eBay

abeandsable · ‎11-26-2018

Ebay Killed Cyber Monday

Wow, I have read many of the previous post on low sales. Click through rates, Sales conversions, Graphs, Charts, best practices. Suggested Prices ( yes any one will by a Mercede's for a dollar " I am a small attic seller However this is clearly affecting every seller on Ebay. Lower the price , Take better photo's , Write a better description ,add more product identifiers. Cross Market with Social Media. Offer free returns, Free shipping ,Gaurenteed delivery:

OH Promoted listings ! Were we pay extra to get view's but if you do not have sales conversions for the views ,you will get dropped lower or out of in the search results. so we are actually paying to promote no sales ?

Their new search engine is a gamble and it seems as if we all have lost.

All this did not matter before Ebay "Fixed" itself only just helped.

They have "fixed" every small retailer out of the field. From some of the post a few large one's also . I am not asking for help just expressing my "Impressions" of sadness and sorrow for a once great venue of a retail market.

Yard sale comming this summer.

lovefindingtreasures2 · ‎11-27-2018

@lovefindingtreasures2 wrote:
^
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>>>>THAT!!

I had a buyer place an order a few nights ago and the next morning I had a message, and I kid you not, this is exactly what she said.

Cancel honey, K?

I knew what she wanted but I wrote back anyway and said, "I don't understand, what?"

She replies, Cancel honey, K honey?

When did buyers start calling sellers, honey? K rude little brat.
"Do you have me confused with another seller, possibly? I do not sell honey, nor do I sell k, whatever that is. Please advise. Have a great day!"

Ha ha! I think she was very young, and BTW, K is an animal tranquilizer used as a street drug, they call it special K. The search engine bots would probably suspend me for saying that to her, assuming I was a drug dealer or something, LOL!

She could have at least said hi first and why she wanted to cancel. Oh well, already sold it to someone else!

emerald40 · ‎11-27-2018

Do you mean K as in short for OK.

It is how young people communicate today.

jpgranton · ‎11-27-2018

Admittedly, I am no help to any sellers here.

A few weeks ago was the 10-year anniversary of my leaving the selling part of eBay. That's when they began the virtually-forced use of PayPal, which I will not do. I could forsee the liberal return of items for inane reasons. I took care to offer really unusal items that you normally would not find a duplicate of on eBay at any given time. Some of those pieces were worth $1000-$2000. No way would I allow them to be swapped out for a damaged piece or a brick, so my selling stopped cold. I have not sold a thing here since.

As for buying, I haven't bought anything here for at least a couple of years. I continue to look for odd or rare items in my several categories, but they are not to be found unless someone lists something about which they are not familiar. The rare stuff is now offered elsewhere, not here. I know of some VERY rare items that changed hands this year and they were all done through old-fashioned mail bid lists or were private offerings to collector groups. eBay made no money on those becuase the sellers weren't stupid enough to offer their rare pieces on a site where they could get scammed.

I do very little Christmas shopping anymore. What little I DO do is done throughout the year, not as a panicked rush in November/December. My dad, who needs nothing, gets a nice gift of homemade holiday baking. Same for any nieces/nephews who are of adult age. The couple siblings I have (who need nothing) get a small gift of something I think they might like/use, generally not costing over $15.00. Couple nieces/nephews who are still teenagers get a gift and this year they each said they want money, so no shopping involved there.

I also do no shopping at any other online sites, either. I am a brick and motar person and always will be.

shevey55 · ‎11-27-2018

I met a lady ( about 50 yrs old) recently and mentioned I sell on eBay. She said "Oh, eBay is still around? I thought it was long gone."

lovefindingtreasures2 · ‎11-27-2018

"If you read Georg's post he said the same thing to which I replied why as a buyer if I search wedding band I do not want 100,000 hits. I am glad ebay pares it down for me. "

So you agree that eBay does HIDE listings, as they say they do in the UA? Can't have it both ways, eBay parring down listings is eBay hiding listings. Yes, they are all still there, at #99,000. With limited ways to search, a buyer may never find it no matter what they do.

Can we end this argument. eBay DOES make it impossible for buyers to find your listings at certain times. This is called throttling. They are 'parring' down what they show you, the buyer, so that you don't freak out and run away with a zillion similar things in your face. Too many items, not enough search engine space. Throttle, rotate, whatever, there are times when we are not 'live' online, because our items are in solitary confinement in the deep, dark basement where no one knows what happens there.

Question is, what didn't they show you as they showed you what they wanted you to see for that particular search? Maybe the very stone you want, but it's # 77,300 down the list under the mega sellers and you will never, ever know about it. That doesn't frustrate you, that you are being manipulated? It makes my blood boil when I am trying to find something and I know it's there and I can't get eBay to show it to me!

If a buyer cannot find my listing no matter what I do, I consider it throttled, hidden, put in the basement. It's not going to sell no matter what I do (not knowing I am in the basement as so many sellers do not know), so I (used to) continue to drop my price, change photos, listings, all in vain because eBay isn't going to give me any search engine time.

Now I don't do that. Done playing the chase my tail game here.

Throttling. Call it any name you want. eBay hides our listings from the BUYERS, and there is no way to figure out if you are in the basement or your add or product sucks.

