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When will eBay explain what they did around March 20th and why it killed sales?
Howdy All,
Around March 20th, a lot of our sales just disappeared. eBay has claimed that nothing happened and everything is fine, despite countless numbers of complaints, etc. People across all categories sale their sales halve or more literally overnight and despite our best efforts, they did not come back.
I was selling around $1000 a week prior to March 1st. I began adding $14,000 in inventory to my store of $41,000, an increase of 34%. For every $10,000 I have in inventory, I used to have an expected rate of $x, give or take 5-20% a week up or down, but consistent. Over a 30 day period, I could expect to see very little variance in my numbers, as everything would pretty much settle down to 5-10% above or below my average. I've been around for 24 years, have 13,000+ sales, a 100% positive feedback, maybe 15 returns due to postal abuse of packages during the 24 years I've been on eBay and am a Top Rated Seller. I know my inventory and customers and strive to continually buy quality inventory to add to my store. I know my numbers. I know when eBay has done something as they have been doing over the past 3 years under this CEO. And it stinks.
As I began to increase my inventory on March 1st, I got the expected returns coming in. My sales increased proportionately and everything was great. Then came March 20th or thereabouts. Complete crash. My sales disappeared by 50% overnight and stayed there. Normally this indicates an unannounced update and things go back to normal after a week or two of killed sales that you'll never get back. But sales kept going lower and lower. The two weeks prior to March 20th, I had gone up to $1500 a week in sales. The week before June 2nd, I was at $350 for the week. I had lost nearly 80% of my sales. eBay says that everything is working fine despite the HUGE number of people across the message boards, eBay for business on Facebook, and on YouTube.
The only thing I've been able to figure out through a lot of experimentation is that eBay seems to be putting a LOT of crap in between the listings of those who promote at the highest rate versus those at the lower, and those who don't promote, well, expect to see your items buried. I was at the low end of promoted listings as I know that eBay has decided we need to pay MORE to play as they chase extra pennies, forgetting that giving the customer few immediate choices does NOT guarantee sales. Making it harder to find items does not give the customer a positive experience. And based on the number of customers eBay has lost since this CEO took over despite covid leading to huge increases for all other platforms, I'd say I know what eBay's problem is. I can only imagine what the 2nd quarter stock reports are going to look like. My guess is huge drops in revenue from normal fees collected, with the promoted fees being the only thing that this CEO is good at. Basically, taking more money from sellers to feed the stockholders who are losing money from bad policy that is killing sales. Would love for him to explain what happened around March 20th and how it'll lead to a greater eBay, as opposed to higher fees for sellers and worse experiences for customers who continue to leave the platform at 10% a year.
I have had to open a Mercari account as well as a local booth at an antique mall because apparently, according to some at eBay, I don't know what items to buy and sell. The problem with eBay is that there are rules that you must follow in order to be successful on eBay, only, they won't share those rules with you which makes playing the game pretty difficult.
How about you tell us what you did to kill our sales? How about you tell us what we actually have to do to get our sales back? I'm down $1500 a month in sales from BEFORE the time I added 34% more inventory to my store. With that added inventory, I'm down $3000+ from where I should be, which is a huge thing. It's not because I don't offer free shipping, free returns, or haven't filled out all the suggested item specifics. My sales were just fine without these prior to March 20th. It's not the economy that died 50% on the same day nor is it the 'summer slowdown' which started in March. eBay did something to the algorithm and it would be nice to know what it was and if this is the new eBay. If it is, then expect to lose more than just 10% of the customer/seller base this year.
Seriously, pull your head out. You're killing a once great platform.
kh-cathy
·2 years 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.
soh.maryl
·2 years agoOriginal post dated 06/12/23, so evidently the OP is now comfortable enough with eBay's policies and procedure to still be selling here.
tjs_needle_and_hook_book_nook
·3 years agoI have the same problem. I called multiple times and was able to finally get to a person after a few calls and saying the "right/wrong" thing to not get bumped off the phone with the message to go to the website for help, which is of course not helpful at all. They have become unresponsive and unfriendly to sellers. They used to have the best search engine to find what you needed, so much better than Amazon by far. These changes are not for the better. The unfortunate girl who took my emotional/angry phone call was very nice. I told her I pay my subscription fee each month for people who click on my listings to see "my listing" and not sponsored items which are put at the top of my listing before the person ever looks at what I am selling. She offered me a refund on my monthly subscription. I told her that was not helpful at all. She said she had no way to remove the sponsored items from my listings. I told her ebay has killed my small business and asked if the goal was to get rid of all the small businesses on ebay. She was very apologetic as there was nothing she could do but pass it on. We ended the call with her refunding my monthly subscription even though I told her that was not helpful and didn't even respond when she said she was going to refund it the second time. It makes me wonder if it's even legal for sponsored items to be advertised on another vendor's listings who is paying for a subscription. They need to change it back before it's too late. People selling the same type of books as I do have lowered their prices to almost nothing. What to do..............
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·3 years ago@tjs_needle_and_hook_book_nook You were given a courtesy refund, primarily to get you off the phone...as you note, your call was angry/emotional. She was 100% correct in what she told you: she has no power to remove the ads on your listing, and sending your message on to someone else will just mean ebay has noted your dissatisfaction, not that they are going to make an exception for you.
What ebay is doing is legal, per their User Agreement. Some sellers are under the misimpression that their listing "belongs" to them...it doesn't, ebay can add whatever it wants.
