eBay

onecattoomanycats · ‎08-05-2018

I have thousands of items I need to get listed and was going to start today. I looked at my favorite sellers that have over 1000 items listed and their sales are so far down its outrageously low. I've been out of the loop what's going on? I sale everything mostly clothing though.

trueartworx · ‎08-08-2018

Just to add. Part of the issues is too many changes at same time. It's making it hard to determine what is working correctly and what is now truly broken. Even the 'free return' feature may be a factor for us because most orders are $3-5 dollars not even worth the first shipping label, let alone a return.

Those that enabled it in my department most likely just in hopes to rarely ever have to actually send a return. They chance them selves from being burned by scammers and hard to please customers. Most my return requests are because they didn't measure their needs and want a different size . Why should I lose time and money because of their mistake?

zamo-zuan · ‎08-08-2018

@trueartworx wrote:
Just to add. Part of the issues is too many changes at same time. It's making it hard to determine what is working correctly and what is now truly broken. Even the 'free return' feature may be a factor for us because most orders are $3-5 dollars not even worth the first shipping label, let alone a return.

Those that enabled it in my department most likely just in hopes to rarely ever have to actually send a return. They chance them selves from being burned by scammers and hard to please customers. Most my return requests are because they didn't measure their needs and want a different size . Why should I lose time and money because of their mistake?

Agreed. Especially with bugs.

It's impossible to judge how well SEO, or any of these changes eBay is experiment, are actually doing, as long as the technical issues/glitches/bugs persist.

What is happening to the listings when you get invalid "Active Listings Down" messages?

How much of the loss is due to bugs affecting visibility?

How much of the loss is due to intentional search changes?

How much of the algorithm is using these incorrect statistics to determine search placement?

If the bugs were fixed, would sellers actually be seeing an improvement in search??

It's impossible to tell until the bugs are addressed. But it has been near impossible to get the tech team to address these bugs. CSR's claim they send the information to tech team, and that they are working on it, but you never hear back from them...

Did the tech team actually investigate? Or did they just presume "It must be a problem with sellers or products" the same way many people on here have claimed?

Does the fact that eBay staff with tools to assess these things, and have confirmed issues, really mean anything to the tech team?

Is the tech team even at fault? Are these changes intended and they are just trying to keep it quiet?

Who knows. But there's definitely some technical issues going on , and step 1 is to fix them, then we can re-assess the situation.

If the tech issues are not being addressed... is that an intentional choice as well? Is that the tech team not knowing how to fix it? Or being told to focus elsewhere?

Hard to say. But as a software developer myself, it is always a bad practice to leave major breaking bugs in and deploy more features that introduce more bugs... Because often times, fixing a bug will expose other bugs that were not noticable before. Things need to be working well before introducing new features on top of this. The new features may only be working as intended because they RELY on a bug.

EBay is lacking polish for not just their new features, but for their database and search algoithm as a whole - which are the core of everything built upon eBay...

unique-finds-for-everyone · ‎08-08-2018

And it will be worst... Ebay sales will go down...With new rules: free shipping and free returns, plus promoted listings eBay sellers will raise a price of items and potential customers will go to AMAZON for cheeper prices...

zamo-zuan · ‎08-08-2018

@unique-finds-for-everyone wrote:
And it will be worst... Ebay sales will go down...With new rules: free shipping and free returns, plus promoted listings eBay sellers will raise a price of items and potential customers will go to AMAZON for cheeper prices...

That's one of the things being overlooked in the policies... these policies actually lead to sellers being forced to increase prices. It makes eBay less competitive compared to the competition. Which means less overall sales for eBay compared to other markets.

Which then brings us to that other issue I raised, where these new features costs money to the sellers... and taking advantage of these features didn't actually give sellers better search placement or anything in return. So raising prices made sellers placement in search worse... leading to lower traffic/sales for sellers who actually take a monetary loss for their customers?? That does not make sense?

Which brings us to the other issue I raised, where the advice eBay gives saying we have to put these features on to improve our visibility... does not actually improve visibility but harm visibility.

It's a discouraging cycle once you run in to these issues. You see a sudden drop, and technical issues that are not fixed. EBay doesn't know what's going on and can't assist you. Tech team doesn't ever respond. Their recommendations hurt you even further. Then when you ask for more assistance, it becomes even more clear that there's a problem when your dropping faster and you are now doing everything eBay recommends. Leading to the discovery of more technical issues... which you have to then report to eBay... and repeat.

