Agreed! The loss of being able to freely markdown listings due to the 14 day waiting period for a "new" listing is definitely affecting our sales. For sellers that have 1,000's of listings in their store (which sellers pay a monthly premium for the anchor store subscription) - we are always in a constant mode of rotating sales and promotions and advertising those on social media platforms - always a balancing act with specific rotations. Now we are having to change all of our scheduling, which has caused a further decrease in impressions and sales.
Then add to that...having to go through the time consuming process of ending / relisting in the "sell similar" format so the listing isn't "stale" anymore, which according to what eBay has communicated to us directly - listings become stale and may not appear in search results after 30 days. So instead of doing this process all at once, now we are having to spread them all out in greater spreads so at least we have the ability to have some listings that qualify for markdowns, special promotions, etc. If we wanted to run a special weekend sale on a certain type of collectible or artist, if those products have been recently relisted and falls within the 14 day wait period - we are handcuffed and can't run the special promo. Again, a source of sales decline, incresed labor costs and loss of time allocation for processing brand new products to list.
But in addition to the markdown restrictions, we have been hurt by the change in the store search feature. Not only is the "search store" box been eliminated from the unique store listing frames, it's been incorporated into the general search box up top and doesn't work consistently - that's if a buyer can even find it. Additionally the search box that can be found in an individual listing (this is for stores that utilize this feature) - it still appears, but when you type in a key word it takes you back to the store front with no results. To try and re-educate our shoppers on how to find the search feature we actually had to change our large logo on our store front with a big arrow pointing upwards with the text "search our store". We have spoken to eBay several times about the search box issue and were told they are aware of the issues and are working on a solution.....hopefully this is a true statement.
Changes are good, but changes should actually be tested and retested before rolling out so they work AND benefit sellers ability to sell - so everyone, including eBay can make money.