As I believe you were told on another thread, there have been listings on your listing page for some years now. ebay is currently running some tests that are actually reducing the number of such listings directly on the page, and what you describe is actually LESS listings than used to be stuffed onto the page.
If you have looked at other sellers' listings over the past few years, you were seeing these ads. However, if you looked at your own listing, you were not seeing them if you were logged into ebay. If you had logged out and looked at your listings in incognito mode, or looked at your own listings on someone else's computer, you would have seen the ads. Apparently, you never did that.
It was only recently, as part of this testing I think, that ebay changed it so that we see our own listings with the ads even when we are logged in. This is why the Board has recently been filled with posts from people like yourself, who come here denouncing something that , in fact, has been on their listings for years, which most of us have known about for years, but obviously some other sellers never noticed.
At present, with the ongoing testing ebay is doing, it is hard to know what your listing page will look like when they are finished. One thing we can be pretty sure of....it will still have ads somewhere on the page----probably fewer than it had back when it was stuffed (at least 100 ads), and maybe not between the top of the page and the description.
But ads aren't going away completely. What you should keep in mind is: they've been there. If you've survived this long---with more ads on your page than you are now seeing---then you can probably survive with fewer ads on your page.
**selling**stuff**
·3 years agoYou can blame it all on Promoted Listings.. The thing that will 100% for sure bring ebay down.. And it has slowly been happening daily.. Every day it gets worse, and ebay is doomed.. If they were smart, they would do away with promoted and go back to the old way of just letting everyone have fair market shot of selling.. Right now, its pathetic how ebay is ran.
kalyoth
·3 years agoMy sales died over two years ago when ebay tweeked search. This is not a new thing.
jlstanton
OP3 years agoThere were some issues here and there, but they usually fix them after a week or so of bad sales. This is different. Basically, a bunch of people across all categories had their sales just drop 50% or more around March 23rd. This was ebay clocking sales and then expecting us to increase what we were willing to spend if we did promoted or start doing promoted. In essence, we're going to take away views forcing you to come to the conclusion that the only way you can fix it is by paying us more. That's it. Has nothing to do with what someone is selling. Pay eBay and they'll give you views again. Don't pay them and they won't.
BTW, I've been keeping track of stats and how the algorithm reacts to a ton of factors. Even promoting at low rates is losing steam and being lumped in with the no promoters due to all the people throwing money at eBay in the hopes of being seen. It's a pyramid scheme and will eventually chase everyone who won't be extorted off the site or they'll adapt and just cross list. It's great that I can just cut and paste to other sites what I have up on eBay and offer it at a lower price there because I don't have to pay so much. Eventually another site will come along and replace eBay at the prices and views ebay should be doing now and that will be that. I do wonder when someone will get an anti-trust lawsuit going and perform a surgical Discovery on eBay during the trial. I'm pretty sure what we'll find out has been true all along, which is eBay clocked our views, which in turn kills our sales. My sales elsewhere are just fine and I've already managed to replace what I've lost on eBay every month with an antique mall booth. Much of what eBay would have gotten goes there and the great part is, it's much much easier to process for sale than listings are on eBay.
Oh well, hopefully the CEO gets fired and someone who is competent replaces him. But they'll let him live for this year before cutting him loose. Can't interfere with 4 quarter sales, though having him in charge IS doing just that. He's awful and will never go back to what worked, lest it show how bad what he did for the past three years is and will continue to be under his leadership. So, he'll keep killing the goose.
kalyoth
·3 years agoI truly suspect 1 out of 2 listings are AI generated phantoms right now. Far too many are exact duplicates & I have to be honest, it's not the early 2000's for ebay traffic. Anyone running a business properly will not dump loss-leading merch on ebay only in the 10,000's of pieces. I would assert they need to strip away all the mass-produced crap coming as dupes from China & maybe you will get more realistic volume. China knockoffs already sank other ecommerce sights incorporated in California. Guess it's just ebays turn...
onefootflipper2
·3 years agoI perform at least 100 searches per day in order to find comp prices and set the prices for my own listings.
I absolutely never have any problem finding the exact item I am looking for.
Most of the time there will be 50 of them. Of those 50 the only ones that are likely to sell are the cheapest ones to the smart customers who actually search price lowest first or the highest promoted ones to the customer who searches best match and just buys the first thing they see.
No one is scrolling past 10 cheaper ones to buy the much more expensive one 10 items down the page, of the one 3 times the going rate on the second page.
You can try to sell to smart customers based on price or try to sell to clueless ones based on promotions.
Or in the case of categories without exact names or that are heavily browsed and absolutely flooded (clothes, glass, postcards, antiques) you can either attract customers with good prices or attract customers by paying for placement. I feel like vintage books of specific themes can fall into this category too, sometimes people want a specific book and other times they are searching topics. I know I search books that way sometimes.
Expecting sales when you neither have good prices nor pay for placement isn't realistic in any way.
The best match system cannot show every single person's items at the top, particularly in flooded categories and with items that are hard to comparison shop or don't have exact names. So they are going to show promoted listings and people whose items tend to get clicked on and tend to sell when they get clicked on.
I am familiar with the original poster JLStanton and the ebay algorithm has definitely decided to push his listings to the bottom. He has 600 vintage LDS Mormon books in his store, and he uses a distinct background that is easy to pick out in search. Searching his store for LDS Mormon Book I find 595 of them. Searching ebay for the same phrase there are 9500 results, the first listing from him shows up over 600 listings in. This is a market that he personally owns over 6 percent of by number of listings. If the algorithm didn't pick favorites then he should show up 3 times on every single search page including page 1, instead of first showing up on page 11 and not showing up again until page 18 (60 results per page). In fact he didn't start showing up regularly until about page 50 of the searches.
