Locked
Discussion interactions are currently paused.
"Throttling" and "listing limitations" and what is possible
Not sure if this has ever been discussed, and I do not mean to sound pedantic, but in the interests of sharing knowledge and stimulating discussion, I'd like to offer some brief observations in layperson terms about what it is possible to do with software.
(I am not and never have been an IT professional. Many years ago I built websites in my spare time and learned a great deal about how code can be used.)
There is at the moment a thread which features a lot of back and forth about "throttling." Also some references to "invisible selling limits." Some believe these phenomena to be real, others say such activity interferes with eBay's bottom line and that there is no proof of same.
It is correct to say that there is no proof. And the reason is simple: if such a practice exists, the ONLY evidence of same is buried somewhere in the trillions of lines of computer code that run Ebay's servers.
There is, however, no debate about whether individual selling accounts among the millions that exist here can be throttled.
In the same way, for example, that "limiting visibility" can be applied to seller listings to align with a political aim or cultural imperative (like eBay's "Economic Opportunity for All").
And both can be done even as eBay's bottom line is protected since a desired revenue stream is merely one more variable that can be programmed.
I used open source software in my work that could be manipulated to do almost anything to individual user profiles, whether the site was an online store, a bulletin board, etc..
Who was to say whether the aim was to "limit visibility" or to "throttle"? To "punish" or to "reward"?
Only the site owner.
If a client wanted to limit the visibility of a certain product on his online store on Tuesdays between the hours of 11 pm and 4:32 am, and restrict those buyers who could see the product to 47 specific zip codes, I could arrange the software's user interface so that he could do so with ease.
If he wanted to tweak the setting to further limit the visibility of that same product strictly to a subset of buyers who had a specific letter and number combination in their username and password, no problem.
The refinements, and combinations of refinements, that can be applied to "throttle" or to "limit visibility" or otherwise manipulate what appears on a computer screen for any single seller account are nearly limitless.
Now imagine what happens when you add AI as a force multiplier to the mix.
A seller receives negative feedback which he / she feels is unjustified. Seller responds in writing and calls the buyer a "moron." AI eventually scans seller reply and sees the offending word. Only eBay knows how it wants to respond, if it opts to do so, but in theory it would be a cinch to program the code to reprimand this seller by hiding his / her listings from eBay search results on Fridays between the hours of 3 pm and 11 pm for a set time period.
There is also a reward side. A seller is always polite in his message correspondence. A seller adds a banner and a video to his store front fills out ALL the recommended fields, as eBay suggests. This seller periodically refunds buyers who pay too much in shipping... and seller regularly sends coupons to buyers. Perhaps eBay says "Wow, this seller deserves to have his listings put at the top of the search queue every other weekday for three weeks."
In both the "punishment and reward" scenarios, there will be no discernible cause and effect because it might take weeks for AI to find what it is looking for. And yes, all of this most certainly could have an impact on whether one's promoted listings achieve the desired results or not.
Really, there are only two constraints to all of this: the sanctity of eBay's bottom line (which obviously would factored in to the equation when all these calculations are being made so as to preserve revenue) and the imagination. regards to all
kh-vince
·1 year 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.
arraus
·1 year agoSadly, whenever I contact eBay Support or report a listing for breaking eBay policies or VeRO, my sales take a sudden drop for days.
I thought it was coincidence but it's happened far too consistently.
I pay $30/month for an Anchor store just for easier Customer Support. Does not seem to matter.
When I've reached out to Customer Support, they suggest the usual (listing keywords, photos, details, seller ratings, shipping, returns, pricing, seller performance, ads, list new items daily). CS doesn't actually look at my listings when they make these suggestions. I do all these things well over my competition AND what I don't, I've tested and it made no difference in sales. I've set my price/shipping/returns at what I have found sells the most. I periodically test different scenarios, to no avail.
Now, I'm using Promoted General, Promoted Priority, and Promoted Offsite ads. I watch my competition outsell me and my sales reduce to practically nothing, relatively speaking.
