Demoted to above average and now no sales and no looks

[judithh320]

So l have been a small seller on and off for several years . Usually 2-3 sales a week average . I stopped selling for a few months last winter , then started up again just about when the Covid hit . I still was able to get the 2-3 sales per week , but last month Ebay sent a warning , l wasn’t getting the 100 sales per year requirement for the top rated seller . I imagine it’s because I didn’t sell at all for about 4-5 months . So they lowered my rating a couple weeks ago and I have had no sales and not even any looks at my stuff , even the new stuff listed . I always pay for the Promoted  that’s always been helpful but not now . Question do my listings get a lower place in the search going from top rated to above average ?  This is so frustrating . Thank you 

[mod-designs4u]

I took 2 months off last year for the winter holidays and received an email that I may lose my Top Rated status. They put me on "probation" but when I returned and sold stuff the probation was lifted (I really didn't care one way or another). I sell at about the same volume as you. Did you stop selling for 2 months or 4-5 months? I don't think that having a Top Rated status, per se, improves search rankings. However, the "more you sell" does improve search rankings. If you sell obscure items the search ranking doesn't matter since there's no competition. If you sell stuff for which there's heavy competition then search ranking is an issue. Since your items aren't getting any views the first thing I would do is create a search parameter myself and see if the items are turning up "anywhere" in the search results. If the listings are showing up after the first few pages and beyond then you may want to lower the price on some of the competitive items to get a sale. After you get some sales under your belt the search rankings will improve. When I returned after my 2 month soiree my sales were sluggish but improved after selling items for a few months. Good luck!      

[chapeau-noir]

I used to bounce in and out of top rated because I was a seasonal seller, or only sold as a hobby, etc.  I never noticed a difference in sales and when I started up the top rated came back after a bit, but I had to list consistently and it did take a week or so to get back into the system.

This isn't a great time for clothing sales (I'm in clothing myself), and you have only 22 items up in pretty heavily populated brands here.  I would advise to just keep listing, be very consistent and keep the pot boiling, and increase the number of items. 

[homespundesign]

eBAY IS REALLY GOOD AT SUGGESTING YOU LOWER YOUR PRICES.... PRETTY SOON WE WILL BE GIVING IT AWAY FOR FREE... EBAY DOESN'T CARE...THEY TAKE THEIR SLICE OFF THE TOP AND THEN MAKE YOU WAIT IF THERE IS ANYTHING LEFT...

[nuclearomen]

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@judithh320 wrote:

 I always pay for the Promoted  that’s always been helpful but not now . Question do my listings get a lower place in the search going from top rated to above average ?  This is so frustrating . Thank you 

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@judithh320 i am going to go out on different route here and suggest that the issue is not your seller level, it's the promoted listings. Sep 3rd ebay implemented the new PL. A lot of seller (including me) sales went down to nothing, along with views/watcher. You need to if have not go into the new PL listings manager and delete the campaign the PL are in. I can say right away, that the listings you promote are/have been in the same campaign forever. The new PL  corrupted the old campaigns, you can see it on your views/impressions chart, certain your graph will show a flatline in impressions and views since Sep 3rd like everyone else. That is the reason, likely  not your seller level. 

Delete the current campaign, and create a new campaign, re-add your listing you want to promote to the new campaign, I guarantee you within 2-3 days your views/watchers and sales will start coming back!  

[reallynicestamps]

It seems you understand that one of the criteria of Top Rated Sellers is the number of sales.

And you didn't get that many sales.
Many sellers found they were getting more sales than usual during the beginning of the COVID surge. I know on all my accounts I was up from 300 to 400% going by my own records.

Then the first week in July sales stopped dead for a full two weeks before returning to "summer normal" which is fairly slow.

Things are picking up a bit now.

And again that's over several different accounts.

So you lost your TRS, for reasons you understand, just about the time that pandemic surge ended.

Double whammy.

I was using the Promoted Listings too from last November and found my Views went up considerably, even before the pandemic surge in sales.

But my sales were not of the Promoted Listings. I was selling other unPromoted products.

Which to my mind was the best of both worlds. Promoted Listings were increasing my Views and sales, but I was not paying any PL fees since those were not the items that were selling.