I don't envy your position JL and I don't really see a way out of it aside from doing all those things the various clothing sellers do to improve their rankings.
jlstanton
OP3 years agoOnce again I have to explain things to you which you seem to be ignoring over and over and over again. I had sales. For 24 years. Then one day eBay did something and it cut my sales in half. It cut my views in half. It coincided with other people having their sales cut in half. Many many people. We had this discussion on your YouTube channel where you professed no knowledge of the books I sell OR the record industry as a whole as you do not know that market either based on your own listings which do not include gradings. You just throw stuff up at cheap prices and hope it sells.
Now, again, won't you explain what eBay did around March 23rd to cut our sales in half? You keep ignoring that fact in your analysis. You keep ignoring that for 24 years the sales in my vastly different items just dropped off the planet. You ignore the fact that it's continuing to drop. I see it (and others do as well) that eBay started clocking views down expecting us to raise what we pay in promoted listings. You ignore the fact that they're having massive problems with searches which are documented elsewhere. It seems like you want to make it personal because I called you out for your lack of knowledge about the items I sell and how overnight (in one day) they don't just get cut in half unless there's some kind of manipulation. Meanwhile, everything is just fine on the other platforms I deal in. I'd agree with you that I'm doing something wrong, which is not to pay extortion fees at high amounts to get views. I shouldn't have to pay fees on top of fees to be seen, as witnessed on other platforms.
And again, regarding price. You're a gamer. You ignored my pointing out condition of my books equaling higher prices like they do with CCGs and say, Advanced D&D books from the 80s (which people pay and did pay before eBay's change around March that you keep ignoring in your analysis). People do buy based on price. But people buy based on condition. Better conditioned books, which I sell, cost more than books with markings and highlighting in them. Yes, there are cheaper books, but as we talked about and you ignored on YouTube, condition means a lot to buyers just like it does in regards to Magic or Pokemon cards. You buy cheap and sell cheap. That's your model. Good for you. But you have yet to explain why sales for so many people would just drop off the face of the earth in one day. Can you do that? Seems you're taking it personally while ignoring the fact that eBay did something major to the algorithm but won't share what that was so we can adjust in the proper manner. Too many sellers who are much better than you haven't been able to figure it out and are getting killed, as witnessed by the responses to this posting.
jlstanton
OP3 years agoOh, and I forgot to add in this post. We've done experiments for weeks at a time. Paying the extortion fee is what works somewhat to get you the sales back that eBay clocked you out of. Funny how that was their intention all along. I mean, eBay, "let's change the algorithm to hide peoples' views until they pay us more via high promoted fees."
It's not a problem with my items. Wasn't for 24 years, again, something you conveniently ignore. It's all about making us pay more in fees or not get the views we had before. That's it. It's that simple. How much are you paying in fees to get what you had before March? How much extra are you putting in eBay's pocket because they changed the system to screw you if you didn't pay them more money? That's extortion. And that's what they're doing. Can you just be honest and explain that instead of tiptoeing around the issue?
I've done things outside of eBay that have made up the difference in lost income and am slowly building off of that. I use eBay for getting new customers, then send them information on how to buy from me on other platforms at 5 to 10% cheaper. In addition to getting my sales back, I'm helping build other platforms that don't try to extort me after 24 years of great sales just because they want a bigger piece of my income. But, it would be nice for eBay to fix all their glitches and other problems. But again, you ignore those facts. How could I ever take you seriously as a YouTuber when you won't address actual problems and instead try to blame it on someone who again, had a history of sales for 24 years until eBay changed things but won't explain what exactly that is or how to fix it. If they choose not to show your items because you won't pay them whatever the suggested promoted fee is, guess what, you won't have sales! Glad you decided to dive into my business model AFTER the fact. I wonder what conclusions you'd come up with if you saw my sales before eBay's March changes. You'd say I was doing just fine. But you don't have those data points, so (insert emoji with arms thrown up).
vintagecraze50
·3 years agoWith thepromted listed at much higher price points it may be driving away customers as well. If they start a search and see how unaffordable the item is here they may not bother to look any further.
siamjane8
·3 years agoThere is no doubt that all the promoted listings are driving traffic and sales convertions away. As a sheet I want. My search results to be accurate, conclusive, and complete for the item I was looking for. Right now when I click on a potential purchase it looks like an advertising company threw up on the listing page. Why would I click on a promoted item that should have already been in the search results the first time? The search is where my directions should be. Easy, obvious, and not confusing to navigate. Once you start clicking on promoted ads you can't find your way back to the initial listing, causing frustration and buyer friction and loss of sale.
Keep it simple, make the initial search actually accurate with ALL relevant listings, and buyers will enjoy a refreshing and fun buying experience and then come back for more. Right now eBay is a giant waste of time and energy to find what you want-in fact 80% of my searches start from Google now because of how bad the eBay search is. eBay is training shoppers to go off-site to find eBay listings!!!
steve_stuff
·3 years agoA lot of the stuff we list is the only one on ebay - So if they hid ours, they are shooting themself in the foot.
That being said...
Last year ebay was third on our list of seven income sources, right above the four popup stores we do. This year it's in last place, below 'recycling' and the soda/candy machines. And ebay = more then this account.