It's hard to believe eBay, or eBay's algorithm/AI, isn't punishing sellers for using support or reporting.
jonathanbrightlight
·1 year agoOld thread.
mybigsale
·2 years agoPromotions and eBay Glitches and what is possible
Another possibility is that eBay ads promote listings giving items priority over your items that may have much better organic search terms. Or eBay "glitches" are affecting search results and sales. Or events outside of eBay are affecting sales.
Under those circumstances eBay is not throttling my listings, but I would swear they are...
I've been on eBay for a long time. Every summer eBay throttles my listings. Come late fall through after New Years eBay unthrottles my listings. I'm still wondering why they do that? 🙄
deltilogical
·2 years agoDo they really need to do this? When trying to list, and watching the amount of time it takes to upload a photo, I wonder if this is the throttle point.
I was filling an order today and there is a banner ABOVE my order to buy other things like this from a different seller. That is like Filenes taking out a full page ad and the Boston Globe running a full page article about how wonderful Jordan MArsh is on the opposite page.
Is there any way Ebay can further harm its sellers?
fbusoni
OP2 years agoThe only operative question it seems to me is whether eBay CAN do this.
And there seems little doubt that they can.
gurlcat
·2 years agoAlmost exactly a year ago I started a post asking what is the punishment for a seller leaving a false positive feedback. At that time, a reply included the following:
I said I was kind of shocked to see that they stated that punishment practice outright, but was informed that it's included in all kinds of policy violation threats, not just the one I was asking about.
But now? -I can't find that language anywhere, only a year later. Like for when I click on that same link provided ^ to me last year, about feedback misuse, the "or else" paragraph is totally different, certainly no specific mention of "hiding or lowering" listings. @fashunu4eeuh have you seen that language in any policy pages lately (I mean REALLY lately -looks like they did an update on the User Agreement just last month)?
https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/feedback-policies/feedback-misuse-policy?id=5030&st=3&pos=1&query=Feedback%20misuse%20policy&intent=feedback%20misuse%20policy&lucenceai=lucenceai&docId=HELP1566
I also read as much of the User Agreement as I could before my eyes started blurring, couldn't find "hiding or lowering" there either.
Anyway I have my doubts that they actually did it even when they openly threatened to. -
I'm a devout "throttling agnostic" overall; I want to be clear on that. No amount of plain English logic-ing has caused me to lean even slightly one way or another; I believe it would take a ton more programming/coding and meta-finance knowledge than I possess, which is basically zero, so unless something like a company procedural 'leak' occurs, I stick to maximizing my visibility to whatever extent is in MY power, like you said @fbusoni .
But in terms of throttling as behavioral punishment, here's where I think you can logic-out of believing that. From what I gathered in that other thread, there's not even a place to see if you have a record of being caught leaving false positives, and I don't recall anyone replying that eBay even sends you a finger wag message or anything. So as far as I could gather, if say a buyer who received a false pos reported it, eBay would just silently remove it. And I think there are other "minor" violations they just handle without calling the seller out, though I'm having trouble thinking of any right now. BUT .... if they were to smack down your visibility as a punishment, without telling you, what would be the point? Like if your sales and even your views just took a sudden nosedive to the point where you'd be acutely cognizant of suffering, why would you assume it had anything to do with a false pos (or other violation with "we may" punishment speak) that you did a week ago or whatever, if you never even got chewed out for it? What good would it do eBay to punish sellers for behaviors without giving clear motivation not to repeat those behaviors?
With some behaviors the punishment is not only clear, it is precise to the decimal level, as in increased fees for Below Standard status. But something like throttled search placement, that would just be high-school-like vengefulness if they did it to a seller, never mind multitudes of sellers.
fbusoni
OP2 years ago@gurlcat
Thank you for sharing your detective work, which I find fascinating and which strengthens my belief that sellers need to mind their manners and comport themselves appropriately ("the customer is always right").
I say this because -- in my humble opinion and from what I have read here by certain stellar forum participants with deep and genuine expertise -- we are witnessing a glacial, but ineluctable, transition by eBay in the direction of tightening things up here for sellers and buyers alike.
What good would it do eBay to punish sellers for behaviors without giving clear motivation not to repeat those behaviors?