This has become a regular part of my work day all year...

everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures · ‎08-08-2018

@trueartworx wrote:
many bad sellers offering cheap/flawed products or do not understand the long term costs. Other just list one variation option at 99 cents... wth free shipping. which to me is basically a loss sale.

In my category, there are cheap paper sticker and like 3 different quality outdoor vinyl stickers.

If their system just continually pushes the cheapest. It may make more sales, but less is made per order.

Expect them to always push more sellers with higher impression/ click thru/ purchase rates but recent issues & changes are far more troublesome. At moment our store seems broken all sudden. With promotions all gone stale.. Items give strangest incorrect errors on them when mass edit.

Still discovering items with main image preview missing at point of sale. but it shows on the item until we edit it. Been ever so frustrating, time wasting, while sales are coming to a crawl. With sometimes nothing for long periods, unlike anytime in past 3 years or so.

No that is not what is hurting other sellers at all. It is an excuse some sellers use...nothing more. It is just one of many excuses that get thrown around.. None of this stuff being said is not new...just recycled and it get recycled over and over for every issue some have with ebay about anything. And yet all the blaming and excuses hasn't resulted in fixing a darn thing for anyone...because it can't really do that...and it never could.

And you issue above is about competition BTW....which also will never go away either....and it may become even greater.

And most sellers are worried about their own businesses, making money for their own buinesses.....not how it impacts yours and anyone elses. As it should be. This is what all sellers are supposed to do.

zamo-zuan · ‎08-08-2018

@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:
No that is not what is hurting other sellers at all. It is an excuse some sellers use...nothing more. It is just one of many excuses that get thrown around.. None of this stuff being said is not new...just recycled and it get recycled over and over for every issue some have with ebay about anything. And yet all the blaming and excuses hasn't resulted in fixing a darn thing for anyone...because it can't really do that...and it never could.

And you issue above is about competition BTW....which also will never go away either....and it may become even greater.

And most sellers are worried about their own businesses, making money for their own buinesses.....not how it impacts yours and anyone elses. As it should be. This is what all sellers are supposed to do.

That post was discussing about what competitors are given the visibility, not that there "is" competition. In the past, there was at least some transparency as to what would give users visibility, and if you took advantage of the information given to you, it improved visibility.

In 2018, the advice on visibility does NOT help. Even JasonIncognito above is arguing against these issues being true, but he himself as admit to not even offering returns, and he has had his best month ever on eBay according to him.

The lack of solid advice on search IS new, and the ways they have manipulated this year are completely new. The fact that you have to be added to a new catalog -period- is new. And it has taken them more than 6 months to add some users. That is "new".

Considering some of our partners were automatically approved even though they use their own private label brands, and other sellers have to go through an approval process which takes months, and being added to the new catalog DOES make a difference in visibility, this is yet another issue that is "new" this year.

It is definitely new that more sellers in the top 10 of their category are failing than succeeding.

If none of this is new, what other year did top 10 sellers lose 25% of their market share in a single year?

How come those of us who have been affected by these problems, with eBay agreeing that there is a problem, have the burden of proof upon us, are the ones forced to share evidence...? Yet those arguing against us (for god knows what reason sellers would try to place blame on fellow sellers when eBay has agreed it's not our fault) make claims such as this, without any evidence? What reason do you have to believe that all these people are not having actual issues???

stevesarmysurplusreno · ‎08-08-2018

I agree that sales are down....I'm only doing a third of the sales I was doing last year, and I'm listing new and used military surplus items almost every day.

One thing that changed that I noticed my sales drop IMMEDIATELY was the Promotional Sales Discounts...when I wasn't allowed to do discounted sales anymore (my items are 10 days and they need to be in at least 14 days for discount sales) my sales plummeted! I didn't do anything unethical, I followed all of eBay's rules, I gave refunds for returns right away, but now they are punishing the Sellers even if they haven't done anything wrong.
I price my items so that I might do a sale (which I also do in my retail store), but I found listing at 30 days doesn't allow my items to be in front of enough people. When eBay stopped allowing the Sales Discounts, all of my income stopped with eBay!

And then they took the sales promotion "Buy 2 or more and get an extra 10% off" and put it at THE BOTTOM OF THE LISTING...where NO ONE LOOKS AT IT!!