Jan 1 thru June last year all accounts - $700. avg/m
Jan 1 thru June this year all accounts - $250.
dbfolks166mt
·3 years agoLast year ebay was third on our list of seven income sources, right above the four popup stores we do. This year it's in last place, below 'recycling' and the soda/candy machines. And ebay = more then this account.
Jan 1 thru June last year all accounts - $700. avg/m
Jan 1 thru June this year all accounts - $250.
My experience has been similar although over a longer period of time. EBay used to account for about 90% of my sales. That percentage has dwindled to under 20% over time as I diversified across multiple platforms and venue and set my prices based on my selling cost on those venues, which in most cases is 10-15% less than what I have to list an item for on eBay. Buyers have also become diversified in their shopping habits and eBay may or may not be their first venue to check when they are looking for something. I know it is not mine.
My main source of sales these days is local platforms and venues which also allows the buyer to do local pickup and not have to worry about the shipping cost or all the issues that go with it. Most of the other venues I use of course do not have the buyer base that eBay has but the buyer base means nothing if they are no purchasing items.
steve_stuff
·3 years agoThe guy you replied to
We put those numbers up on 7/3 - I'm so happy I complained because this month sales are -
All accounts
31 sales, 16 auctions
4 non payers
1 ghost [sold in 2018, relisted by ebay for the 6th time since - but that's another story]
Total sales 7/1 thru today [7/27]
$566.
So we've done double plus this month then the first six months TOTAL.
And just below what we did in the last six months of last year...
And the real store - last month busy, this month dead. Like "parking lot across the street empty and nobody on the street" dead.
So we have no idea what's going on.
paraquip
·3 years agoYou are being throttled.
My account averaged $1100/day 18 months ago.....now is down to less that $100/day
They can and will throttle your account and totally deny it for the following reasons.
1. When ebay takes down a listing and tells you not to relist right or worng
2. Too many SNADs regardless of return or resolution of isses
3. Any 3 day suspension right or wrong
4. Not paying promo ad rates
HK
obiwon-kenobi
·3 years agoI been on eBay since before the url was ebay.com
Anyone who actually depends on this site to earn a living is likely to regret it. There are dozens of plausible reasons for the demise of eBay. Here are some of my favs:
The actual programming that this site runs on is buggy as hell and not even a room full of programmers can make heads or tails of it..
Anyone with a brain stayed with PayPal after the split (this is obvious)...
Promoted Listings are a mathematical death spiral of insanity... (my listings are at 11 percent JUST FOR PL)
Managed payments is precisely the disaster everyone knew it would be, and the "savings" versus PayPal are gone, also as expected...
Final Value Fees on SALES TAX. (my personal pet peeve)...
Final Value Fees on SALES TAX. (yes, I listed it twice)...
eBay sales data reports are laughably stupid. They STILL force you piecemeal it together for tax time...
Customers CAN NOT FIND WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR (for over 20 years, all you had to do was go to the Spider-Man category of Comic Books to see, you know, SPIDER-MAN COMIC BOOKS!!!!)...
If eBay could not thrive during a fantastic economy, then there is zero chance going forward in a recession...
There are multiple sales data graphs on the Seller Hub that are obviously (simple addition error) incorrect, but who cares about simple addition when the super shady Promoted Listings seller versus seller Thunderdome algorithm is in charge!?! (break a deal, spin the wheel)...
But don't worry, everything is gonna be fine. The ol'e dot.com dinosaur is gonna finally get it right after decades of incompetence...
jlstanton
OP3 years agoYeah, the sales tax thing......
Seriously, the sales tax thing......
It's worth mentioning the fees on sales taxes a third time. You didn't do it justice.....
bryo_3145
·3 years ago"God Bless America"
sfau
·3 years agoI believe that they added so many other people's ads to a listing page that it is sensory overload for the buyer and they just go look elsewhere! If I want to buy a specific thing I do not need to see 47,000 other irrelevant things while I am just trying to find a description - geez.
stainlessenginecovers
·3 years agoThey've been doing that for well over 2 years. Not sure why this is a 'thing' now but....
Anyway, I want to know when eBay is going to explain to me why my sales DOUBLED Mar 20 compared to December/January??
cardxcraft
·3 years agoYou've been on Ebay for 21 years and have 625 followers. Are most of your solds to repeat customers?
Its great that you've been selling for so long on Ebay and have a nice following; Ebay sellers should strive for this.
craft-stash
·3 years ago0% Profits for 6/23!
dbfolks166mt
·3 years ago0% Profits for 6/23!
I have lots of days like that. If you are talking about the month of June are you saying you had no profit on the 15 items you sold in June? If so you may want to rethink your cost model and your pricing.
siamjane8
·3 years agoI know the word throttling gets thrown around and irritates the cheerleaders but i think that is because they assume we mean a human is sitting there deciding to not show a certain listing at a certain time or is preventing listings from being viewed.
Any form of search manipulation that prevents the best organic results from being shown is a form of throttling- I do not think this is being done on an account by account level as punishment or sales control- it is a result of bad programming and bad AI and the injection of promoted listings, and cookies on computers and trying to control who sees what at any particular time.
If ebay makes the conscious decision to tell algorithm programmers to remove accurate organic results and put in promoted listings instead- that is throttling- then to tell sellers to promote at a fee to "really" show up is just plain extortion, not "advertising" as they claim.
nuclearomen
·3 years agoI think anyone who recognizes others as "cheerleaders" on these boards are partially blind to the issues that actually occur and are more willing to dismiss facts and label people then to face facts and what can be the bitter truth at times. As such, anyone who believes there are actual people sitting behind a computer controlling anything on this site such as sales is likely not very up on technology to begin with...this isn't 1980.