Indeed. And yet eBay DID at one time give sellers that precise motivation, as you indicate in the first image with purple underlining.
You write: "Anyway I have my doubts that they actually did it even when they openly threatened to."
Yes, the whole thing is a black hole, which is why I put in my title "what is possible."
Yet -- and to my mind, this is (as you note) all that really matters -- it is incumbent upon us as sellers to up our game, simply because the capability exists TO "punish" using a method that would require no direct human intervention.
And because this theoretical ferreting out of false positives would be done by computers and bots, it might take weeks or more for there to be an impact -- adding further, as you note, to the overall ambiguity.
(Sometimes, as in this case, the connection between how a seller responds to feedback and declining sales could be seen as a little less ambiguous, although certainly not definitive.)
Like you, I am no expert on these matters and do not claim to be. I merely enjoy the process of putting together seemingly disparate puzzle pieces for the sake of stimulating thought and hearing other perspectives, such as yours.
I guess I'd end by saying that what may seem like "high-school vengefulness" could be part of something much larger and there is no need to make it known; if and when the axe falls, perhaps the blow will be a bit softer, coming as it might on the heels of weeks and months of inexplicably declining seller activity.
Just a heads up, for what that might be worth. Thanks again for your reply. 😊
gurlcat
·2 years agoHUMOR ME, PLEASE!!! I already have the dystopian sci-fi music starting in my head!
EDIT: I promise I won't laugh, and even if I laugh it won't tell you, I'll just enjoy laughing. Come on I earned it with that deep dive reply.
western-supply
·2 years agoWell, sounds like you have a possible 3rd party service if you have a way to track it
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoEBay may or may not "throttle" sellers and listings but personally I could care less. I sell on multiple platforms and venues and eBay now constitutes less than 20% of my sales by volume and that number continues to fall largely due to their ever expanding list of restricted and prohibited items and the VERO program which in themselves are a form of throttling. If they are in fact throttling I just consider it their loss every time I sell an item on another venue/platform.
inhawaii
·2 years ago"I know for a fact that throttling goes on because my desirable items aren't selling."
baantiques
·2 years agoMy experience was in doing well selling one particular type of product and then adding a second unrelated type of product in an effort to expand, having success in selling the second product and then watching sales of the first product drop by the same amount and move in lockstep for a year with no increase in overall sales.
If you want to believe something like that is a coincidence, go ahead, but you also then must believe that the same coincidence happens repeatedly and predictably.
baantiques
·2 years agoOne thing I've noticed they do is turn your new listings search favorability on and off. New listings get a bump up in search generally and when they do if I list every day my sales go up considerably, But then all of a sudden they no longer get that favorability and sales drop no matter how consistently I list.. I've confirmed this with daily listings reports. I'll still be getting roughly the same number of views but all on older stuff that's going to be a tougher sell.
fbusoni
OP2 years agoeBay is like Google. It craves fresh content to index.
baantiques
·2 years agoInteresting. They seem to have turned my new listings boost back on.
Maybe I'll get some sales now
baantiques
·2 years agoVery thoughtful post. A lot of things are possible now with algorithms and code. Most of what happens I would think is not in ebays control directly in that they let the algorithm loose and then tweak it once in a while but otherwise let it do its thing.
Throttling is a thing. Hidden selling limits are a thing. I've been doing this long enough and I've seen patterns that I feel can only be explained as manipulation. One time could be a coincidence but the same thing happening repeatedly and predictably is a pattern and patterns are not coincidental.
I doubt it's an actual person pushing buttons to mess with individual sellers. It's all done via the search algorithm. The only ones who know for certain what it does are the people who created it and they aren't telling. There were some details leaked about 10 years ago about selling limits that fit pretty well with what I had been experiencing. Even if you take that out of the equation, I've seen enough that no one is going to convince me that hidden limits and throttling don't exist.
fbusoni
OP2 years ago@baantiques
Please have a look at what @gurlcat just posted here. At one time they were not only not hidden, but openly announced. regards
luckythewinner
·2 years agoThe refinements, and combinations of refinements, that can be applied to "throttle" or to "limit visibility" or otherwise manipulate what appears on a computer screen for any single seller account are nearly limitless.
