Something new has been addled.
So in checking one of my sales I noticed this new link in the bottom left of my picture. And, yes, it is an active clickable link.
This is, of course, in addition to the multitudinous promoted ads that already populate my listings.
WILL THIS SABOTAGE NEVER END !!!!!!!
65 comments
monkeystein
·3 years agoI clicked on the FIND SIMILAR link that is on one of my items and it opened the "Error Page / eBay".
movieman630
·3 years agoI have the "Sponsored items" also bought bar where they show competitors items. I love the use of the word "sponsored" as if I sponsored it... It's very deceptive and misleading. I wish they wouldn't cross advertise other peoples listings on my page. It's bad enough I have to compete with promoted listings in the search results. I feel if we're lucky enough to get a customer to click on my product page I should have to keep struggling to compete ON MY OWN PAGE!
chapeau-noir
·3 years agoIt's easy to forget that we're selling to the world here, not to a bunch of other eBay sellers intimate with search, redirects, etc. That being the case "keep it simple, stupid" is probably the better course, and that's not putting redirect links in photos and taking people away from the listing they had become interested in to begin with. I think all the ad stuffing on our listings is enough.
meme6253
·3 years agoI Hate the link, Very Cool Mug!!
stuffygrotto
·3 years agoMake sure to give eBay your feedback if there is a blue "WhaT dO YoU ThInk?" link near that crapola. Unfortunately they only allow 50 characters which is hardly enough to say what you really want. I suppose "This Sucks!" would work. 🙄
hartungcards
·3 years agoThat "What Do You Think?" button works very much like the button you push to make the traffic light change so you can cross the street. It's not really attached to anything.
stuffygrotto
·3 years agoHah, probably right. Or maybe we just have to use 50 head-exploding emojii. Tech interns can read that no prob.
ltldpr
·3 years agoI've only answered one of those, and the next day one of my draft listings would not post. It seems the all-knowing Artificial Unintelligence decided that my creamer was actually a "recalled tea kettle". Multiple listings of the same creamer, but I was not allowed to list my creamer.
I took that as a sign to never tell them what I really think. I'm only half joking lol.
simply-the-best-for-you
·3 years ago@hartungcards I've been contacted by Ebay multiple times from comments in that link, including having meeting w/developers re; my comments. Of course, I've also been ignored too 😃
lloydsteventaylor
·3 years agoi went to your listing and clicked on the find similar button. it shows me a page of mugs. none of the mugs are the one you are selling so you dont have to worry.
the key word here is "similar". and from my viewpoint it is a waste of time to display "similar" items. if i am already on your page that means your mug is of interest to me. i dont want to see a page of items for something else.
now if the page showed the exact same item at a lower price then i would be concerned. but that is not what is being displayed.
when my wife shops the internet she always starts on google and always starts at a specific retailer with alot of product. then she finds what she wants on that retailers site and copies the image to google search. google displays all products which have that exact same image. she price compares based on that display. but the key is the image is exactly the same as what she is interested in. exactly the same and offered by many online retailers.
"similar" doesnt work for comparison.
dentalsales4u
·3 years agoI checked my listings and they have the same check similar in the lower left of the photo.
I checked them out and most of the items it pulls up aren't even the same type of product let alone the same product.
I also noticed that a lot of them are China sellers.
richard1rst
OP3 years agoWhich on top of everything else makes the link completely misleading because you are not in fact being brought to something "similar".
chariot_badges
·3 years agoDon't you think that the number you potentially lose, will equal the number you get?
Even for ebay, wouldn't it even out in the long run?
If I come to buy a red widget, I'm only going to buy one red widget.
Once I land on a page and decide to buy it I've already done my research and looked at all the red widgets. Maroon ones, pink ones, and three or four red ones. Once I've gone thru the list and selected the one I think I want ... I buy it. A cute link on the corner of the pix isn't going to distract me.
asset_liquidators
·3 years agoKnowing ebay it will lead buyers to what 'ebay considers similar' so it shouldn't be a problem
luxgoods
·3 years agoIt's all part of the magical innovations. What a joke!
greatstuff80
·3 years agoOn ebay, it's likely you will only get a list of those that paid the most to promote on these links.
lux-libri
·3 years ago"Something new has been addled"
-----------
Freudian typo of the week ...
valueaddedresource
·3 years ago@lux-libri I was just going to say something similar. 😂
I think many of us are wondering if someone at eBay isn't addled with all of these changes and tests.
richard1rst
OP3 years agoNOPE a deliberate PUN
jewelbiz
·3 years agoLooking at the pix provided it seems that one would have to, going forward, have the cheapest, lowest price on eBay to make the sale if viewing similar mugs!
