mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
ebay has always had glitches and unpopular policies. And when sellers complain about declining sales, this is what, naturally, sellers focus on. But in the past ebay grew despite glitches and unpopular policies. What many sellers ignore is the impact of energized competition. It wasn't too many years ago that WalMart, for example, had virtually no online presence. Those days are long past. And let's face it, unlike another well known competitor, ebay does not have warehouses throughout the country, does not have its own fleet of delivery trucks and ships and aircraft. Sellers (I'm one) of used stuff and vintage stuff probably have buyers who are less concerned with (but still appreciate) fast delivery and generous return policies. But something like 80% of ebay's GMV is from new stuff, and those buyers DO care, and many ebay sellers are at a disadvantage when it comes to fast (and relatively inexpensive) delivery.
Add to that the enormous increase in competition in the used goods market, and ebay is faced with a perfect storm .
ebay could reduce some of the glitchiness, ebay could change some of its policies, and that might help, but that doesn't eliminate the competition. As others have said, it is very possible that the end game is the sale of ebay , either to a competitor or perhaps to a private equity firm. A sale might actually be good, at least for some sellers. If the end game really is a revitalized ebay, I think the changes will have to be more drastic than reducing glitchiness and changing some policies. eBay really needs to rethink itself, from the ground up.
Well the thing is, yes eBay did always have glitches. But any that affected visibility or anything along those lines was immediately fixed.
The amount of bugs and glitches are staggering right now. And many of them DO affect visibility. As well as several major bugs in Motors that have been spreading more and more.
Some examples:
- Vehicle fitment charts are broken, you may have a vehicle that your listing is compatible with, but eBay is saying the product is NOT compatible with the vehicle on the chart! Try searching for the first vehicle on the list of this listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Engine-Trans-Mount-6PCS-Hydr-w-Vac-Pin-03-07-for-Honda-Accord-2-4L-for-Manu...
This means anyone searching by vehicle (which is over 50% of buyers) are being told the item is NOT compatible with their vehicle, and we are NOT showing up in search for these customers even though our item is compatible!
- Just today I discovered another issue with vehicle fitment charts, they aren't appearing in API calls anymore! When your software requests a listing, you're supposed to say "Include Compatibility Info" and it gives you the chart. As of today this is failing for many listings!
- Shipping/returns information is constantly being lost or corrupted. It's literally just gone, missing. I've shared screenshots where it happens dozens of times a day. This bug can NOT be detected without software, it does NOT show up on the eBay site directly. But it DOES affect search; your items appear very low in search when the shipping data is missing. Revise the information back in, and you DO appear properly.
- Underperforming listings system basically flags your listings as "underperforming". This is a penalty to search results. You may test this yourself and see the placement of an underperforming item on the list. Revise the item, and with some changes it may be removed from the underperforming list. Suddenly it'll appear much better. Problem is, items are incorrectly being added to underperforming! Less than 2 hours after a new listing and it may go right to underperforming, even if it has no competitors! Even if your item SELLS the first day, it gets thrown on underperforming the next day! This means the listings will receive a penalty that is not deserved! And you have to micromanage this list daily, with potentially hundreds of listings a day, to keep your listings healthy.
- Problems with shipping locations. We're affected by Puerto Rico in this case. Meaning, Puerto Rico is not showing up on our "Excluded Locations" list, OR our "Included Locations". Our shipping preferences is set to INCLUDE Puerto rico. When this bug is affecting your listing, your listings do NOT appear in Puerto Rico! EXCEPT! Sponsored Listings only will appear in PR! This means that 100% of our listings are ONLY showing up in PR as a Sponsored Listing, and our organic listings are NOT showing up in PR!
- EBay incorrectly believes that your Active Listings numbers went up a huge percentage. Sometimes you may receive a message "Active Listings Up 30%" in the last 30 days, when you have not created any new listings. This doesn't sound like a major issue, right? Except this is tied in with an increase in traffic! And on the MSO Sellers Health sheets, if you're told "Active Listings down 30%", those listings REALLY ARE NOT appearing to eBay's system properly! I reported in 2018 that you may incorrectly receive an error "Active listings down 30%" when your active listings are not down, then your report will show less listings, and your traffic will reduce by 30% as well! This effects your sales! Apparently, traffic is being dictated by how many active listings eBay can "count" properly. But when this bug effects you, eBay can no longer "count" those listings, so your traffic decreases.
This can be used to preemptively determine if you're going to have a sales increase or drop. We were effected by this bug just recently! A couple months back we received the "Active listings down" message incorrectly. We received "Active listings up 30%" last week. Take a look at what happened to our graph immediately afterwards:
Before that even happened, as soon as I seen the active listing up message, I mentioned that the algorithm had been changed. It's no coincidence that immediately after the Active Listings Up message, our sales increased in the next few days. This is what the bug looks like in action.
Anyway, these type of issues should be 100% unacceptable. These issues could be reproduced without too many problems, and eBay can verify all this as true. I've reported all these to CSR's on the phone and they reproduced the issues and opened a case months (or years) ago. And no progress has been made at all!
Any bug or glitch in the system that has an effect on visibility should be prioritized and fixed as fast as possible! This is messing with peoples lives!