I would suggest the first question to ask is why eBay would want to "throttle" a single seller account in the first place.
After that I would suggest that anyone using the phrase "what appears on a computer screen" in the era of cloud computing is out of his depth.
And finally, I would suggest that eBay doesn't need a secret system to favor one seller over others. They have one that they freely acknowledge, and it is one where the favored sellers pay eBay extra fees for privilege - it is called "promoted listings".
fbusoni
OP2 years agoI don't know. Why would eBay want to "throttle" a single seller account in the first place?
I am also curious why you think using the phrase "what appears on a computer screen" suggests "I am out of my depth." Is that not what happens when we turn on our desktop? Data is displayed on a screen in front of us.
Perhaps you are using a different technology?
Finally, no offense, but your final paragraph is so amusing -- on so many levels -- that it made me almost spit out my coffee.
(HINT: "favored sellers" get their listings promoted -- quite aggressively in my case -- at no additional expense because we offer same day shipping and 60 day returns. And most of us don't get any returns.)
regards
luckythewinner
·2 years agoI am also curious why you think using the phrase "what appears on a computer screen" suggests "I am out of my depth." Is that not what happens when we turn on our desktop? Data is displayed on a screen in front of us.
eBay is a website in a browser on a device, not a "computer screen" on a "desktop".
I find it amusing that on this board, eBay is either (a) bunch of clueless idiots who can't write code or run a business, or (b) evil geniuses using AI and sophisticated logic to throttle sellers based on the language they use in feedback left for buyers.
fbusoni
OP2 years agoThere's actually a third category, but since I was raised on the maxim "if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all," I will stop there. 😂
strugglinlikeyou
·2 years agoHoo Boy! Over and over this throttling conspiracy surfaces. It is noteworthy I cannot see your listings. You can look at mine. I just putz with eBay; only 16 active listings. When I list an item that is sought after there is an immediate positive reaction with views and watchers. I have no interest in listing hundreds of items.
Before you list you may want to check comps (active items v sold).
fbusoni
OP2 years agoNo thanks, I could not be less interested in your listings.
The reason you cannot see mine is that I have a separate selling account. I use this account for the forums. Not terribly noteworthy.
Nor am I referring to a "conspiracy." If you read anything I wrote, you will learn that I am merely talking about what is possible.
There's nothing harmful about discussing ideas and concepts. For most, anyway.
wilsonharborsales
·2 years agoI have done a lot of deep thinking about this topic over the past year and here are my thoughts in bullet form. I do believe throttling exists personally, and here is why:
- Throttling may occur to prevent large sellers from taking all the market share. eBay may see monopolies on their platform as a threat to their revenue and stability.
- Throttling may occur because eBay does not want you to grow quicker than by which you can satisfy orders. This would lead to a negative buyer experience if a seller becomes overwhelmed with orders.
- Trust and safety has a statistical growth plot that 90% of sellers fall into. Outliers to the upside may be a liability to the platform (stolen or seized goods for example).
- A worse scenario would be that sales are being distributed through some sort of algorithmic process to make things ‘fair’. I am not necessarily convinced of this.
- Sellers who are buying keywords with PLA or who are creating multiple accounts to sell the same item are flooding the top ten search spots. This would look like throttling to other sellers, but it is in fact search manipulation by other sellers because it will include non-relevant search results and duplicate listings.
- Throttling certainly occurs if sellers are maintaining poor seller metrics or shipping metrics.
- The most interesting possibility to me is the theory that throttling may occur because the search engine is designed to maximize revenues for eBay while simultaneously yielding relevant search results. This would mean that search will recommend items that yield the highest revenues/margins for eBay first.
Oh well, who knows.
fbusoni
OP2 years ago@wilsonharborsales Thank you, lots of interesting information here that I was unaware of.
You also brought to my attention (in another thread) the SaaS phenomenon of which I was completely unaware and that has really rounded out my understanding of what goes on here. Regards.
valueaddedresource
·2 years agoI've personally never been a big fan of the word "throttling" as it's often used around here because usually it conjures up ideas of very targeted activity towards a particular seller or group of sellers with some kind of specific intent on eBay's part to take sales away from those sellers and I don't believe that is really the case.
