eBay

popblox · ‎04-23-2022

I tried to list a doll this morning, and, while researching comparisons, I noticed that the total items shown didn't match the total search results. It showed there were 6 results, but only 1 was shown:

I thought maybe it was a "clear your cache", etc. issue, so I did all that and got the same result. Then I tried searching from a private window, where the same search yielded accurate results. Incidentally, I had several items to list and this happened with every item I searched, so it wasn't a one-off.

Another member posted here about how ad blockers are preventing promoted listings from appearing in search, and the results were accurate after I disabled AdBlock.

However, all my listings are promoted, I've used chrome with AdBlock as an extension for years, I research comps routinely, and sponsored listings have never been "hidden" like this, nor have the number of results been noticeably different from the number of listings shown.

I don't know if this is a change with AdBlock and/or chrome and/or eBay, but I do know that my sales have been down dramatically for about 2 months. I've previously accepted this fate as just part of the business, but if promoted items aren't appearing in searches for people who use ad blockers (literally everyone I know), it's safe to say that's going to affect sales.

velvet@ebay:

This certainly seems like an issue that eBay needs to address immediately, especially with the constant emphasis on promoted listings. Sales for everyone using promoted listings are being lost every single second.

velvet@ebay · ‎04-25-2022

@popblox wrote:

velvet@ebay adsteam@ebay brian@ebay

My listings, along with many other sellers, are not being shown in eBay search results to users who have an ad blocker active in their browser.

*If this post is still somewhat accurate, then approximately 65% of buyers on eBay make their purchases from an internet browser. That's about 103 million users.

*Of those 103 million buyers, about 43% actively use an ad blocker. That's approximately 44.5 Million buyers on eBay who do not see my listings if/when they search for an item I sell.

*These results are the same whether the listings are promoted or not, as there's no indication that an active promotion on a listing is the trigger that causes a listing to be hidden. Rather, it appears to be seller account specific - all my categories are affected, even my auctions aren't visible in search.

I realize there have been "ad blocker" discussions that went unresolved previously, but this is a fairly recent issue for me. I've never had any problem seeing my listings in search results until now.

My sales have dropped dramatically (60-80%) in the past 2 months. All 931 of my items are being hidden from 44.5 million buyers on eBay. Why?

Hey @popblox! I just noticed when you tagged Brian it was the wrong one. That Brian is no longer on the Community team. We want to make sure you get help as soon as possible going forward so be sure to tag Brian Burke at brian_burke@ebay. You can also tag sheila@ebay or jasmen@ebay!

Velvet,

popblox · ‎04-25-2022

Ah, very good to know - thank you velvet@ebay!

candramangala · ‎04-26-2022

I have regular 'Adblock' and the issue of hiding listings is not resolved whatsoever. I have the regular version for Chrome and it is still hiding all of my listings, even when you click on my ebay name. It will say '60 results' and 2 will show. It also blocks many non-sponsored listings, and still occasionally shows some random SPONSORED listings in the results.

The ebay rep saying the major issue is resolved is completely untrue. My version of adblock was the first one I found and I think is extremely common.

eburtonlab · ‎04-26-2022

@candramangala

Open your Ad Block settings, go to Filter Lists and make sure your filters have been recently updated. Use the red "update now" button on that page if necessary:

optimus.prime · ‎04-26-2022

I want to bring some awareness to a couple more issues. Firstly, I do not know how long or if, AdBlock filters update themselves. Obviously, you can manually go in and update it. But as far as automatic, who knows if it updated for 50 million users or not yet. I wrote a ticket to AdBlock and they responded telling me to manually update my filters.

Secondly, AdBlock and AdBlock Plus hide all "Sponsored" listings on eBays main search. Unfortunately, I believe this is AdBlock intended function. So it's probably not something they will fix. It seems eBay sometimes puts "Sponsored" on the listing and sometimes not. I ran a test this morning and the majority of my listings weren't showing. The ones that did, are the ones eBay decided not to put Sponsored under it. All my listings are sponsored.