Is it really a surprise that so many sellers are seeing huge random drops after 10-20 years of selling on eBay when bugs like this are around? And these are only the ones I'm found/are aware of. Imagine how many others are out there that haven't been found yet?
Why are you in such strong defense of ebay? You have no affiliation with them I believe. Why do you protect them so strongly?
No where in my posts did I defend Ebay. Just because my opinion and observations may be different than yours doesn't mean I'm defending Ebay.
To say that you understand how promoted listings is affecting categories you don't sell in is pretty unsympathetic. I can tell you in clothing promoted listings IS NOT A CHOICE. You either do it, or get almost ZERO VISIBILITY/SALES.
It is a choice. It is not mandatory for any category, that is a FACT, not an opinion. There certainly are categories that it works better in than others. But make no mistake, each seller still gets to choose to use them or not to use them, so don't misrepresent what I said or what my intent was or is. I'm not "unsympathetic" to any sellers issue on these threads. Because you see things a bit differently than I do also doesn't make me "unsympathetic". We don't have to agree. I take no issue with that, nor should you.
You saying it is a choice is pretty rude to the people in categories where they clearly know it is not a choice. You either close business or promote your listings. So please try to put yourself in others shoes before you defend ebay at every turn. A lot of us support families with these businesses and are familys suffer if our businesses continue to decline. This is serious for a lot of us and it would be nice if you showed some empathy for once.
I have no idea why a statement of fact is taken as "rude" by you. Stating that promoted listings are a choice for each seller to make is NOT a "defense" of Ebay. It is how the program / tool works. Because you feel you are compelled to use this tool to improve your sales, is your choice to make. You are trying to make my comments about something it was never about and portray me in a way that is not only ridiculous but without merit.
You saw in a different post that despite GMV lowering again and the marketplace under-performing its competitors that they INCREASED the dividend payout. That is a direct slap in the face of sellers on the marketplace showing shareholders come before us.
I didn't comment on that, so you may want to revisit my post. But if you'd like my viewpoint on this, you are talking about two completely different things.
A dividend being paid on the shares has nothing to do with GMV. It has to do with the profit of the company for whatever period is being reviewed. Ebay overall was profitable and their profits did increase slightly year over year. So Ebay determined they were going to pay a dividend to shareholders.
GMV is the total $$ amount of transactions made on Ebay between buyers and sellers. This is the Gross amount and does not take into consideration cancellation, refunds, returns, etc. As I stated before and I'll state again I think the decline in this number has multiple reasons. But one that stands out to me is that selling high $$ value items on Ebay has become riskier and riskier. Sellers have very few if any ways to protect themselves and/or their money with the current state of the return system. I further think that some sellers have stopped or reduced the amount of high $$ value items they sell on Ebay because of this. And that would impact GMV. I personally think it would be interesting to compare number of transactions processed on Ebay period to period too. I don't know where to access that info however.
That money should be used to try and fix the platform and gain ground on its competitors. I know you will respond with something saying how what I say is not true blah blah blah and that is ok. I am frustrated today with ebay with the fact management keeps seeing bad quarters and yet DOES NOTHING.
I have no idea why you are so resistant to others having different points of view than yours. But that is your opinion and I respect your right to have one.
@vintagecraze50 wrote:The troubling issue with these reports especially with the buy back of the stocks rather than reinvesting cash into the website improvements is scary. This may mean that the stockholders are creating value in the stock and not the marketplace. IT POINTS TO THE ASPECT OF SELLING THE MARKETPLACE . After they have made money on the stock. This place may be sold soon.
IDK. I didn't read anything about Ebay deciding to do the buy back and not reinvesting money to improve the site. I didn't read anything that it was an either/or decision. Would you please provide me with a link so that I may update myself. Thank you in advance.
@flyingmvp wrote:
The seller metrics matrix is is not about being fair or unfair it is a clear con, swindle.
The false defect is given knowingly and intentionally to trip the seller, sticking a broom in the seller's Spokes so he will fall and fail, damaging a good seller and causing his metrics to decline so they can collect more FVF penalty fees, it's a cynically, unethical and immoral rigged scam.
Kick and steal from you after you're pushed to the ground unconscious with fraudulent Snads (Dramatic eh? 🙂
the sad fact is that even with the Auto fee relist GTC ka-ching machine, and the FVF fee collected on shipping + seller metrics Peer "Program" the GMV "metrics" is in decline while other venue report profits.
I don't see it as a "swindle". But I certainly agree that the Service Metrics is a bad policy. My reasons for saying that may be different than other posters reasons. But we agree that it is a bad policy.
For me, the first thing that struck me when Ebay released this policy a couple of years ago. Back when Ebay redesigned the Seller Dashboard and stopped having FB and DSRs count against sellers in the monthly evals. Ebay made a promise to sellers that Return Requests that were resolved BEFORE asking Ebay to step in would NOT be held against us anymore. This policy goes back on that statement and I think that is just another complete breach of trust.
The lack of clarity on how Ebay arrives at our Peer Group is also a huge issue. The transparency on this needs to be much better than it currently is, which is in complete darkness. It is the main part of this policy that drives how our percentages may rise or fall.
I could go on, but I think you get the idea. I am no fan of this policy for many reasons.
