant for a brand new appliance or tire /motor parts category and i didn't know they were offering that.
i recommend you report it right away and ask to speak to a supervisor at ebay in the selling dept and/or have it escalated to reporting technical difficulties beyond this thread which is different. that's very concerning!
magicwandprices
·3 years agoMy page views have been going up like crazy, but 0 sales for almost a week. Are the page views real?
the-hook-and-the-loop
·3 years agoOK, so everything is perfect and working as it should. Peachy.
wilsonharborsales
·3 years agoMy promoted listings impressions dropped by 40% overnight on April 1st and never recovered. If you go to YouTube, you will see many big store sellers say that they are experiencing the same thing. Sellers are being forced onto other platforms to keep their businesses alive.
Something happened at the start of April and the issue isn’t fixed. Even if the metrics are now being counted properly, it doesn’t account for the outsized drop in traffic and sales on April 1st.
I am not sure what else to say or do.
bigskysell
·3 years ago^^^ Ditto to what Wilson just said ^^^
the-hook-and-the-loop
·3 years agoI agree and experienced similar loss of sales recently but I can't forget when the problems really began exactly one year ago. Many sellers took a large hit when they decided to not count bot views and only show 30 day rolling figures. I could care less if they put emojis of piles of crap in my view counter. It's been declining with absolutely every change they make. I guess they would rather have 20% of $100,000 than 13% of $250,000.
brian_burke@ebay
@wilsonharborsales - and the others who reported a drop in PL impressions since April. I forwarded it on and will circle back when I hear back.
Thank you for reporting this specific issue.
Brian
nilis13
·3 years agoHi Brian,
I am having the same issues also - called and still nothing - please add me to the list of names also.
gotta-have-it-collectables
·3 years agoWell I can see this is going to be another thread that goes on for ever as sales sink to oblivion and NO ONE from eBay ever comes to help.
I know you see us!
Will I get MY $1000++ a month sales back...ever?
44012
·3 years agoI'm so sad this thread is still going. I had to stop thinking about this and went back to counting inventory and checking listings. I'm sure someone will help soon.
gotta-have-it-collectables
·3 years agoI rarely read this stuff and am constantly adding inventory from an eternal pile but cannot make ANY headway no matter what it seems.
I'm at 2,500/15k and not seeing even a 5% monthly return.
I add daily and my store inventory goes up every month.
Year after year but sales Never increase.
Huh?????
valueaddedresource
·3 years ago@gotta-have-it-collectables per Brian Burke's responses earlier in this thread, they are escalating examples to the product teams and the VP of North America is aware of this thread as well.
While it's good for anyone with concerns to chime in here, I think the best thing we can all do at this point is to provide very specific examples (with screenshots if possible) of exactly what you are seeing in your reports and detailed data about how you believe it is impacting your account.
Detailed reports are helpful all around - they provide specific points of direction for the product teams to dig into and also provide specific points/questions for everyone here to keep track of and hold eBay accountable for getting answers to. 😉
For anyone who isn't comfortable sharing that level of information publicly, all of the community staff are also aware of this thread so you should be able to reach out to Kyle, Elizabeth, or Devon to have them send your examples to the product teams as well.
blacktopautoparts
·3 years agoBTW, I have to commend you for all the work you do on your site.
Whatever they have done, has gotten out of hand here big time. On Wednesday for example, we made all of our sales throughout the morning and afternoon. Then around 3 pm, we would have 1 sale trickle in every 2 hours from that point on. At that point questions stopped coming in and even buyer initiated (or AI initiated) offers stopped coming in too. We still ended the day at a decent amount of sales, but then yesterday we took a 50% drop in total sales from the day before. Yet again going several hours in between of no sales.
Today we are noticing the same old shenanigans. After continually looking at the traffic tab, our eBay traffic is down in the negatives, while the External traffic is up.
I just also noticed that as of 5/16 there are also going to be more category changes. You guys very well know that this has been something that they probably have been messing with on the Live environment for weeks since they never do anything on a demo testing environment. If you guys remember, they did this again last May 2022 with some drastic changes with promoted listings that ended up really hurting a lot of us throughout the rest of the year.