@popblox Just to make sure I wasn't the only seller this was happening too, I ran some test on your listings. And indeed, your listings that say "Sponsored", are being hidden as well. The way I checked, on my desktop I have UBlock Origin. It doesn't block ebay listings at all. I took some of your listings, and searched them on my desktop. If they said "Sponsored" in main search results, I search them on a laptop that has AdBlock. And sure enough, they showed on my desktop but not the laptop.

Not really sure what the solution is to this. Just wanted to share what I've learned now that this thread has me playing around with AdBlock.

gottasellemall69 · ‎04-26-2022

eBay should change the "sponsored" to "promoted" xD
/s

Give a man a fire, he'll be warm for a night.
Set the man on fire...

eburtonlab · ‎04-26-2022

AdBlock and AdBlock Plus hide all "Sponsored" listings on eBays main search. Unfortunately, I believe this is AdBlock intended function. So it's probably not something they will fix.

Ad Block and Ad Block Plus try to hide sponsored listings; I do not think they are successful.

I use both ad blockers, and I still see sponsored listings that are explicitly marked as such.

Even if the sponsored version of a listing is hidden, the organic (non-sponsored) version should still appear when searching -- except in Best Match where eBay may hide the lower-ranked instance as described in message 45.

When I view your store, I see 235 actual listings that ship to my location, even when using my ad blockers. At sixty items per page, I counted 55 items on page four, so the count matches the listings displayed.

books_n_more · ‎04-26-2022

Sponsored are still hidden for me and I've deleted and reinstalled my AdBlock Plus. I haven't changed settings or filters or filters.

Here is a search result without AdBlock

And here is one with AdBlock turned on

optimus.prime · ‎04-26-2022

I can also view all listings on sellers stores. The problem comes in ebay’s main search.

Search for a popular product. AirPods for example. With ABP filters turned on, no results will show that say Sponsored. Turn it off, and they will appear.

When I search for specific model numbers of my products, many do not show. If I search the same thing without AdBlock turned on, they appear. Same goes for specific listings for @popblox .

Now if I do a more generic search of “Sony Receiver”, I appear on the front page multiple times. In the top 10 results, I appear in 4 of them, none say “Sponsored”. However, if I search for those 4 models specifically, adblock will hide them.

popblox · ‎04-26-2022

@candramangala wrote:
I have regular 'Adblock' and the issue of hiding listings is not resolved whatsoever. I have the regular version for Chrome and it is still hiding all of my listings, even when you click on my ebay name. It will say '60 results' and 2 will show. It also blocks many non-sponsored listings, and still occasionally shows some random SPONSORED listings in the results.

The ebay rep saying the major issue is resolved is completely untrue. My version of adblock was the first one I found and I think is extremely common.

@candramangala

It doesn't look like you have anything listed on this account, so it's difficult for me to attempt to help without being able to test some of your listings.

Either way, have you submitted a ticket with AdBlock yet that includes your eBay selling ID via the link I provided in message 68 of this thread?

candramangala · ‎04-26-2022

The problem is, this whole thing started on Saturday, the same day they rolled out the new listings tool
(which now takes FOUR clicks and a search to add an item in 'Item Specifics' when it was a simple text box before)

Updating our adblock manually, even if it is a solution (i couldn't find it) is not the solution. Half of all people our there can't see our listings and aren't going to know its adblock.

I can't wrap my head around the fact that this has been going on for three days now without a fix

eburtonlab · ‎04-26-2022

Updating our adblock manually, even if it is a solution (i couldn't find it) is not the solution.

The default behavior of most ad blockers is to update filters automatically, so for most users the update should happen without any effort on their part, unless those users have specifically taken steps to shut off that feature previously.

candramangala · ‎04-26-2022

This is not my seller account, however, this issue is sitewide and not specific to my listings. Main search, or clicking on 'view sellers other items' will result in a 60-view page with literally 2 auction results on the whole page (auctions seem exempt)

I did submit a ticket with adblock. This problem occurred on the same day ebay rolled out their new listing tool, so I think ebay is the one that made the change not adblock.