But that doesn't mean the patterns those sellers are noticing aren't real or that they aren't possibly the result of intentional action on eBay's part in some way - I just think it's more likely broader algorithmic effects rather than a specific intent to throttle some sellers.
If anyone has been paying attention to what has been going on with Google in the last year, it's a perfect example.
In September 2023, Google launched a "helpful content update" that wiped out a bunch of smaller independent publishers. Many sites that had previously been considered extremely helpful in their niche (and rewarded with high placement in search) literally lost 70%+ of their organic traffic overnight.
Despite what Google's pr machine has been saying for almost a year now, it wasn't because those sites suddenly became "unhelpful" or that they started engaging in bad practices like spammy links or dark pattern design or anything like that.
What really happened is that Google changed their algorithm to give social media sites, forums like this one, and other sites providing mostly user generated content a big boost - with Reddit specifically being a huge winner suddenly pushed to the front of the line dominating the top 10 results.
Officially, Google said their testing showed users often put "keyword + reddit" in searches because they don't trust blogs, news sites, review sites etc. to give them honest information and would find comments and feedback from other random internet users more "helpful" for many queries - so they were just improving the experience by following user desires/intent and surfacing more of that type of content higher up in search.
There may have been some truth to that, but Google's motives were (rightly imo) called into question when just a few months after launching that update, they also struck a $60 Million deal to license Reddit data to train their AI and then a month after that, Reddit filed their IPO and went public.
So what does this have to do with eBay throttling?
In the Google example, the independent publishers who saw their traffic disappear overnight by and large were not hit with manual penalties and what happened to them wasn't a form of direct, targeted punishment.
Google simply flipped a switch that pushed other content higher in search, which of course means the smaller publishers were bumped further down, and what they saw was just the natural result of going from being result number 3 in search to being result number 53.
Did that have the effect of "throttling" traffic to those sites? Absolutely! But it wasn't necessarily because they were being selected for punishment, it was that others had been selected for promotion based entirely on Google's own reasons to accomplish their own desired goals and ends (whether they truly thought it was a better fit for user intent or better for their bottom line and shareholder returns).
Similarly, I don't really believe eBay is intentionally targeting or throttling to limit sales for particular sellers or groups of sellers - but I would have no problem believing they have and continue to change their algorithms to suit their own desired goals and ends, and that can and likely will shift the mix of "winners" and "losers" on this platform, possibly even concentrating a larger chunk of the pie to a smaller cohort of sellers over time and leaving others out in the cold.
Google has gotten so much flak over their situation that it seems they are *finally* reversing course with the latest ranking update they have running right now and it really does prove there was nothing wrong or unhelpful with many sites that saw massive traffic loss, as some of them are now starting to see that traffic coming back without changing anything in the last year.
Unfortunately, a lot of smaller publishers who were impacted couldn't hold out for a year for Google to fix their "mistake". Many laid off employees and some even shut down - I actually read a heartbreaking post on LinkedIn from the owner of a site who literally signed the bankruptcy papers for his business on Thursday (after 11 months of being impacted by the HCU) only to be slapped in the face starting to see traffic coming back to his site the next day as the latest update was launched.
I don't doubt eBay's algorithmic tweaking has also caused some businesses to no longer be viable - again not because a formerly successful seller suddenly started doing things wrong or overnight nobody wanted to buy their stuff any more, but because the platform they depend on made a seemingly arbitrary (to the outside viewer) change.
It's a tough reality, and my heart goes out to sellers impacted here just as it does to publishers who had the rug pulled out from under them by Google, but it's also a good reminder about not putting all eggs in one basket too.
fbusoni
OP2 years agoThank you @valueaddedresource, as always, for your thoughtful and informed reply which I want to respond to properly (so please forgive in advance my lengthy reply below).
First, I agree completely, and have often made the point in my posts here, that in practical terms it makes no sense for eBay to "throttle" (a word I dislike but used above because it is the term that is used in most forum discussions) anyone in particular. No single seller or group of sellers here is sufficiently important, not to put too fine a point on it.