They added this to our account a few days ago, which is when I think some of these problems got even worse for us. Of course its the good old PLA, which for many of us selling used items it just doesn't work.
I have never seen a company mess with so much these last few years and we sell across multiple platforms. There are still so many old legacy pages, that you would think they'd be fixing those......but no, they have to keep fiddling around with things like promoted listings because they continue to run out of tricks in the trick bag to make it look like they are churning a profit.
Selling in the eBay Motors category, we should be killing it from end of February through end of August/early September. That is no longer the case. You get tired of keep trying to work around their mishaps to get sales. What they do not understand is that many of us do not just sit and rest on our laurels here, we are eager and aggressive to sell....but there are way too many roadblocks of late.
We already are spending so much via promoted listings, that I love when CS tells us to go and also spend money to promote our eBay listings on external sites. At that point, why are we paying them to do with promoted listings and the store fees, sub, etc. if they also want us to go out and spend even more money to promoted our items?
valueaddedresource
·3 years agoThanks for the kind words @blacktopautoparts , sorry to hear your sales are suffering too.
The 5/16 category changes don't appear to be impacting motors, so hopefully that won't affect you. 🤞
ekmadonna
·3 years agoThis is the response from EBAY about my Page View Discrepancies on May 10
ekmadonna,
The Product team looked at your account. The May 10th data looked odd, but after researching it here is what they discovered:
Summary:
I hope this helps bring more confidence to you that the Traffic report is accurate, and I apologize that the previous issue with the data caused you to question what we are showing.
I’ve reached out to a couple sellers who posted directly, it’s up to you whether you wish to share any information I provided in this message about your specific case. I will not share it in the discussion since it is specific to your account.
Thank you for selling on eBay and for being part of the community.
Brian
ekmadonna
·3 years agoAnd as a side note. I DO NOT have a FACEBOOK ACCOUNT nor will I ever!
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·3 years ago@ekmadonna Anyone can post your ebay listing to Facebook, you don't need to have an account. I'm guessing collectors saw it and posted about it, and others came to your ebay listing from the Facebook post.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·3 years ago@ekmadonna @brian_burke@ebay
Brian, This is one reason so many of us have been begging ebay to give us the sort of granularity you guys obviously have....not just external views, but where they came from (in this case, Facebook).
You have that data, so why not share it with us? I'm not the only one who has been asking for that info for years.....I think we used to get it way back when...remember Omniture?
brian_burke@ebay
@my-cottage-books-and-antiques and @ekmadonna Thanks for post on this. I'm not sure why we do not share that information, but I have forwarded to the Product team responsible for the Traffic Report.
Brian
valueaddedresource
·3 years ago@ekmadonna thank you for sharing that info, very interesting!
I'll echo @my-cottage-books-and-antiques that this is exactly the kind of information sellers have been requesting access to for years and it would be awesome for eBay to make this data available.
It would certainly do wonders for seller trust and engagement and also be quite helpful for sellers to be able to analyze the data for trends, keywords, etc. to optimize and improve their sourcing and listing, which would hopefully lead to more sales and be a win win for both sellers and eBay.
dubsteesllc
·3 years agoI feel your pain. I moved to Mercari and things were great there for a few weeks until I ran afoul of drawbacks with their shipping system. Their Customer Service was quite possibly even less helpful than Ebay's Customer Service.
Seller fees are significantly less on Mercari; I would definitely encourage Sellers to at least TRY it.
hk-resale
·3 years ago@elizabeth@ebay @valueaddedresource @devon@ebay @retro-treasureparadise
Just a theory, but is it possible our "external" site views are coming from EIS traffic? And because we are getting a ton of those "external" views, the system is throttling us? I seem to remember someone saying that a ton of external views actually hurts your store. Our external views have been increasing since Mid-March.
valueaddedresource
·3 years ago@hk-resale anything is possible but I'm not sure how likely EIS external views are to be a factor and/or if that is a separate issue from some of the other things we are seeing in this thread or not.