I complained and eBay finally put a small notice of the "buy 2 or more..." without any pictures of the items on the top. I actually had a Buyer who wanted to buy 2 items in more store and I explained the discount to him, but even after I walked him through it, he could still not find the discount promotion!! (this is when it was at the bottom.) I ended up having to refund him the 15% through Paypal because he had to pay full price and I didn't want to lose the sale!

I used to pay over $500 and more in monthly eBay fees, but now only $200... I think Amazon may be partly to blame but I got to admit, when I buy things through Amazon, I rarely have any issues. But about every other purchase I make with eBay I have issues because the Seller doesn't pack it correctly, or sends me only one item when I ordered 2. eBay's guarantee covers me, but it is really a pain!

everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures · ‎08-08-2018

Just an example...nothing personal.....
Let's say you and I have the same item...and there is a buyer looking to buy one of those items.
I can promise you I will get that sale. That is my job and that is how I make a living and I won't spend time or waste time blaming ebay or complaining about other sellers or make excuses why I can't sell. I will not let anything distract me from my goal. I will do what it takes. I will adapt, I will make my item the most appealing visually and I will price to sell and I will provide the best customer service ever. And I will do it better than anyone else.
And that is how most sellers think and make sales. While some are coming up with reasons why they can't or won't do something others just do it and work it and won't adapt. The word can't or won't never comes into play and there is no blame, no excuse in other's vocabularies.

zamo-zuan · ‎08-08-2018

@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:
Just an example...nothing personal.....
Let's say you and I have the same item...and there is a buyer looking to buy one of those items.
I can promise you I will get that sale. That is my job and that is how I make a living and I won't spend time or waste time blaming ebay or complaining about other sellers or make excuses why I can't sell. I will not let anything distract me from my goal. I will do what it takes. I will adapt, I will make my item the most appealing visually and I will price to sell and I will provide the best customer service ever.
And that is how most sellers think and make sales.

That is how we thought as well. The problem is, and as eBay agreed with us, it was not working that way.

Let's say I offered an item for $150 originally with mark through pricing offering it at $100 final value, no returns accepted, had big frames with art, watermarks, and borders on the image. 7 day free shipping, $25 for expedited shipping, 2 day handling time, descriptions with a heavy amount of HTML and missing images, and 3 negative feedbacks in the last month.

Let's say you offered the item for $95 final value, free returns, perfectly following the image policy, 3 day free shipping, 1 day handling time, guaranteed delivery, straightward appealing to the eye description, 0 feedback in the last month.

And your item was getting 0 impressions. Your analyze page on underperforming listings says "100% less chance to sell compared to competitors". You sort search by price, and your item is literally not there. Your item is not appearing in the new catalog when you hit "group similar listings".

The competitor, whos offerings are worse, and price is worse, is building up huge momentum. You go to your category , and that seller is on top.

This is literally the situation we went through for months.

What would you do in this case? Tinker with the images and description to be more appealing? It doesn't help.

Throw some additional promotions on it, so that you are $10 less than the competitor, and only have a $3 dollar margin?? Still doesn't help.

You call and speak to eBay, and they say "We don't know what to tell you, we ran an index over everything again and your items are still not showing up. Maybe this other person will be able to help".

You get a print out from sellers health, and it says you have 5000 active listings, but only 4000 total listings. In reality you have over 5000 listings.

You have 10 items that have not sold in 90 days and are stagnant. This same report says you have 500 stagnant listings.

This is the situatoin we went through.

If you are saying "I promise you I will get that sale"... what would you do once all the options you tried are exhausted, and you simply were not getting impressions??

This is what we went through, and why it was so upsetting. We used to think it was possible to "promise you can get that sale".

It's really not possible anymore if you become affected by these visibility issues.

everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures · ‎08-08-2018

It was too easy for some when sales just rolled in and they didn't really have to work for it and some came to expect that is how it was supposed to always be or that it would never change...but times have changed, technology has changed and now you do have to work for it and you have to compete for it on a global scale and you have to do a lot of things that were not as necessary years ago....but you have to do it because if you don't your business suffers.

everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures · ‎08-08-2018

@zamo-zuan wrote:
@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:
Just an example...nothing personal.....
Let's say you and I have the same item...and there is a buyer looking to buy one of those items.
I can promise you I will get that sale. That is my job and that is how I make a living and I won't spend time or waste time blaming ebay or complaining about other sellers or make excuses why I can't sell. I will not let anything distract me from my goal. I will do what it takes. I will adapt, I will make my item the most appealing visually and I will price to sell and I will provide the best customer service ever.
And that is how most sellers think and make sales.
That is how we thought as well. The problem is, and as eBay agreed with us, it was not working that way.