Can't run a proper business when you do not know what the rules are to run it correctly. It's like winning the lottery around here, here comes a sale or two, then it's lights out, no idea of when the next 5 second window will open on your store(s).

lovefindingtreasures2 · ‎11-27-2018

You can always find an item with the number, or the title the seller used. I think we are talking semantics here. Is it off the site entirely, no, is it ever going to be found by a potential buyer? NOOOOOOO!

Any questions? If a listing is dropped so deeply that it's on page 30, it's hidden. You know what everyone is saying, it's funny that people are getting held up on this and still arguing about it.

If eBay says they are not showing all the listings at one time, I never assumed listings were blacked out. I knew that meant they were buried so deeply that Sherlock Holmes couldn't find them----without an item number, that's cheating! Buyer doesn't have an item number to look for it 🙂

abeandsable · ‎11-27-2018

Lets try this another way. No Ebay not hidding Items. When you go to a big box store to purchase lets say a specific item BLACK RAY BAN SUNGLASS : They have "End cap's and well crafted display's promoting other items. Particulary impulse last minute items in the check out line. There is great thought and design on the flow of customers to usher them through the isles to get exposure to item, Particularly to get them through large ticket items. Most people walk out with more than they intended to purchase. Just a small impulse items add up for the retailer.

Ebay in its great new design has eliminated "end caps" and impulse buying by lack of exposure for being soo specific that you only see EXACTLY what you are looking for.

You got your sunglasses , Saw the big ticket isle but you missed out on the darling Vintage Beer Cozzie that Aunt Mary would cherrish for ever.

I just purchased a Hoodie my son will love . It was a impulse buy and I was not looking for it.

emerald40 · ‎11-27-2018

@lovefindingtreasures2 wrote:
You can always find an item with the number, or the title the seller used. I think we are talking semantics here. Is it off the site entirely, no, is it ever going to be found by a potential buyer? NOOOOOOO!

Any questions? If a listing is dropped so deeply that it's on page 30, it's hidden. You know what everyone is saying, it's funny that people are getting held up on this and still arguing about it.

If eBay says they are not showing all the listings at one time, I never assumed listings were blacked out. I knew that meant they were buried so deeply that Sherlock Holmes couldn't find them----without an item number, that's cheating! Buyer doesn't have an item number to look for it 🙂

You have say 100,000 wedding bands. Yes some are going to be on page 1 and others are going to be on page 101. And that is why I search new. I see everything listed for the day.

So yes the ones at the bottom are going to be buried deep. Not everyone can be on page 1. Your item is there, somewhere. And yes you have to think of the right search words the seller might have used to find it.

Are you saying this is throttling?

wheredidiputthatremote · ‎11-27-2018

@emerald40 wrote:
Do you mean K as in short for OK.

It is how young people communicate today.

What else do u think k stands 4

emerald40 · ‎11-27-2018

I am sure it has other meanings, but in this situation - computer, text - it is short of OK.

I doubt she was referring to the drug vets use on animals.

wheredidiputthatremote · ‎11-27-2018

@emerald40 wrote:
@lovefindingtreasures2 wrote:
You can always find an item with the number, or the title the seller used. I think we are talking semantics here. Is it off the site entirely, no, is it ever going to be found by a potential buyer? NOOOOOOO!

Any questions? If a listing is dropped so deeply that it's on page 30, it's hidden. You know what everyone is saying, it's funny that people are getting held up on this and still arguing about it.

If eBay says they are not showing all the listings at one time, I never assumed listings were blacked out. I knew that meant they were buried so deeply that Sherlock Holmes couldn't find them----without an item number, that's cheating! Buyer doesn't have an item number to look for it 🙂

You have say 100,000 wedding bands. Yes some are going to be on page 1 and others are going to be on page 101. And that is why I search new. I see everything listed for the day.

So yes the ones at the bottom are going to be buried deep. Not everyone can be on page 1. Your item is there, somewhere. And yes you have to think of the right search words the seller might have used to find it.

Are you saying this is throttling?

What's throttling?

emerald40 · ‎11-27-2018

ebay throttling = hiding listings

abeandsable · ‎11-27-2018

Finally someone gets it .

abeandsable · ‎11-27-2018

Not Hidding...Surpressing. This is from an indendant post CASSINI IS THE NAME OF THE EBAY SEARCH ENGINE

Cassini is data-driven. Cassini is all about moving beyond listing titles and a direct correlation between the list of results and the word that a shopper has typed. eBay has a huge universe of data on hand—seller performance, buyer preferences, market trends, correlations of an infinite variety, and so on—and it wants to use these, rather than just a keyword match, to return results to buyers.
Cassini is values-driven. In a presentation on Cassini search, the director of search for eBay Australia, Todd Alexander, outlined four core values that drive eBay's development and tweaking of the Cassini system: Relevance, Value, Trust, and Convenience.

mhmorningstar · ‎11-27-2018

My 2 accepted offers finally paid tonight. No new sales on Monday and still no sales today. For the India buyer I refunded through PayPal and gave the refund transaction ID to ebay customer service. The first cs rep I talked to gave some bad info but the 2nd knew how to handle it and was able to cancel after I provided proof of refund. It'll show up as a late shipment on the next review though and I'll have to call back and dispute it.