I'm not aware of there being anything particularly negative about having a lot of external views specifically, but would be interested to hear more about that idea if you have more information.
However, I believe that eBay does look at things like click through rates and sales conversion rates and that those are factored in some ways into algorithms for search placement etc. Generally speaking if you get a lot of views that don't convert into sales, that would lower your average sales conversion rate and over time that could hurt your search placement, impact sales etc, but that would typically be a much more gradual process than what a lot of sellers are reporting here.
And that's why I think it's so important for eBay to address the questions that have been raised about where these numbers are coming from, why they are being extrapolated by formulas instead of actual counts, how that extrapolated data is fed into other algorithms on the platform and how that may impact visibility and sales.
At this point it's completely a black box - we can see enough to know things don't add up but unfortunately nobody except eBay has access to the information that would unlock the answers.
dhbookds
·3 years agoYears ago.......I'm talking 15 or more, ebay had a 3rd party program called Ominture (sp?) that provided much more info in a clearer form (to me) than this mess they are now presenting..... The things I remember most is that it showed the string (url) of where the buyer came from before viewing an item......on or off ebay, what the search terms were and, I think where they went after viewing something. had a lot more, but my memory isn't great anymore. Not everyone could "get" the program to load or work which is probably the reason they dumped it. I used it frequently though and thought it helped alot, especially for search terms since I was actually seeing how buyers were searching..... Brian and Griff are probably the only ones around now that might remember it...... This reinvention just doesn't work for me.........
just a bit of nostalgia
shar_27
·3 years agoExternal views are not bad at all; in fact, they are essential for online selling. Consider that eBay only accounts for 3.5% of US ecommerce traffic.
Buyers from extrenal sites have less chances to haggle with you, have less options for price sorting.
They pay by instinct.
You want to sell high, harness the power of external views
Another effective way to boost your sales is through cross posting.
eBay is now plagued with technical glitches and flocked with bunch of internal noobs who can't even get things straight.
External views are your true allies.
valueaddedresource
·3 years ago@shar_27 I don't think anyone here would argue with you in general about that - external views are great..if they are legitimate views.
The issue here is that the numbers eBay is reporting for external, organic and promoted seem to be a jumbled up mess at any given time, changing from one day to the next, and clearly being extrapolated based on some kind of formula instead of actual counts of real impressions and views.
So it's not that the views are external that's the problem, it's the fact we can't trust what eBay is reporting to us because none of this adds up.
ekmadonna
·3 years agoUPDATE-- I finished yesterday with 216 EXTERNAL SITE PAGE VIEWS and only 113 ORGANIC PAGE VIEWS. Again in 9 years of selling I have never had a day when my EXTERNAL Page Views out numbered my ORGANIC Page Views! only a single sale yesterday with over 2600 listings and it was an item that has been on a WATCH LIST for awhile. Today is starting out the same with 50 EXTERNAL Page Views and only 13 ORGANIC Page Views.
zamo-zuan
·3 years agoIn the way it's fluctuating, external page views seems to be being used as a "buffer" in between consistencies.
If familiar with DSLR cameras, external is basically sharing similar characteristics to how you'd use ISO.
This whole situation is just quite insane. It should be a huge revelation that these traffic statistics are being calculated/extrapolated at all. And for it to actually have glitches that expose the way it works, and they still not fix it, is insane.
Should we even asking for this to be fixed, knowing it'll just be made to add up correctly? Or should we be asking for *real genuine counts* of our traffic, and transparency to show that what we're being told is actually real, rather than the results of a balancing algorithm that's intended to make the numbers look nice and seem like we're getting value from our investment?
retro_entertainment_collectibles
·3 years agoReally not hard to do and would help identify problems if there. Get some cheap hosting, insert a single pixel images into listings (aka: img_(listing_no).png / img_(listing_no.png) stored at the host and examine the hits. Whether organic or external you should see all adds up to what the webhost shows as hits on said single pixel images.
retro_entertainment_collectibles
·3 years agoNote: That views external can very well be bot views even though eBay states not counting those and/or rejecting them that really depends on how those "bots" are operating and/or identification attempted. For example when I coded up a re-price many many moons ago (like 20) for Amazon it was a visual basic program and as Amazon AWS began filtering data coming back I altered the code to also scrape data. That would show statistically to them as views yet really were not. They were not even browser views, they were HTTP requests generated by the application and the resultant data parsed for the information.