Let's say I offered an item for $150 originally with mark through pricing offering it at $100 final value, no returns accepted, had big frames with art, watermarks, and borders on the image. 7 day free shipping, $25 for expedited shipping, 2 day handling time, descriptions with a heavy amount of HTML and missing images, and 3 negative feedbacks in the last month.

Let's say you offered the item for $95 final value, free returns, perfectly following the image policy, 3 day free shipping, 1 day handling time, guaranteed delivery, straightward appealing to the eye description, 0 feedback in the last month.

And your item was getting 0 impressions. Your analyze page on underperforming listings says "100% less chance to sell compared to competitors". You sort search by price, and your item is literally not there. Your item is not appearing in the new catalog when you hit "group similar listings".

The competitor, whos offerings are worse, and price is worse, is building up huge momentum. You go to your category , and that seller is on top.

This is literally the situation we went through for months.

What would you do in this case? Tinker with the images and description to be more appealing? It doesn't help.

Throw some additional promotions on it, so that you are $10 less than the competitor, and only have a $3 dollar margin?? Still doesn't help.

You call and speak to eBay, and they say "We don't know what to tell you, we ran an index over everything again and your items are still not showing up. Maybe this other person will be able to help".

You get a print out from sellers health, and it says you have 5000 active listings, but only 4000 total listings. In reality you have over 5000 listings.

You have 10 items that have not sold in 90 days and are stagnant. This same report says you have 500 stagnant listings.

This is the situatoin we went through.

If you are saying "I promise you I will get that sale"... what would you do once all the options you tried are exhausted, and you simply were not getting impressions??

This is what we went through, and why it was so upsetting. We used to think it was possible to "promise you can get that sale".

It's really not possible anymore if you become affected by these visibility issues.

My options are never exhausted...I have the ability to advertise myself and not rely just on ebay as does everyone else. I adapt. While some are sitting saying I can't or I won't...I am coming up with ways I can and then I do.
I also do not get sucked into anyone else's negativity or blaming which is easy to do on the boards and in groups. No one is going to tell me I cannot do something or it cannot be done or ebay is stopping you from anything.
Ebay gives me a platform and I use it as such and do not expect them to hand me anything...I use ebay for what I can and I also work my business myself....which is what we all are supposed to do.

zamo-zuan · ‎08-08-2018

@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:
It was too easy for some when sales just rolled in and they didn't really have to work for it and some came to expect that is how it was supposed to always be or that it would never change...but times have changed, technology has changed and now you do have to work for it and you have to compete for it on a global scale and you have to do a lot of things that were not as necessary years ago....but you have to do it because if you don't your business suffers.

Please read the last post I mentioned, because we know how to work for sales.

I'm not sure if you know this, but we were #1 in our category for over 5 years. We have been working for it. Moreso than our competitors. Our offerings are stronger than our competitors that we were losing it to.

This is how it was easy for us to display to eBay representatives that there was a problem. There wasn't anyone in our category going as far as we did.

Only one seller truly stood out in our category as improving over the year and doing notable better in 2018, and they were not going as far as we did. They don't have the software to manage eBay and shipping like we do, nor do they have the level of customer service, or our prices, or offering the shipping and returns we do.

You seem to imply that sellers are doing bad because of their own fault, becuase they aren't willing to work for it.

Well heres some news - As I mentioned a few times, the seller who is doing well this year is one of our partners. They are NOT working for it. They are using the same business model that they have for years, which is NOT a strong business model for customers. Customers are paying more, for worse shipping, return, and customer service policies. EBay is a side business for them, rather than a focus.

This is exactly why it's easy to display a problem. EBay sellers health analysts are able to compare our offerings. Ours surpasses theirs, yet our visibility was being limited in search, and nobody was able to explain why.