The statement of programming, AI, and PLs is the more accurate direction to look at. That combined with management, poor site development and visibility manipulation. If you look at sales past few years since they introduced PLs and how views and sales have deteriorated since that came into play more and more each quarter with changes they make to PLs all the time it's easy to see. Just as the recent update where they put PLD into PLS and they literally advertise to increase elections to their suggested to "increase visibility and potential sales" doesn't make it clear their greed then idk what would. FVF + PL fee + Transaction fee + fee on shipping cost = minimal of 21% in fees - that is a marketplace high and they are getting way more from many sellers who gave in to their suggested rates and/or electing higher then them.
siamjane8
·3 years ago@nuclearomen i know what you mean..... it seams so obvious how literally every step ebay makes in the PL direction just makes the sales plummet more and more and move profit from seller to ebay- i guess shareholders cant be bothered to even see the damage that it is doing to the platform and its users. everyone wants to make a quick buck without any effort- its like hard work and taking pride in a job well done is frowned upon anymore
If ebay put half as much effort into genuinely improving the platform for sellers and buyers as they do into schemes to increase fees and ad revenue- we would start to see a turnaround pretty quickly
i think.
nuclearomen
·3 years agobut they won't because their commitment isn't to their sellers it's to their share holders, show them profit no matter the longrun cost is their only intent.
cardxcraft
·3 years agoEbay's policy on search manipulation. The policy is being contradicted by Ebay:
Search manipulation policy
Manipulating search results to gain unfair visibility of a listing is not allowed
Why does eBay have this policy?
This policy helps buyers quickly find what they are looking for every time they use eBay. Clean search results improves buyer trust, increases purchasing, and results in buyers coming back to eBay for future purchases.
jlstanton
OP3 years agoYup. Not only are they manipulating the searches to get us to pay more, but they're pissing off customers and those customers are going elsewhere because eBay won't show as much as they used to, despite those items being there. Nailed the search manipulation comment.
siamjane8
·3 years agoI love it lol... Promoted listings and pay to play after in direct opposition and defiance of eBay's stated and published "no search manipulation" policy!
Of course that has never honored or followed the very policies and rules that they require us to adhere to.
The only upside to this is that it's not sustainable- as seller continue to lose more and more money to eBay, they are stopping the use of PL. It's just not worth it to give eBay as much as 40% on a sale... It's unfortunate that it's taking this long.
jasoheat_0
·3 years agoi would completely agree ... funny thing i read somewhere it was these internet companies were the next big tobacco ( and we all remember how that turned out ) , how can any company justify losings 25 % of it customers in 5 years, GMV is down to where it was in 2013 , ebay is laying off , market share is down 40 % ( and the fact that this CEO is still employed ) these cheerleaders need to think , as far as PL from my experience it has always been inflated , doesnt anyone remember when ebay changed the minimum to 2% yet almost 90 % of items have suggested rates of 5-9%, this current throttling or what ever they did is nothing more than to force sellers into ad rates and higher ad rates , as this CEO and management are complete failures , the numbers do not lie , ebay has a huge issue and its trust , not with buyers or sellers but its EBAY itself , thats my opinion
nuclearomen
·3 years ago@jasoheat_0 the 25% lose is just numbers loosely flung, the truth is no one knows if such figures are correct being a marketplace where sellers and buyers come and go all the time, but they have taken loss to their selling base just as loss from their seller base, who knows what the actual percentage would be.
Remember? I can do better then that flash back, it was only this past year they raised min election to 2%. I remember when suggested rates were 1-3% back when they started PL. But no one expected that to last really, everyone knew as PLs were more used the game would change. The issue beyond inflated suggested rates is more due to the mess of PLs that they created by introducing too many PL methods and then expecting people to continue to elect their inflated rates while their sales tank in the process. That is the real issue, I think if sales stayed consistent enough or even shown growth with the use of PLs as they once did a lot of sellers wouldn't have the issue of inflated rates to them. But the fact sales stay the same and/or get worse the more you elect shows there are serious issues in the infrastructure of this companies use of them. The are suppose to make the company more capital but the evidence is showing they are actually losing capital in the longer run because sellers are experiencing less sales in general and that is partly why their suggested rates inflated, that along with many electing those rates or higher only gives them confidence to keep inflating them. This CEO may have been good choice at the start but he's proven to be more of a thorn to the company then an asset.
miyasamaco
·3 years agoEbay keeps changing for the worst. It's not going to get any better. Despite the delusions of the cheerleaders, there is throttling going on. Heck, the CEO has made it clear wants the "high value" sellers on here. That means only the small percentage of big sellers matter now. Most of the other selling sites are garbage as well, but give other outlets a try.
siamjane8
·3 years agoIf you cant admit that ebay glitches and untested site upgrades affect visibility and sales.......
inhawaii
·3 years agoI can't wait for my next 0 sales day.
I'll be posting "When will eBay explain what they did around <todays date> and why it killed sales?"
jlstanton
OP3 years agoBTW, it's 3 months of 50% downturn, not a day. Never happened before for months.
nilis13
·3 years agoExactly, 💯 truth
siamjane8
·3 years ago@luckythewinner there is definitely truth in what you said. So ebay needs to give people a reason to shop there- NOT give them more reason to not shop on ebay. That is what a successful business does to adapt and grow. Driving away sellers with fees and forcing people to use PL will do the opposite.