So what I'm sayin' here is as eBay may have done away with bot counts or filtering off that doesn't mean the entities whomever they may be just went and stopped accessing eBay listings via the way the bots worked and were identified. Instead they may well work around it using generic HTTP requests scraping data vs using say the API(s) and thus that would appear as external views. Heck they could even automate core web browser control such as Firefox or others where essentially the user interface(s) are simply shells over the actual browser control.
If eBay's actions against Bots may have resulted in some entities who used Bots to access eBay data ended up costing said entities revenues in some way then odds are said entities will code around the filtering/blocking.
Not knowing anything about eBays internal code structure / Cassini etc if said entities whomever they might be are scraping listings thus creating external page views those views could in theory play into Cassini or other code. For example, if I coded an aspect of a search engine that used views vs conversions (in this case purchases) whereby 'nn' views without conversion end up ranking said object (item) in search rank weight well you can see the potential problem. In my example those external scraping views without conversion could lower rank weighting of said object and thus suppress it (or the opposite if coded that way, raise rank based on external views), thus the organic views get skewed accordingly.
zamo-zuan
·3 years agoYep, but there's some inconsistencies with what we're seeing on eBay with those examples.
One note I'd like to share, someone I know awhile back made a script to test this type of thing (I believe it was 2-3 years ago now?) and even back then bot views were removed. So it's not like this is something new. But there was some strange results. Obviously this was off-eBay traffic. But the traffic charts also resulted in increased impressions/eBay traffic. (Though it was only bot views and no impressions).
With that said, the rebalancing is what makes it fairly clear that it's not just the removal of bots. Removing bots wouldn't turn 1000 organic views in to 400 organic 600 promoted, or 400/600 in to 1000. It also wouldn't leave the separate pages with inconsistent data.
There's also other subtleties if you consider how this would be coded. The most optimized way to work with this data would be through database queries... For what reason would they have each day individually looped with a calculation algorithm? And we can be quite sure that's what they're doing in this case, bc it's often times a chart where 25 days are showing up correctly, and suddenly 5 days are broken. If the data was resulting from a query to aggregate the results, rather than a function, it wouldn't be disappearing/recalculating like that. (I hope that made sense, if not I can try to explain with screenshots).
Of course, we can also look at the other traffic statistics. Under what circumstances should we believe that eBay's PL suddenly have > 12% conversion rate? An absolutely astronomical figure.
This also isn't the first time eBay had slipped up and shown the numbers are falsified/calculated either. I'm not sure if you saw what I had researched last year related to these issues. There were 4 discoveries that were made:
Here's some visuals:
So these discoveries have to be considered. And based on the glitches that began with this issue (on the earlier pages) we can see that these forums of calculation persisted from last year until this year. And only once they "fixed" it did more issues appear.
Your last paragraph is the problem. Because look at all the different numbers shown here (or shown on the current issue in my earlier screenshots with the ad page/traffic page discrepancies). It would wreak havoc on the rank weight if the wrong number is being used, and which number is supposed to be the right one? If eBay can't even get their traffic pages right (or fix the issues nearly a year after they first began) how much faith can we put in to them getting the right ones in to the algorithm?
My example of conversion rates supposedly being over 12% - that can be GUARANTEED that it isn't true. So why is that number being reported? And what type of affect is it having on the algorithm?
And it just so happens that the severe eBay performance issues are coinciding with these reporting errors.
brian_burke@ebay
All,
Thank you for reporting your concerns about the metrics on the Traffic Report.
Earlier today I met with senior members of the eBay Product and Ads team. They confirmed that the issue reported in April was addressed May 1st and that the metrics currently displayed on the Traffic Report page (Seller Hub: Performance: Traffic) are accurate and up to date. I apologize that the April issue caused confusion and some distrust in the metrics displayed on the Traffic Report.