This is awful! Oh my!
ckimodog
·3 years ago@jewelbiz
And scary. My husband had his debit card scanned by some random stranger in Walmart for $300. Just walked by him with his phone aimed at his front pocket. Thankfully the funds were returned. Who knows what can happen here? I'm sure all the scammers are doing their homework as we communicate.
PS Looking forward to some fall photos from NYC. 😊
toomuchstuffagain35
·3 years agoGet hubby an RFID wallet.
krazzykats
·3 years agoI carry a little cash, a credit card, a driver's license, and insurance cards. I rarely have a debit card on me as I only use an atm once in a blue moon.
Two recent wallet thefts within the family (past month). One at the hospital, and another in a distract/grab theft.
If you don't need to carry a debit card and multiple credit cards, don't.
I don't even carry a purse anymore, just an "inexpensive" smartphone inside a wallet case. One of the above thefts included also grabbing the fairly new iPhone along with a wallet full of credit cards.
Watch what you have in your wallet.
A single MasterCard/Visa and a little cash...kats rule!
greatstuff80
·3 years agoWith ebay I'd assume the link will send you to a page that has those that paid the most to promote.
duffy4444
·3 years agoKeep listing complaints here, as well as positive responses. Does anyone really believe that eBay doesn't scan this forum to get real seller reactions to their testing?
Cheers, Duffy
hartungcards
·3 years agoI'm pretty sure that "scanning this forum to get real seller reactions to their testing" is about the last thing that anybody from eBay would do, even on a slow day.
richard1rst
OP3 years agoAnd yet I get a number of "helpfuls" from eBay "blues". That tells me they ARE reading the postings.
duffy4444
·3 years ago@hartungcards:
Look at the "thumbs up" responses from my reply just previous to yours (#12 from the beginning of the thread). Kyle@ebay also gave me a thumbs up... This should tell you if eBay scans these posts or not in order to get feedback.
Now we don't know what weight the comments here have to do with their decisions, but they do monitor what we're saying. I look at this as a positive, and today is not a slow day.
Cheers, Duffy
hartungcards
·3 years agoWell, you know what the most famous thing PT Barnum ever said.
chapeau-noir
·3 years ago“I don't care what the newspapers say about me as long as they spell my name right."
hartungcards
·3 years agoI thought that was Lyndon Johnson.
mcdougle4248
·3 years ago@richard1rst
I first noticed this last month as a buyer shopping for shoes. I posted about it here:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Find-Similar-items-Now-On-Listing-Photos/td-p/33855202
As a seller, this new "feature" comes and goes from my own listings. I think this is another test eBay is doing for the view item page redesign they have been working on for months. I do not like it at all and hope the test fails to meet eBay's expectations and will be gone for good.
coolections
·3 years agoOnly if other sellers have the exact same thing but at a lower price. Otherwise it really should not matter. The world of selling competition throughout the internet has greatly expanded. The good news is if you are competitively priced the one who clicks yours first has the best chance at the sale.
joliztoyco
·3 years agoBy the time they click on a few "sell similar" items to check prices, they're so far gone from YOUR auction (and your "lower price") they never find their way back to buy it.
But you go ahead and pretend otherwise.
Happy sales!!
hartungcards
·3 years agoDo you think that if buyers didn't have that "find similar" link they wouldn't look at other stuff and get "confused" and "so far away?" If a buyer likes your item and goes looking around and doesn't find something better, they'll find their way back.
coolections
·3 years agoIt is just another excuse and reason to blame for no sales is all. If the buyers sees what they like and if the price is correct they will hit that buy button. When they originally searched they already saw all the other mugs and that is why they picked the OP's in the first place. Let the OP "pretend" that is why his did not sell.
richard1rst
OP3 years agoYou obviously missed the first line in my post:
So in checking one of my sales
siamjane8
·3 years ago@coolections When they originally searched they already saw all the other mugs and that is why they picked the OP's in the first place.
If only that were true! Then eBay search would be working and sales wood be great lol. The real problem behind the sales declined are tied to terrible search that does NOT show all the other "mugs". The algorithms have been set up to severely limit search results and instead push PL. This causes the buyers first search to be awfully irrelevant and and unbelievably unhelpful, driving them off site to find what they wanted.