Making the search so irrelevant that buyers must go to google to find active ebay listings does not help.
Ebay needs true innovation but without undermining their core sellers and buyers.
they NEED a stable platform that does not test and change on a daily basis
they need to actually advertise to bring people to the platform
they actual NEED to partner with sellers- the actually- heart of ebay
loyalty programs work for buyers...they just do
EVERYONE hates advertisements- i know they are necessary, but ebay overdone the PL to the point of buyer disgust- that is why people fast forwarded through commercials on TV lol
AI is so bad that the search shows bizarre results that have nothing to do with search words entered
At this point my opinion of what is going on has changed... i used to think that it was simply corporate greed and management just putting in the time until their golden parachutes open....... but now (with ebay actively and literally doing the opposite of what will improve the platform)- i am starting to believe that they simply do not understand what they are doing at all. they are just out of their league. You cant just keep hiring inexperienced people and cheap 3rd party contractors and expect good results. You must have someone with a vision and the experience to know what to do without endless testing and (tell us what you thing) buttons.
The endless loop of ridiculous changes that make no sense (like getting rid of the color red in the listing flow), while ignoring the biggest shortcomings like the non-functioning search, at this point is just inept.
stevemartin60
·3 years ago...good stuff. I still would propose ELITE CAPTURE as a possibility.
jlstanton
OP3 years agoBrilliant. Would be nice if a huge stockholder read your comments or this thread and actually woke up and put the pressure on this CEO or got him fired. Nothing will change until he's gone. He's not very bright.
76c
·3 years agoI have been selling on eBay since 2000 and eBay started it's decline when Meg Whitman became CEO and it has been a steady decline since. My sales have declined to a point where I am starting to take my inventory to a local auction house that does everything on-line. Their fees are about the same as eBay and the big advantage is that I don't have to mess with packaging and shipping. I think I have sold 2 items in May and so far nothing in June. Another problem is eBay's search engine SUCKS! I buy a lot of classic car parts and when I do a search on eBay, I get over 3000 items in the search and 99% of them have nothing to do with the car part I am looking for. I guess eBay is now a dinosaur that is slowly going extinct!
jlstanton
OP3 years agoI opened a booth at the local antique mall a month ago. It's $280 for 140 square feet a month and that covers insurance, rent, person behind the counter, and all expenses. Most antique booths have a percentage of sales on top of the rent, but not where I'm at in Idaho. I sell records and books and can get comfortably 1200 LPs, 3000 45rpms, 1000 cds, 500 cassettes, 800 dvds, 800 video games, and 1000 books in the booth. I'm going to get the booth next to me when the guy leaves for health issues. At the current size, I have as much value ($50,000+) in the booth as I do in my eBay store, only it took me a month to stock it versus what would take months to do on eBay.
If I sell around $1100-$1200 in the booth (on pace to do that this first month with no real advertising), the rent would equal fees that I'd see on eBay for the same items selling there. BUT, after that, it's like having $0 in fees on ebay other than cost of item. My sales are steadily progressing and people are joining my Facebook Group that I sell out of as well. eBay doesn't seem to understand or care that the best sellers (I owned a store that I built from the ground up when I was 19) have options and that eBay will be losing them in waves OR losing a lot of what used to go up on eBay simply due to eBay's incompetence. This past month, 80% of my sourcing headed to other sources than eBay, where almost 100% would have gone to before.
So, how do I use eBay now? For every order I get on eBay, I send literature directing the buyer to other ways of buying from me other than eBay. So, I use eBay to get customers and then move them away from that platform to others. I mean, if eBay isn't going to protect me, why should I just continue to post all my stuff there and hope they'll show it instead of something that has nothing to do with the search. This CEO can't get fired fast enough for me.
ltldpr
·3 years ago"I buy a lot of classic car parts and when I do a search on eBay, I get over 3000 items in the search and 99% of them have nothing to do with the car part I am looking for. "
Sometimes, it won't even be car parts that you get shown, or have any word in the title from your search terms. It's bizarre.
Do the programmers seriously think that someone looking for car parts is going to just shift gears and go look at a set of dish towels or a rubber ducky simply because they decided to throw it up on the page?
On second thought, it's probably Artificial Unintelligence making the search function worthless. It can't tell the difference between a recalled "tea kettle" and a non recalled "creamer". Too dumb to be called "Intelligence".
craft-stash
·3 years ago🔥 my eyes
ltldpr
·3 years agoRe: the dysfunctional search. I was reminded of your comment when I did the following, so came to share the results.
I just searched for sold/completed items with the following words (without the quotation marks): "8 point reproduction small clear glass pulls"
And it found zero results but showed me several types of pulls which is fine, several 6" and 8" Subwoofers (the 8 was at least a match) and several things related to the Titanic (so weird), including this: "Titanic Pocket Watch Rose Jack Leonardo DiCaprio Kate Winslet Movie Fob Chain UK". That last one and several others have absolutely nothing to do with pulls, 8, glass - it's not even a knob or handle.