I’ve reached out to a couple of sellers directly who posted perceived issues with their data in this discussion. It is up to them if they wish to share the information I provided since it is account specific.
If you experience issues related to your metrics that are unrelated to the Traffic Report, I encourage you to start a separate discussion so that we can isolate those issues. Also, please report the specific issue to eBay Help via the link at the top of the page.
If you believe your Traffic Report metrics are not accurate, please report them to @devon@ebay , @elizabeth@ebay, @kyle@ebay or me via messages and we will have the team look into them. Please include specific issue or screenshot.
There has also been some speculation about how we count Page Views and impressions. For page views, we count the number of visits to your listing and for impressions we count when a link to your listings appears (e.g. it's displayed on an eBay Search results page). We do not estimate or extrapolate the counts. We do provide the following message for our metrics “Impressions and page views are reported in near-real time. Please allow approximately 72 hours to reconcile.â€
I appreciate the attention you have focused on the Traffic report metrics and I hope you know that senior leaders from both Ads and Product have reviewed the current issue.
I'm happy to engage in other topics that are not related to the Traffic report, but I wanted to ensure everyone knows they can rely on the metrics on the Traffic reports per the team this morning.
Thank you.
Brian
valueaddedresource
·3 years ago@zamo-zuan totally agree!
At this point it's not enough for eBay to just to declare it "fixed" by simply correcting whatever is affecting the reporting that has revealed these issues, they absolutely must address the questions that have been raised here about how this data is being extrapolated with formulas/algorithms instead of actually counted and provide in-depth, transparent answers.
valueaddedresource
·3 years agoThanks @ekmadonna ! Please keep an eye on it and let us know if those numbers for yesterday change in the coming days - what I've seen from others is the numbers seem to fluctuate days later, like eBay is catching up or "fixing" the stats after the fact.
etrusca
·3 years agoI think someone should bring up both the core traffic discovery and the EIS change in the weekly chat today so that it hits home and gets addressed as it clearly is affecting sales. I am unable as am in transit.
Although I don't do promoted listings or EIS the impact of these problems is affecting all of us one way or another - I have had 2 sales in 16 days and many of us that have been affected see the inconsistent, fluctuating & changing numbers in traffic reports which even I have had. I had 2 days with no external views, which is unusual even for 215 items , on at least one day I think they were trying to fix it.
Those that aren't being affected by having their views diminished or blocked are certainly benefitting by a reduction in the competition or choices available to a buyer and potential uptick in sales.
The site should not ghost or bury those that are not in one of these 3 promotional & shipping programs, that would be highly unethical. We are paying to be on the platform, especially with a store.
I find it particularly discouraging & surprising that Ebay is making more of an effort to launch unrelated new programs & partnerships with sneakers, sports and even grants when the core of the business - the platform and exhibiting our merchandise, which is what we are paying for by contract multiple times through base store fees & final value fees, their main revenue is not being addressed & prioritized.
rugerskick
·3 years agoWhats really interesting is that most sellers report a downturn in sales going along with lower impressions. Kind of a no brainer, makes sense observation. No kidding. More views generally mean more exposure and more potential for sales. This is exactly how ebay explains it, and promoted listings. If it didnt work there would be no value to pay for more listings.
What is really the puzzler is they are making changes that reduce many, many sellers impressions, which are reducing sales. This is happening across the board. Most sellers arent seeing increases. Ebay is reporting decreased sales. These changes have affected sellers which have affected their bottom line. Yet they still keep making these negative changes.
Its deliberate. They aren't idiots. They know exactly what they are doing. But why deliberately tank the site? How can they justify that to sellers and shareholders? And before anyone says this isn't what a company like ebay does, I say, the recent Ebay stalking crime by officers and high level directors and their minions, of the Steiners. When it comes to conspiracies and ebay, you cannot just say its paranoia. They've been proven.
stevemartin60
·3 years agoAll these megatechs are owned by the same people at the top and in the shadows. We are approaching the social credit score system very quickly now. Naughty people will not be able to buy or sell.
valueaddedresource
·3 years agoAnd again same account, different day, numbers still obviously being extrapolated and manipulated.