That's why I titled my post what is possible... mostly for the benefit of those here who, like me, visit these forums to learn about seller-centric issues from a different perspective. And then prefaced my comments (first sentence) the way I did.
Yes... eBay, like Google and every other online behemoth, has an agenda, and we subscribe to that agenda when we sign up.
In eBay's case, that agenda permeates every nook and cranny of our activity here, from listing visibility, the marketing of "PL" software to hopeful sellers, down to the byzantine maze of contradictory gobbledygook that masquerades as seller rules and regulations.
I suspect it's a helluva mess for sellers (as we read about here daily) in large part because eBay is attempting to reconcile the primacy of making billions with it's declared "ethos" (EOFA).
Finally, your last comment in red above... THAT ultimately is what I was trying to get at (and I probably should have been more explicit).
eBay makes pretty clear what it expects of sellers. eBay does not demand that sellers rise to the level of 5 star customer service but you can find that wish in between the lines (i.e., there is, in the final analysis, no such thing as "no returns.")
Over 25 years of selling here, eBay has convinced me that when a seller does everything eBay wants and recommends, the rewards are substantial. (I had the exact same experience on the other big platform over 15 years.)
Coincidental? I think not.
And my own analysis, for what little it is worth, is that eBay is slowly but inexorably moving in the direction that you presciently describe: a larger chunk of the pie to a smaller cohort of sellers.
And it seems for all the world that AI has immense potential for facilitating that transition, as I hint near the end of my post above.
For me, this sort of discussion is the reason these forums exist. I'd enjoy hearing your reaction to any of the above if you have time. Kindest regards.
fashunu4eeuh
·2 years agoeBay admits in its written policies that it has the capabilities to hide listings and manipulate Search order, among other things. I do not doubt eBay uses these on its platform, to reward or punish.
What is concerning about such subjects, like throttling and secret selling limits, is that some use them fatalistically. There are proponents who disregard their own responsibilities / culpabilities, as if their own choices and actions on eBay make no difference, or play no role in their poor selling experiences.
fbusoni
OP2 years agoBingo.
Selling here requires a lot of critical thinking.
Sometimes discussing abstract concepts for which there is "no evidence" can generate same.
robbie31415
·2 years agoeBay has done some weird things that make me wonder if throttling is a thing.
Now it may just be eBay not proving proper information part of their analytics.
But like I've seen where later towards midnight, traffic stalls out, not a single impression, view.
Then EXACTLY when the day starts over at midnight. My regular traffic starts displaying again.
Could it be throttling of some kind and I hit a quota for the day? Or is it technical issues on eBay's side?
It's all speculation.
fbusoni
OP2 years agoCould it be throttling of some kind and I hit a quota for the day? Or is it technical issues on eBay's side?
It's all speculation.
Right. And under ideal circumstances, such conjecture might stimulate thought and lead a seller to alter their behavior on the platform.
Put another way, knowing that "throttling" is technically possible might be a reason to change some of our selling habits... to put us more in the "reward" category that I refer to above.
FWIW, I decided to offer 60-day paid returns and same day shipping for that very reason.
Regarding our analytics (traffic, views, impressions, etc.) is there any particular reason why we as sellers should assume that what we are seeing is accurately represented on our computer screens?
(I trust the figures showing our earnings.)
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoAbsent anything else, we'd have to. But it comes down to how we interpret them. That's where all of this throttling business comes in.
I personally don't believe in throttling, but I do have some basic understanding of semantic search and distributed computing, and how it can lead to some odd seeming things happening, such as the several days I sold nothing but shirts, or an entire category of a certain item sold out, or my seeming to clothe the inhabitants of Reston, VA for a few days. I do know sales beget sales, so the sale of one of my Logitech mice, for instance, will elevate all of the other products in that particular category, or cohort, which is computing - mice. There is for a short time better visibility for that cohort. I suspect this is something that might also impact geographic location (given that this is also a search category), etc. etc. I can only explain these quirks in light of what I know about databases, but this again is just speculation.
ETA: I'm speaking as a very small seller, though when I was full-time I noticed this a lot more.
fbusoni
OP2 years agoThanks for your reply. I do not look at my traffic stats because I am comfortable with my pace of selling here.