I don't know when the search became poo, but I'm sure it has an effect on sales.
jasoheat_0
·3 years agoebay could careless , there just losing customers , about a million a quarter if memory serve me right , they have lost well over 25% in the last 5 years ... wow thats a huge number , but this CEO doesnt seem to care , i believe ebay is stifling there search engine so that more of us do promoted listings to get some visibility , unfortunately promoted listings no longer seem to be working for me , so i have recently turn off all the promoted listing i had( which was all of them ) , and it changed nothing for my sales , FYI Ian did not start the promoted listings Devin ,and at that time when i promoted , items would sell in days now it takes months . GMV is as low as it was a decade ago , there search engine is a complete failure in my opinion ... And ebay keeps losing market share , i now sell more on other sites than i do on ebay ... sad but thats the new ebay smaller shrinking in every direction expect ad fees ... SAD
jlstanton
OP3 years agoI'm good at adapting, which in this case means selling less on eBay and moving it to other platforms or in one way, into a booth at a local antique mall. The booth is help and within a couple of months, I should recoup the money I've lost on eBay. If it becomes too good, I'll just start pulling things off eBay and take it there as the fees are much less overall and I can advertise an actual location for my goods. I feel bad for the millions of sellers who spent literally millions of hours sourcing collectively, as well as listing who are being shut out because of this CEO's greed. Sears used to be the top department store for something like 100 years. They're gone now. eBay can go the same way and at the rate this CEO is killing sales, it'll be sooner than later.
gotta-have-it-collectables
·3 years agoThe REAL problem IS that...
eBay Staff doesn't have a CLUE either!!!
inhawaii
·3 years agoIt sure sounds like ebay is throttling your account (turned off your switch).
They do this for two reasons.
#1) It upsets their long time loyal customers.
#2) They make less money.
jlstanton
OP3 years agoSad thing is, they're just trying to herd people towards promoted listings. But that can only last so long as a gimmick because people will up their promoted rates WHILE cross listing or removing things from eBay entirely. We'll pay the extortion fee just long enough to go elsewhere, or to clear out a store. This CEO is literally one of the worst in corporate history.
nuclearomen
·3 years agosad thing is more like herding people towards anything for more money, not just promoted listings. They are (and have been) pushing PLD method for PLs awhile now, but now, they did this to my Overview page few days ago and messed up all my modules again:
Their suggested rates took increase of several percentages when the new way they charge PLs went into effect this past quarter from their already inflated prior suggested rates. They have been pushing the PLD method for awhile but now they put this huge ad on my modules on overview instead of the normal ad message at the top in text.
Top it off, weekly I get 3 inbox mails from ebay to 1. "Save $30 on statement credit - open a ebay credit line" and 2. "NEW! Use your earnings to shop on eBay." and 3. "get the funding your business needs - Ebay Selling Capital" - again, no, no, and no.
Let's say sales weren't down and were much more like were prior, MAYBE I'd elect a bit more to PL, but the return on that isn't any better then the lower elections, done it, various times, every time sales stay the same to get worse. The other down to doing that is that encourages them to keep inflating those suggested rates and then in the end, as has been, nothing gets better, just hurts more sales cause they are driving the higher rate of inflation on items due to their PLs.
spookylittlelizardgirl
·3 years agoi absolutely hate promoted listings because they never have anything to do with my search query and it's such a waste of time to look at them lol.
jasoheat_0
·3 years agowould that explain GMV down to what is was in 2013 ( a decade ago )
or that Buyers are leaving in record numbers( apx 1 million a quarter if not more ) , about 25% loss since 2019 179 mil down to 134 mil
so i think you're right , maybe ebay is as for your two reasons those things are happening , but dont forget about market share down from i believe it was 6.2 % down to 3.5 % or there about
if you're correct then that would mean ebay is relying on ad frees for there long term growth potential ( as thats the only number that has any growth ) just a guess , but i think thats a bad idea , but im not the CEO of Ebay Ian is and hes doing a BANG UP job , Oh almost forgot ebay is shrinking in one other number , thats employees ( i believe 4% ) but i could be wrong ....
throttling could be a plausible explanation ...
luckythewinner
·3 years agoI think there are other reasons for that.
A decade ago, mid-level retailers of new merchandise had basically three choices for selling - eBay, Amazon, or set up their own website.
But these days you can buy new merchandise from third parties all over the place - Amazon, WalMart, Target, Kroger, Chewy, etc.
The number of venues available to retailers is expanding and eBay will continue to lose market share to sites that are better equipped to sell new commodities at retail to buyers who are skeptical of eBay's yard-sale reputation.
siamjane8
·3 years agoIt sure sounds like ebay is throttling your account (turned off your switch).
They do this for two reasons.
#1) It upsets their long time loyal customers.
#2) They make less money.
@inhawaii - this issue of throttling has always brought about sarcastic responses such as yours... and that is reasonable because it would not make sense for ebay to throttle anyone...... but they do- it is very obvious with sales patterns. What you forget is that we are not new to ebay - many who notice the issues are very experienced business owners who know their market and customer base very well. We can see and address trends etc. Enough people have noticed the predictable and dramatic drop-off of sales for 3 days after an exceptional sales day- it does not go back to normal sales... it goes to 0 sales....this is not normal- it is manipulated. Why? nobody knows.
Anyway- the larger issue i believe is that what is perceived as "throttling" is actual just ebay algorithms and AI running amuck. bad programming and faulty logic. No longer are sales rewarded to those who provide the best product and service, but to those ypu "pay to Play" w/ promoted listings. The trouble is that it is not sustainable to milk the sellers out of business. Overall seller discouragement has led to less GMV. Struggling through myriads of junk PL and confusing listing pages have turned buyers off of ebay. its simply too much work to fight a search algorithm that refuses to show what a buyer searches for.