This continued through the Surge, but has stopped again.

I suspect so many sellers are using PL that the value has disappeared.

Question do my listings get a lower place in the search going from top rated to above average ?

Yes.

One of the perks of TRS is a slightly higher placement in Search.

But that would only be in some Searches. Best Match obviously, which is the default and probably most used, but less important in Lowest/Highest Price first, or in About to Close/Newly Listed.

If what you are selling is sold by many here, those who are TRS will be placed higher than you if you are selling the same product.

@nuclearomen 

Thank you for that suggestion.

[nuclearomen]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

It seems you understand that one of the criteria of Top Rated Sellers is the number of sales.

And you didn't get that many sales.
Many sellers found they were getting more sales than usual during the beginning of the COVID surge. I know on all my accounts I was up from 300 to 400% going by my own records.

Then the first week in July sales stopped dead for a full two weeks before returning to "summer normal" which is fairly slow.

Things are picking up a bit now.

And again that's over several different accounts.

So you lost your TRS, for reasons you understand, just about the time that pandemic surge ended.

Double whammy.

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Sales increased for me in the same way start of COVID through 3 month or so period then fell off again. But the hard hitting decline was not COVID, economy, or anything but Promoted Listings, that is when everything went from roaring fire to blanket of ice (figuratively speaking). For few weeks tried everything and couldn't turn the curve. Then finally I talked to ebay sales team and while going through stuff we found the flatlining on views/impressions started Sep 3rd...literally my graphs were a straight line from Sep 3rd to Sep 23rd when I then fixed it numbers were around 2,000 for both organic and promoted. The came to community where other sellers had noticed the change and found in graph comparisons they were exactly the same.

The general idea going around at that time was that you had to up your elected rates for PL to the new ebay suggested rates to get any sales. So what most were doing was raising elected rates cause of few youtube videos that sparked the idea this is what had to be done to make sales. That information is not only false but can be very destructive to your profit margins! I took some time to really look into what was happening. The answer was obvious and even right in front of us in ebay print on the last quarter seller update. Ebay had completely changed the way PL work, which means in short, a new algorithm had to be made and implemented  to replace the old way PL work. In this process, somehow the new algorithm that effected so many sellers to flatline in essence had corrupted the old campaigns sellers PL were in. I then deleted all PL from the campaign and then ended the campaign. Take note, that the campaign all my listings were in was the same campaign that ebay put them in, but it was running since 2018 when they started the PL. Back then you did not have options to create new campaigns like you do now. I then created a new campain and manually re-entered all listings into PL and elected rates per item. My rates before were always and only 1%, now they are between 1 and 4%. 

I have also found another potentially disaster issue with the new PL since. When you first add listings to PL and elect a percentage, ebay gives you a high and outrageous "suggested rate", a lot of people were electing that rate believing that if you didn't you would get no sales. This is a scam ebay has implemented knowing sellers would fall for it. If you elect small percentage as always had before you will then see that within 1-2 weeks of electing the rate, ebays "suggested rate" will decline dramatically on the listings by between 3-5%. Why would they intentionally do this? Simple, because once you elect a rate and a buyer clicks that PL listing that buyer is locked to that rate for 30 days, even if you change it. By the time sellers realize that ebay's suggested rate on listing has declined so much it's too late, the damage is already planted. The higher rates means millions more in profit per quarter for ebay for doing absolutely nothing, except fooling the sellers into believing that those suggested rates are proven suggestions based off past sales history on ebay and your own sales for that item and category.  Fact is if you plug those items into terapeak and do your own research, you'll find the rates to be un-justified for the amount (or lack thereof) of past sales history for that item. Don't fall for this scam, or if you already have lower your rates back down and make it through the 30 days where they will take effect. The only way to completely wipe out the locked rates is to end listings. I took a more logical approach, I elected many over my old 1% across the board and went 1.5% on many to 2% and about less then 1/4th of my listings did between 3 and 4% (items I can allow ebay larger fee as profit margin on those are a lot higher then other items I have where profit margin is already small). My views/watcher counts immediately went up and sales have steadily been coming back (about 2 weeks now is the time I made the new campaign). 

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

@nuclearomen 

Thank you for that suggestion.

