Why Organic sales drop to ZERO?
Anyone have any theories as to why my organic sales have dropped to ZERO over the last two weeks? I am a Top Rated seller with 50 listing for about a year with pretty consistent results. I sell about 60 items per week with a mix of organic vs. promoted each day. No changes to my listings recently.
I continue to get a mix of organic and promoted impressions and views. However, not even one organic sale in the last two weeks. Statistically doesn't seem possible unless something is broken. Literally an overnight thing about 2 weeks ago. I even tried lowering my promoted % by 5% for the last couple of days and all that did was decrease my promoted views and sales. Thoughts?
16 comments
lakefor94
·8 months agoBrutal......
EBay is hearing, cha-ching..
stainlessenginecovers
·8 months agoAs we all know; the new 'system' is if ANYONE clicks on a promoted item past 30- so to me, this is NOT unexpected. ALL SALES WILL GET CHARGE YOUR PROMOTION NUMBER!
Heck, 98% of all my sales have been that way since Promotions started (2018?), and I'm talking 1800 sales a year.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·8 months ago@shuffleboardman And just to be clear: You say "Statistically doesn't seem possible unless something is broken. Literally an overnight thing about 2 weeks ago."
NOTHING is broken.
The new rule is working EXACTLY as intended. The new rule began 2 weeks ago. And here we are. This is not some sort of glitch, this is the new rule working its magic.
njtoyreseller
·8 months agoeBays new policy for promoted listings started 2 weeks ago. If your promoted listing is clicked even once through a sponsored link, every sale after will include the promotion fee.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·8 months ago@shuffleboardman
This is pretty much the entirely predictable result of the General Ad Campaign Promoted Listing attribution rule change that went into effect on January 13th (note: the same day your change started). We've been warning sellers about this for many months.
Both @dhbookds and @mcdougle4248 are telling you the same thing as I am. I presume you have all your listings in an ad campaign. While it is still possible that you could get some sales without an ad fee, it is unlikely as long as you keep promoting them all, especially because, as @mcdougle4248 points out, you sell mutli quantity listings, and it takes only one click by anyone to trigger the possibility of an ad fee.
Please note that this does NOT mean your items actually sold BECAUSE the buyers clicked on an ad, since that is no longer necessary to trigger an ad fee. What the ad campaign is doing now is NOT bringing you more sales, it is bringing you more ad fees. You are probably getting pretty much the same number of organic sales as before (maybe even more), but the new rule is designed to ensure that many of those organic sales (maybe all) will be treated AS IF they were the result of the ad campaign.
In short, the rule is designed to benefit ebay, not you.
shuffleboardman
OP8 months agoOnce again this ebay community is amazing and has gotten to the root cause. I was just speaking to ebay tech support about this. First person just did not get it. He just wanted me to spend more on coupons, sales, more promotions, etc. Second person at least understood the reason I called. Did not really have an answer and is supposed to send me an email with help. Could be the same article as previously shared. I will read what they send but I already know the answer thanks to everyone here.
Not sure what I will do, other than just live with it. It really just boils down to a policy that ebay puts in place to make more money. I will continue to sell on ebay but will spend some time and money on other platforms. Thanks again everyone!!!
tarotfindsandmore
·8 months agoYou just hit the nail on the head. Though I'm still curious as to why I'm seeing any "promoted" views at all...
tarotfindsandmore
·8 months agoSerious question... how would a change in regulations change all of his sales to "promoted"? His sales are still very good, but they're all supposedly promoted sales now. Not so coincidentally, they all became promoted sales the same day the ebay policies for promoted listings changed.
dhbookds
·8 months agoBig change as of 1/13
https://pages.ebay.com/sell/pl/attribution.html
herway
·8 months agoThis is my thought, and I am not here to judge. You are selling hand gun accessories. I would look into any regulations that may have changed concerning selling this product.
frugalmarketplace
·8 months ago@herway Very good point.
tarotfindsandmore
·8 months agoI would report this to ebay using the "?" at the bottom of that page.
I am not promoting at all anymore, as of 1/12, but somehow have had 16 separate promoted views since 1/13. So far, I haven't seen this translate into promoted sales, but I'm watching like a hawk now. I've gone through my listings to see if there were any stragglers that somehow have continued to be promoted (none were found) and checked my advertising page (also nada). I'm hoping this is just some weird glitch and not another sneaky way for ebay to take a few cents more from everyone who has stopped promoting.
 
shuffleboardman
OP8 months agoHere is an image of my results I was describing.
eze-right1
·8 months agoI think either someone reported you, no one is buying your items at this point in time, or eBay's search engine is searching for sales from other buyers, which I'm leaning on the latter. I've heard that exposure of items are shared from region to region, limiting views, but that's speculative. I believe I'm having the same issues as well. Of course, I could be wrong. I do hope your sales get better.
tarotfindsandmore
·8 months ago?
The OP has an almost 100% sell through rate (51 items, 48 sales in the past 90 days). He's making quite a few sales. The issue seems to be that ebay is logging them all as promoted, which is...as he correctly pointed out..statistically impossible if he isn't promoting every item with some crazy rate.
I believe the point of the post is that there is a problem with the way ebay is "counting" promoted listings. It has nothing to do with what he's selling. Of course I may be wrong here but the screen shots showing his traffic do seem suspiciously lopsided. Then again, with the new promotion policies I supposed it is possible even if it is inaccurate.
mcdougle4248
·8 months ago@shuffleboardman
I would guess your experience is due to the new attribution policy that occurred on the 13th. You sell multi-quantity listings, so as soon as you get one promoted click on a listing, every sale from that point on for that listing will incur the ad fee.
https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/ebay-advertising/promoted-listings/general-campaign-strategy?id=4164