Another poster said it perfectly- " Enough with the AI (artificial intelligence), we need REAL intelligence!"
inhawaii
·3 years agoNothing you say will make me believe there is throttling going on.
Because experienced sellers say it is?
Because it is not "normal" for sales to drop to zero?
Well I happen to think it IS perfectly normal for sales to drop to zero once in a while.
When my sales drop to zero I don't immediately call ebay and ask what's going on.
That's ridiculous.
On the other hand, nothing I say will make you believe there is no throttling going on.
We'll just have t agree to disagree.
jlstanton
OP3 years agoSo, my sales of 24 years drop 50% and never recover, literally overnight after an update, when these types of problems happen. My listings start getting shoved to the bottom of searches. eBay reps suggest that I promote (pay more) at the suggested rate to get my sales.......BACK TO NORMAL. Now, why would paying more money to get my sales back to normal NOT be throttling? Also, eBay cannot explain (will not) why I lost 50% of my sales one day that have never recovered. If you believe that's normal, but that my paying more money to eBay to get placement where it was before March 25th, how do you explain that as not being throttling???
Can you explain why you think this isn't throttling other than saying you just don't believe it?
stevemartin60
·3 years agoPost of the day! (and successfully launched against just the right poster.)
Kudos!
jlstanton
OP3 years agoAbsolutely brilliant response.
Not sure why people think that those of us who have been around for 24 years and understand our businesses are simply making things up or that what we have been selling has become unpopular from one day to literally the next day. That kind of logic is idiotic.
Right now, my sales are at around $730 a week whereas they were $1400 a week before. If I have a 'good' day of say $150, I KNOW that the next two days will be around $150 to $160 total and it plays out that way over and over and over again. My views will go down just enough to get that $110 average per day over 7 days. Math doesn't work that way. It's as though no matter what I do, I can't overcome a certain number per week any longer. Because of this, I got a Mercari account and a booth at the local antique mall and have started to give eBay maybe 3-4 hours a day. Maintaining my 4400 items isn't that hard because it means I only have to post 1-3 a day to replace the items. Thank god the booth is exploding, as I can put the records and books there that I would have been putting on eBay as, the booth actually has upward potential whereas eBay is garbage now.
Customer searches are getting worse and worse, with the algorithm shoving listings down to the bottom if they are promoted at the lower rates or not at all. Maybe if eBay went back to their old search engine that, I don't know, actually showed the items a customer searched for, they wouldn't need gimmicks like promoted fees to make money. I can only imagine how bad the 2nd quarter numbers are going to be, yet they won't fire this CEO who has shown he is one of the most incompetent CEOs running a billion dollar platform.
One thing I've been having to do to get views is take down all 4400 listings every three days and sell similar. If I don't do this, I get crushed now, despite promoting at 2.1%. Will I promote for more? I've thought about it, but why should I pay extra for what eBay is supposed to do for the other fee, which is to actually show my damned item. When the only thing customer service can suggest to get my sales up is to promote at the suggested promotional rate, then that's them saying that the reason my sales are down is because I don't. So, eBay, you're telling me that you're not clocking my numbers BUT, the suggestion you have for getting my sales back to normal IS to pay you high promotional rates? Now, what happens if I do? OH, YOU ACTUALLY PUT MY ITEMS HIGH UP LIKE YOU USED TO BEFORE MARCH 25TH AND THEY'LL SELL? Again, for my items to be seen like they were before, I have to pay you extortion money and if I don't, you'll keep putting my items at the bottom? Sounds like clocking and extortion to me.
Anyway, I wonder if I got shirts made with the slogan you quoted above if I could sell them on eBay, attributing the quote to an anonymous eBay seller. It's vague enough that it might get through.
impossible_objects
·2 years agoHey, this is weird. I found your post looking for some thoughts on what Ebay did to change things around March 18-20, and found this thread. Only one issue. I am talking about March 18-20 2024 and this thread is from EXACTLY ONE YEAR AGO.
I have experienced exactly what you're describing. My sales dropped overnight and it happened to correspond with the day after a really good pair of sales days. I've included a screenshot of just my daily graph. They have been changing stuff with the listing/drafting tool, I've definitely noticed that - and for a couple days they took away the sidebar search options from Seller's store pages. And those changes correlate with this massive cratering of sales I've experienced over the last week. I'm down 50% this past week. It's exactly like you described from LAST YEAR. Could it be a coincidence? I seriously doubt how it could be. I have friends who promote their whole store at 5% and have not seen a slowdown. I promote maybe a quarter of my entire inventory from 2-4% and I've watched sales totally dry up - it's like you say, things just don't change so suddenly overnight. I've been continuing to list the same exact quality of stuff at the same rate. I check the sell-through rate of items to gauge demand, and that hasn't changed for me. (I sell pre-owned clothing mostly).
But holy cow does this change look inorganic. It just looks like someone turned off a switch. See my chart. That first day of dramatic decreased sales is Tuesday March 19th. I had one sale. The next day I had one sale. Then I had three. For comparison, I typically sell between 5-10 items every day, and have been for the last six months since I stabilized my inventory. Because I am consistent with the quality of things I list and the frequency of listing - so I have been able to count on this. After three days of basically no sales, there was one sort of normal day (Friday) and then it's just been plummeting again over the past three days.
This is bad.
nuclearomen
·3 years agosimple answer, they won't explain and they never do, deal with it or leave is basically their position.