All the statisitcs that were supposedly weighed heavily by search, were in our favor.

zamo-zuan · ‎08-08-2018

@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:
@zamo-zuan wrote:
@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:
Just an example...nothing personal.....
Let's say you and I have the same item...and there is a buyer looking to buy one of those items.
I can promise you I will get that sale. That is my job and that is how I make a living and I won't spend time or waste time blaming ebay or complaining about other sellers or make excuses why I can't sell. I will not let anything distract me from my goal. I will do what it takes. I will adapt, I will make my item the most appealing visually and I will price to sell and I will provide the best customer service ever.
And that is how most sellers think and make sales.
That is how we thought as well. The problem is, and as eBay agreed with us, it was not working that way.

Let's say I offered an item for $150 originally with mark through pricing offering it at $100 final value, no returns accepted, had big frames with art, watermarks, and borders on the image. 7 day free shipping, $25 for expedited shipping, 2 day handling time, descriptions with a heavy amount of HTML and missing images, and 3 negative feedbacks in the last month.

Let's say you offered the item for $95 final value, free returns, perfectly following the image policy, 3 day free shipping, 1 day handling time, guaranteed delivery, straightward appealing to the eye description, 0 feedback in the last month.

And your item was getting 0 impressions. Your analyze page on underperforming listings says "100% less chance to sell compared to competitors". You sort search by price, and your item is literally not there. Your item is not appearing in the new catalog when you hit "group similar listings".

The competitor, whos offerings are worse, and price is worse, is building up huge momentum. You go to your category , and that seller is on top.

This is literally the situation we went through for months.

What would you do in this case? Tinker with the images and description to be more appealing? It doesn't help.

Throw some additional promotions on it, so that you are $10 less than the competitor, and only have a $3 dollar margin?? Still doesn't help.

You call and speak to eBay, and they say "We don't know what to tell you, we ran an index over everything again and your items are still not showing up. Maybe this other person will be able to help".

You get a print out from sellers health, and it says you have 5000 active listings, but only 4000 total listings. In reality you have over 5000 listings.

You have 10 items that have not sold in 90 days and are stagnant. This same report says you have 500 stagnant listings.

This is the situatoin we went through.

If you are saying "I promise you I will get that sale"... what would you do once all the options you tried are exhausted, and you simply were not getting impressions??

This is what we went through, and why it was so upsetting. We used to think it was possible to "promise you can get that sale".

It's really not possible anymore if you become affected by these visibility issues.
My options are never exhausted...I have the ability to advertise myself and not rely just on ebay as does everyone else. I adapt. While some are sitting saying I can't or I won't...I am coming up with ways I can and then I do.
I also do not get sucked into anyone else's negativity or blaming which is easy to do on the boards and in groups. No one is going to tell me I cannot do something or it cannot be done or ebay is stopping you from anything.
Ebay gives me a platform and I use it as such and do not expect them to hand me anything...I use ebay for what I can and I also work my business myself.

I asked you what you would do?

You say "I come up with ways"?

What ways would that be, exactly? You are pretty limited in terms of what you could do on eBay, and we took advantage of all the tools eBay offers.

This discussion was not about what to do off eBay. You said if we both offered the items you would get the sale. That is a bold claim.

If there were so many ways to make your items magically appear to buyers when search is not showing them, it would be easy to give an example of some ideas.

How about an answer that's not evasive? What options are there, exactly?

everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures · ‎08-08-2018

@zamo-zuan wrote:
@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:
It was too easy for some when sales just rolled in and they didn't really have to work for it and some came to expect that is how it was supposed to always be or that it would never change...but times have changed, technology has changed and now you do have to work for it and you have to compete for it on a global scale and you have to do a lot of things that were not as necessary years ago....but you have to do it because if you don't your business suffers.
Please read the last post I mentioned, because we know how to work for sales.

I'm not sure if you know this, but we were #1 in our category for over 5 years. We have been working for it. Moreso than our competitors. Our offerings are stronger than our competitors that we were losing it to.

This is how it was easy for us to display to eBay representatives that there was a problem. There wasn't anyone in our category going as far as we did.

Only one seller truly stood out in our category as improving over the year and doing notable better in 2018, and they were not going as far as we did. They don't have the software to manage eBay and shipping like we do, nor do they have the level of customer service, or our prices, or offering the shipping and returns we do.

You seem to imply that sellers are doing bad because of their own fault, becuase they aren't willing to work for it.