Whether it is by design or just a product of unintended consequences of under qualified people..... The result is the same the eBay search is broken. It does not fulfill the needs of buyers or sellers. It does not connect buyers with sellers.... It simple shows us irrelevant unsearched for promoted listings
coolections
·3 years ago@siamjane8 That is fine that you are mistaken. I searched the OP's mug and found a whole list of other mugs. Did not even need to go to see other items. They all showed up right there in front of me.
siamjane8
·3 years ago@coolections Excuse me but i was not mistaken....in fact i just did another search for " biker girl coffee mug". ebay returned 40 results- the OP listing was about 28th on the list ( reasonable since i used girl instead of "babe" ". About half of the results were T-shirts, not coffee mugs. 90% of the mugs that were shown, were not really the same style as the OP-but that is ok too. PROBLEM IS: when i go on the OP listing there are 8 carousels of over 100 listings of mugs that are all very similar in design and looks. This only proves that ebay has the technology to show similar items that are relevant but chooses to keep them hidden from search and only show them as PL to "force' sellers to Pay to Play.
Again- coolections- until you choose use a real account here instead of a "posting account" and prove to us that you are actually a real seller and not just here to put sellers down- we really cannot take your comments seriously
mam98031
·3 years agoNot necessarily. It could be something very similar or they see something else while do this that they prefer. Or if they really did like the original item, they may have difficulty finding their way back to it depending on how many clicks away they went.
This simply is not a good idea IMHO.
siamjane8
·3 years ago@hartungcards I would not be afraid of your competition either. From what i have seen- this feature just randomly pics promoted listings from roughly the same category... or not. Most likely the relevance of what will be shown will not take sales away.......but the distraction and and the friction to what would have been likely a simple sale us unwelcome to most sellers. Ebay is trying to manipulate the buyers into buying promoted listings instead og organic listings. They are cluttering up the buyer experience and overall making it annoying to shop here. Nobody wants to be inundated with irrelevant items. ebay is driving down conversion on the platform in lieu of less sales but more PL sales. This is bad for everyone- including ebay long term as they irritate buyers and sellers alike.
hartungcards
·3 years agoCompetition is good for everyone.
theteamsetguy
·3 years ago@hartungcards ,
Keeps sellers on their toes. The sellers that can’t keep with the competition will fall by the wayside.
joliztoyco
·3 years agohartungcards
·3 years agoWell, paying to promote your items (or not paying) most certainly is part of competition. You can choose to compete with or without using Promoted Listings. If you don't promote, then you have to get creative in other ways. That's competition.
fab_finds4u
·3 years agoI'm with you. I don't like eBay spoon feeding me other listings I might like on the listing I'm looking at.
It's ok on my home page. Don't mind it there.
hartungcards
·3 years agoI'm not afraid of my competition.
new_spin_boutique
·3 years ago@hartungcards It has nothing to do with your competition, and everything to do with the average buyer.
hartungcards
·3 years agoOK - I'm not afraid of the average buyer seeing what my competition has. Better?
chapeau-noir
·3 years agoThe problem is not competition, it's distraction.
dryophelia
·3 years agoExactly.
hartungcards
·3 years agoI'm not interested in buyers who are distracted that easily.
chapeau-noir
·3 years agoI am, I want their money.
mam98031
·3 years agoThat really isn't the point.
It takes a buyer away from your listing and the buyer may or may not find their way back to your listing. It will, just logically, cost sellers of the original item viewed sales. Either because the buyer can't find their way back or they purchase from someone else before they even review your entire listing.
It is simply a bad idea IMHO.
hartungcards
·3 years agoSo you're of the opinion that if a buyer is looking at your item, they won't go looking for others if they don't have that "Find Similar" thing? OK.
mam98031
·3 years agoI'm unsure as to why you try to only read between the lines instead of the actual lines I type. It is a real head scratcher. Don't try to interpret my posts to mean something I didn't say. I am pretty darn good at saying what I mean. Your interpretations outside of what I've actually written so far have been way off base.
hartungcards
·3 years agoAlright, then no opinions this time. No reading between the lines No interpretations. Just answer this simple question:
Do you really think that if a buyer is looking at your item, they won't go looking for others if they don't have that "Find Similar" thing?
mam98031
·3 years agoNo I don't. There are many buyers that research before they buy. That is a smart buyer. However diverting them off a seller's listing before the buyer reviews the entire listing [assuming that because of the position of the see similar button] is unfair to the seller of that item.
Its fine if you don't agree with me. I take no issue with that. I don't have to agree with you nor you with me.
Is there a point to all of this?
new_spin_boutique
·3 years agoAs the kids would say - SMH
mam98031
·3 years agoEbay is testing all kinds of different things on our listing page presentations for the last few months. They haven't landed on the one they will roll out for everyone yet. It is my hope that this feature will go POOF pretty soon.
robbie31415
·3 years agoYeah, someone mentioned it before.
Not a fan.