But your brief reply above has given me some food for thought and for that I thank you.
gurlcat
·2 years agoHere I would highly recommend you look up posts by zamo-zuan on this subject. I would '@' him but honestly it kinda feels cruel to do so, considering how much time he must devote to running his business, only to come and share COPIOUS evidence that Performance data is not trustworthy ..... only to have few or no people read and think carefully about what he showed.
fbusoni
OP2 years agoThanks... I have indeed read his outstanding analyses. Which is one reason that I asked the question initially.
The only stats I look at on my seller hub page or whatever its called these days are
In my opinion, those are the only two numbers that are reliable beyond a shadow of a doubt. There may be others, but I do not really pay close attention, generally speaking.
onefootflipper
·2 years agoEveryone I have ever run into who talks about throttling has a store full of overpriced stuff or bad / longtail stuff. People are not going to buy your stuff when your competition is cheaper.
Ebay has so much of everything that there is no reason to push any of it down, most of it isn't going to be seen anyway. Your DVD that is $4 over market will never be seem by anyone other than people doing research as no one is going to pass up the 200 copies of the movie that is cheaper than yours.
If you list in demand items at good or great prices they will sell. If you somehow gained an unlimited number of new game consoles that you could sell $10 cheaper than everyone else you would find that your sales would immediately go up 10,000 percent as you would be getting every sale on the website for that item.
fbusoni
OP2 years agoIt matters not whether eBay throttles.
All that really matters is that eBay can do so if it wants to.
And forewarned is forearmed.
movieman630
·2 years agonot always the case.
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 years agoThe throttling issue has surfaced for a lot of years. Usually brought up by people with no experiencing programming or managing transaction processing systems.
Other than the obvious methods of curbing the activities of below standard sellers and increasing the visibility of Top ranked sellers, it is unlikely that anyone who runs an online marketplace would find levels of management which would agree on the criteria for throttling.
All but the smallest Internet marketplaces have volumes of transactions which are low enough for the costs and performance effects of a complex throttling scheme to tolerable.
The scale of the business on Ebay, Amazon or Walmart is such that many of the theories proposed by unhappy sellers are not feasible. Cost containment is high on the list of management priorities.
During the years I was active on Amazon, I believed that Amazon had a secret rating for each seller and that that rating was used to decide how the seller was treated. But I never believed it was used to throttle the seller's sales, or create limits which were checked for every buyer search.
fbusoni
OP2 years agoI sold on Amazon for many years, made literally thousands of corrections to their music catalogue (back in the days when making corrections was easy to do), and frequently got the buy box. I figured I was being paid back for my efforts.
A few years ago I dated an Amazon exec and she confirmed it: there was in fact a "for-official-Amazon-use-only" profile on every seller that was separate from our official metrics. Amazon treated me very, very well.
My working assumption is that eBay has the same system. Aside from all the dynamics I mention above, there is an eBay catalog as well that needs tending to. Every time we add a listing, we are presented with an opportunity to clean up information in the database. (This especially applies to certain categories like media.). Our efforts there are just one of many activities that go into our eBay unofficial file.
I would tend to agree with you about the difficulties that, under normal conditions, management would face in agreeing on a set of "throttling" standards.
But I strongly suspect that AI has the potential of taking all the guesswork and judgment out of the equation.
It's all speculation in any event. But it's interesting to contemplate.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·2 years ago@fbusoni
"It's all speculation in any event. "
Indeed it is.
And, while I agree, it may be "interesting to contemplate", how useful is it in practical selling terms?
To me it always comes down to: If I'm unhappy with my revenue, what can I do to increase it?
I can't change the state of the economy.
I can't change the way the platform functions.
I can change what I am doing on the platform.
And/or add other platforms to my business.
fbusoni
OP2 years agoAnd, while I agree, it may be "interesting to contemplate", how useful is it in practical selling terms?
I think you answered that question above. Speculation (i.e., hypothesizing, conjecture, discussion that might lead to new insights) can help one "change what (they are) doing on the platform."
Some here like to regurgitate information and post walls of text that can be found easily on eBay's help pages. That's fine; sometimes that's all that is required.