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Welcome. I wouldn't have even said this if the OP didn't mention PL, when I read that part immediately understood what they have missed. I'm just seller trying to pay my bills like everyone else. I have a lot of angst towards EB right now for what they doing ethically with these PL. They completely destroyed my sales and many other sellers sales in doing do. The only way to help fix the issue is to share our experiences and results and maybe help each other get back on track. That's IMO anyways. 

[coolections]

Been buying on Ebay for years and I can tell you top rated means absolutely nothing to buyers. If buyers want your stuff they will buy it. The only exception is if you have negatives and if you respond to those negatives as rude.

[unequivocalfruition]

Honestly, by law every single innuendo of any kind that eBay chooses to use to demote or promote - hide listings - whatever the heck they do - should be in a list of rule books - everything specified as I do believe they only have arbitrary statements of what it could be that raises or lowers your visibility of listings. It is a racket - I do not doubt it, as if eBay was a brick and mortar marketplace, they would get killed in numerous lawsuits. They are supposedly a US based company, subject to our local, state and federal laws, but they skirt passed it in their section 230 - almost operating like we're all at sea - that would be maritime law - that law allows us to gamble aboard, not pay taxes and do other otherwise illegal local activities. Not sure how the governments got them to charge tax. They probably got a few favors when they agreed to collect it back in 2016. Not sure why some laws are upheld and others are not. A non-transparent marketplace in a free market country says illegal. Can't wait til eBay gets what's coming to them - they screwed up so much stuff last year, so many buyers remorse returns in a 3 month period of time - very anomalous. And I watch my sales pattern - there's no randomness. I can see windows of many sales and huge gaps with a random single random sale at that time. I would love to get a suit going - just drives me nuts as I cannot depend on them for a steady income, no matter what! I do all the basics necessary - ship real fast - same or next day. List a steady amount of items a day. Other sellers claim it's busy - my store is not. Other sellers claim it's slow - not my store at that time. There's no way to hold them accountable short of a lawsuit. I've called them countless times and as we go further into the future, the reps know less and less and can solve problems less and less. Beginning to look like a Commie run business that decides if you make any money or not. And it's been like this for the last 2-3 years. It's a bait and switch to see if anything helps. I kid you not - I put everything on sale last week after no sales for a partial week. And yes no sales, but get this: Before the sale I had people looking at my items - that triggers my ability to make offers to these lookers. DURING THE SALE! I had NO lookers to make an offer.

I've had time to change things up with sales and discounts. I have seen this happen before. There is no one to talk to that can ever give an appropriate response. NO one. They will always suggest things that I KNOW won't help, as I've done it before, other sellers can confirm - adding all those suggested descriptors WILL NOT HELP. I truly do believe that customer service today is an illusion to comply with the law - they do not help in most cases. If you don't know how to read the website, eBay's rules, etc - they are good at that. But they cannot help you when you've got proof that a customer sent the wrong item back. They cannot help you understand how the algorithm works - apparently they are not able to disclose exactly what it does - they can only discuss what they think is the problem - suggest something **bleep**ed to do like add suggested descriptors again.

I'm willing to bet that independent programmers have been able to figure out the algorithm verbatim and charge those who've got the money to pay for it. I've since given up and market my items for sale on an independent site of my own. I figured why market my items to get sold on eBay when I can market them to sell on my own site?

I can't tell you how certain I am of racket, corruption and malfeasance. Dead serious. They are definitely not transparent.

Good luck to you all.

[ebooksdiva]

ZOMBIE THREAD FROM 2020. 

[unequivocalfruition]

Great suggestions!

[unequivocalfruition]

YEAH - That's exactly what's been happening - corrupted promotions manager. Sales will go to nothing, views will go to nothing. I thought it was just the old bulk editor, but I will use your suggestion to delete all old campaigns. Thank you so so much!💋

[ebooksdiva]

ZOMBIE THREAD FROM 2020

[ckimodog]

@unequivocalfruition 

This is an old thread from 2020, as others have posted.  The OP doesn't appear to be selling anymore, so I doubt they'll reply. 

Should you have any questions or concerns it is always a good idea to start your own thread to get the help and advice for your specific issue or interest. 

[kh-stanley1]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread HERE if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.