Where are all the external views going now and what happened to the impressions?
brian_burke@ebay
@valueaddedresource Can you send Kyle, Devon or Elizabeth the Username so we can send it to our product team to confirm the metrics are accurate? The original issue reported was addressed - in fact this thread lead to it being escalated, so thank you everyone for posting.
The above may be a separate issue or they may have an explanation for why the metrics are displaying like they are for this particular seller. The team will send the general images up as well, but knowing the user can help us pinpoint what is occurring.
Thank you.
Brian
valueaddedresource
·3 years agoThanks @brian_burke@ebay - I'll check with this seller to see if they would like for me to share their user name and reach out to Kyle, Devon, or Elizabeth if so.
Appreciate you escalating it, but this is not the only seller still seeing issues like this with these metrics.
zamo-zuan
·3 years agoI'm sorry but I have to say this is an extremely tone-deaf response. This thread was obviously not observed to see all the evidence that various users (including myself) have shared.
The original issue of the traffic page not adding up *is not fixed* and still has the fluctuations it did earlier. The metrics are most obviously not accurate if they change day by day...
And this is the point we were raising earlier - the alert given for this bug was NOT thorough and did NOT include all the characteristics of the issue! We were told by eBay earlier in this thread that the "tech team made the note and that it was understood correctly" - but since you're claiming the original issue was fixed, your message here confirms that the issue was NEVER thoroughly reported or understood.
Furthermore, the observations from last year and this year that show these metrics are calculated/extrapolated were never addressed. Something as serious and alarming as this should at least receive a response from eBay. Because the bridges have been burned at this point and for the evidence shown, it's obviously not just a "visual bug".
And on the day this issue was supposedly "fixed", the traffic page no longer matches the ad page. So you mean to tell us - and expect us to believe - that the Ad page is supposed to tell us that we're getting 1450 organic views, meanwhile the Traffic page says we only got 750?
We've seen enough to know it's not arguable that either one - or BOTH - of these pages are using made up numbers. And based on the earlier observations (which were never addressed) the Traffic page is obviously calculated and not extrapolated - which the issues last year AND this year both coincide with this observation. This is a MAJOR issue - why aren't we being given real, accurate counts of our traffic as we're told these numbers are supposedly? Claims that it's just tallying for up to 72 hours doesn't cut it anymore, especially when they're still fluctuating far beyond that point, and we've seen what is behind the curtain of how these numbers recalculate based upon the other traffic statistics. The evidence might be being ignored, but we can SEE that it is being calculated rather than counted.
With all due respect, please do not give us a run-around. The other eBay staff member was obviously not even checked with before this response was written, and it only serves to show that this issue - as serious as it is - isn't even being taken seriously by eBay. And there's no possibly explanation for one page telling us we're getting 2x the amount of views than what the traffic page shows. It's not mathematically possible.
brian_burke@ebay
@zamo-zuan I understand your frustration. My response was to get information that will help our teams identify the issue, if it came across as other than that I apologize.
Due to this thread, the VP in charge of North America got involved to ensure this issue was escalated to the product team and the identified issue resolved. It's clear from the continuation of the thread that not everything was addressed.
That was the latest information we had...it was resolved. Given the additional posts we want to circle back with the team responsible. The more specific I can be the better, that is all I was asking for.
I will circle back with you with additional information once I hear back from the team.
Thank you.
Brian
zamo-zuan
·3 years agoThank you for the continued response. The important thing to factor here is if you look at the dates that it was supposed to have been resolved, as shown in the info shared here, the issue just "changed characteristics" rather than being resolved.
Updating again for reference:
valueaddedresource
·3 years agoAnybody here watch Succession? 🤣
valueaddedresource
·3 years agoSame account, another 12 hours.....and more changes. Seriously, what the you know what is going on here?
@kyle@ebay @devon@ebay @elizabeth@ebay