Well heres some news - As I mentioned a few times, the seller who is doing well this year is one of our partners. They are NOT working for it. They are using the same business model that they have for years, which is NOT a strong business model for customers. Customers are paying more, for worse shipping, return, and customer service policies. EBay is a side business for them, rather than a focus.

This is exactly why it's easy to display a problem. EBay sellers health analysts are able to compare our offerings. Ours surpasses theirs, yet our visibility was being limited in search, and nobody was able to explain why.

All the statisitcs that were supposedly weighed heavily by search, were in our favor.

Again while you are coming up with reason why you cannot do something others are not and doing it. Your time is better spent doing something positive for your business. Coming up with solutions and not looking for things to support in why you can't do something.
I am not a statistic. I am an indiviual business owner and I control my business....and my success.
If you want to focus on reasons to hold you back that is your perogative but understand that most will not and will make those sales...while you are reading statistics about why you can't.

everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures · ‎08-08-2018

@zamo-zuan wrote:
@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:
@zamo-zuan wrote:
@everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures wrote:
Just an example...nothing personal.....
Let's say you and I have the same item...and there is a buyer looking to buy one of those items.
I can promise you I will get that sale. That is my job and that is how I make a living and I won't spend time or waste time blaming ebay or complaining about other sellers or make excuses why I can't sell. I will not let anything distract me from my goal. I will do what it takes. I will adapt, I will make my item the most appealing visually and I will price to sell and I will provide the best customer service ever.
And that is how most sellers think and make sales.
That is how we thought as well. The problem is, and as eBay agreed with us, it was not working that way.

Let's say I offered an item for $150 originally with mark through pricing offering it at $100 final value, no returns accepted, had big frames with art, watermarks, and borders on the image. 7 day free shipping, $25 for expedited shipping, 2 day handling time, descriptions with a heavy amount of HTML and missing images, and 3 negative feedbacks in the last month.

Let's say you offered the item for $95 final value, free returns, perfectly following the image policy, 3 day free shipping, 1 day handling time, guaranteed delivery, straightward appealing to the eye description, 0 feedback in the last month.

And your item was getting 0 impressions. Your analyze page on underperforming listings says "100% less chance to sell compared to competitors". You sort search by price, and your item is literally not there. Your item is not appearing in the new catalog when you hit "group similar listings".

The competitor, whos offerings are worse, and price is worse, is building up huge momentum. You go to your category , and that seller is on top.

This is literally the situation we went through for months.

What would you do in this case? Tinker with the images and description to be more appealing? It doesn't help.

Throw some additional promotions on it, so that you are $10 less than the competitor, and only have a $3 dollar margin?? Still doesn't help.

You call and speak to eBay, and they say "We don't know what to tell you, we ran an index over everything again and your items are still not showing up. Maybe this other person will be able to help".

You get a print out from sellers health, and it says you have 5000 active listings, but only 4000 total listings. In reality you have over 5000 listings.

You have 10 items that have not sold in 90 days and are stagnant. This same report says you have 500 stagnant listings.

This is the situatoin we went through.

If you are saying "I promise you I will get that sale"... what would you do once all the options you tried are exhausted, and you simply were not getting impressions??

This is what we went through, and why it was so upsetting. We used to think it was possible to "promise you can get that sale".

It's really not possible anymore if you become affected by these visibility issues.
My options are never exhausted...I have the ability to advertise myself and not rely just on ebay as does everyone else. I adapt. While some are sitting saying I can't or I won't...I am coming up with ways I can and then I do.
I also do not get sucked into anyone else's negativity or blaming which is easy to do on the boards and in groups. No one is going to tell me I cannot do something or it cannot be done or ebay is stopping you from anything.
Ebay gives me a platform and I use it as such and do not expect them to hand me anything...I use ebay for what I can and I also work my business myself.
I asked you what you would do?

You say "I come up with ways"?

What ways would that be, exactly? You are pretty limited in terms of what you could do on eBay, and we took advantage of all the tools eBay offers.

This discussion was not about what to do off eBay. You said if we both offered the items you would get the sale. That is a bold claim.

If there were so many ways to make your items magically appear to buyers when search is not showing them, it would be easy to give an example of some ideas.

How about an answer that's not evasive? What options are there, exactly?

Not a bold claim...a fact. While I am working to make the sale you are reading reason why you can't and are prevented from making the sale...and being stuck in blaming ebay. When you focus on all negative that is what your results are.