But selling on eBay successfully is like managing any other responsibility: it ultimately boils down to being organized, understanding money and human psychology, paying attention to detail, planning ahead, treating others the way you wish to be treated... and the SYNTHESIS of the aforementioned. I think you'd agree that not all sellers have a grasp of such fundamentals and some may welcome talk of same.
I don't seek approval of my comments here. But the posts here from other sellers that I find the most useful are those that bring together new and unknown information, stretch my understanding, test my assumptions, and stimulate thought. I find that sort of discussion -- that touches upon what at first may seem to be information unrelated to "selling" -- to be the value-added variety.
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoSure, it's possible to do anything with code tweaks, but there is also the human tendency to try to make sense from chaos.
fbusoni
OP2 years agoPerhaps, but I personally do not experience chaos on this platform. Quite the opposite. My selling experience here has been consistent and predictable for many years, and things have really hummed since I started offering the top level of customer service that eBay recommends.
I think that those who do experience chaos -- or at least perceive that things here are chaotic -- have more to tell us than they let on.
The seller who comes here seeking counsel because "My account has been closed.... I don't understand why... I am a perfect seller with perfect metrics" comes to mind.
Having said that, there is no questions that the categories one sells in plays an enormous role in shaping one's selling experience here.
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoMy remark about making order out of chaos was just naming a very old human tendency, in this case trying to make sense out of a complicated system which is filled with unpredictable variables - one big one being human nature. I'm trying to look at this from a macro standpoint - my personal perceptions of my own transactions here are virtually meaningless in this context because they represent a nearly nil value - the sample size is too small and it's necessarily subjective.
Definitely, eBay can do anything it wants (until it bumps into regulatory issues) - there's nothing new about the existence of seller/buyer profiles, retailers keep them, so why not eBay, and IAC eBay is secretive about how it positions its guardrails. But I honestly doubt how many resources eBay would want to devote to writing and embedding tiny tweaks for punishment/reward for millions of sellers with billions of products in a system with already flagrant legacy issues, AI notwithstanding.
Still, I agree it's interesting to speculate.
fbusoni
OP2 years agoStill, I agree it's interesting to speculate.
Right... there is room for intellectual gymnastics even here on eBay.
Who knows what new insight may pop into the old cranium?
The best posts I have read here have only tangentially touched on the actual mechanics of selling.
ckimodog
·2 years ago@fbusoni
Good post...thanks!
silverstatetreasureboxes
·2 years agoI was going to say that also!
Side note to OP, everytime I see your ID I think of Freddy Mercury's real name ( similar)! It makes me happy.
fbusoni
OP2 years agoFreddy was an awesome entertainer.... in fact, I'd bet that he learned a thing or two about playing piano from Ferruccio. 😉
jg.mason
·2 years agoI have no doubt it's possible. The real question would be, is Ebay doing it and if so to what extent.
I was having normal slow summer sales but then at the end of July and beginning of August sales went way up, why?
I could say it's the normal ebb and flow of sales or I could go the conspiracy route and say Ebay did it, but I really have no idea why it happened.
fbusoni
OP2 years agoPerhaps a better question to ask is: Does it make sense for eBay to ignore the power that computers can provide for the purposes of reward and punishment?
pls-consignments
·2 years agoIf revenue is the is the chief motivation (which it most certainly is), eBay and like companies who've welcomed AI into their beds, will use it to their financial gain in every way. There is nothing currently in place to police the way it is used.
fbusoni
OP2 years agoThese corporations have the best lawyers money can buy and I doubt that their execs lose any sleep worrying about being sued, especially since we all sign on the dotted line to play in their backyard.
As for AI, I think that Amazon has managed to find an optimal balance across its platform. When I sold there everything worked. When I buy there it's seamless.
Here on eBay its pretty much a complete muddle, as we witness daily.
Maybe that's because eBay has a political philosophy that it attempts to enforce and is constantly using band aids to cover up other bandaids to deal with incongruences (treating sellers a little more fairly) that arise.
meme6253
·2 years agoThat was very helpful & informative, Thank You for that Information!