This problem occurred before back in 2019. They fixed it because I was viewing all listings fine with adblock running until Saturday 04/23 the same day they rolled out the changed listing tool

ebay's official FAQ on the promoted listings page says that currently only 2% of people are blocking the ads - this was prior to Saturday 04/23, I believe the number is much larger now and I can't believe that a small seller like me submitting a ticket or calling ebay is going to make much a difference, compared to a big seller like SONY or BEST BUY which are being blocked as well... This must translate to millions of dollars a day being lost in sales.
I talked in chat to an ebay rep, he said 'Ebay doesn't have adblocks' - they dont even know whats goin on

popblox · ‎04-26-2022

@optimus.prime wrote:
I want to bring some awareness to a couple more issues. Firstly, I do not know how long or if, AdBlock filters update themselves. Obviously, you can manually go in and update it. But as far as automatic, who knows if it updated for 50 million users or not yet. I wrote a ticket to AdBlock and they responded telling me to manually update my filters.

Secondly, AdBlock and AdBlock Plus hide all "Sponsored" listings on eBays main search. Unfortunately, I believe this is AdBlock intended function. So it's probably not something they will fix. It seems eBay sometimes puts "Sponsored" on the listing and sometimes not. I ran a test this morning and the majority of my listings weren't showing. The ones that did, are the ones eBay decided not to put Sponsored under it. All my listings are sponsored.

@popblox Just to make sure I wasn't the only seller this was happening too, I ran some test on your listings. And indeed, your listings that say "Sponsored", are being hidden as well. The way I checked, on my desktop I have UBlock Origin. It doesn't block ebay listings at all. I took some of your listings, and searched them on my desktop. If they said "Sponsored" in main search results, I search them on a laptop that has AdBlock. And sure enough, they showed on my desktop but not the laptop.

Not really sure what the solution is to this. Just wanted to share what I've learned now that this thread has me playing around with AdBlock.

I don't see any listings that are "Sponsored" either @optimus.prime

velvet@ebay brian_burke@ebay sheila@ebay

When I marked this issue as resolved yesterday, I was able to see my listings as "Sponsored", as well as organically within search results. However, it appears as though this issue is nowhere close to being resolved.

While some of our listings are finally appearing in search, today they are only appearing organically. My best guess is that AdBlock & AdBlock Plus make constant updates that override any temporary fixes.

Based on what I've seen, I also believe that these updates are exponential - if left unattended and/or without any counteractive code, these updates will eventually hide all the listings for any seller who ever had a "Sponsored" listing.

Again, there are 90 Million users of AdBlock & AdBlock plus. The vast majority of buyers have no idea that they need to disable their AdBlock to view accurate search results. While this is a huge issue for all eBay sellers, I'm sure I don't need to mention the negative effect this is having on eBay's bottom line (but I'm going to anyway, obviously).

I also want to mention that this issue with AB/ABP of hiding site-specific promoted items seems somewhat targeted exclusively to eBay. I can very clearly see "Ads" or "Sponsored" items on Amazon, Etsy, Wal-Mart, etc. while my ad blocker is enabled - the only items that seem to be hidden on these sites are links to external websites.

What's the next step here?

eburtonlab · ‎04-26-2022

Search for a popular product. AirPods for example. With ABP filters turned on, no results will show that say Sponsored. Turn it off, and they will appear.

Ad Block may be blocking the sponsored version of the listing -- the version with the "SPONSORED" tag -- but you should still be able to see the organic (non-sponsored) version elsewhere in the same results (unless you are using Best Match, and then all bets are off).

At least that is how things have worked in the past. It is always possible that eBay or Ad Block has changed something, of course.