eBay

greatcards4you · ‎03-09-2025

Excuse the rant as I have been on Ebay for nearly 20 years ( I have more than one ID) and if there is one fact above all else, Ebay does not care what anyone thinks....

With that said.... I pay a store subscription to list my items and brand my business.

When someone enters my store and is looking at my items ( I am not speaking of the Ebay main search),

and they click on an item....

they see my item taking up about 1/4 of the page.... along with....

"similar items" (not mine)

"inspired by your recent views" (not my items)

"You may also like" (not my items)

"more to explore" (Not my items)

"related searches" (Not my items)

In short, I am paying a store subscription to help my competition get exposure to their items?

I know the response (along with Ebay not caring) is that other sellers will have my items in their shops.

I do not care. I pay for offsite advertising to drive traffic to my shop. If we are paying a subscription fee, the only items that should be visible in our listings found via our shop search bar should be the listings of the shop owner.

chapeau-noir · ‎03-09-2025

This is a very common complaint. eBay is unable to grow their site organically so are depending upon ads for their profits, and it has turned into an addiction. It doesn't matter what we say - they seem unable to think of anything else but ad-cramming.

“The illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a little longer.” - Henry Kissinger

"Wherever law ends, tyranny begins" -John Locke

luckythewinner · ‎03-09-2025

they see my item taking up about 1/4 of the page.... along with....

"similar items" (not mine)

"inspired by your recent views" (not my items)

"You may also like" (not my items)

"more to explore" (Not my items)

"related searches" (Not my items)

And when they view another seller's item, they see that item taking up about 1/4 of the page.... along with....

"similar items" (maybe your items)

"inspired by your recent views" (maybe your items)

"You may also like" (maybe your items)

"more to explore" (maybe your items)

"related searches" (Not my items)

thestuffuwant · ‎03-09-2025

I agree. If a buyer enters my Store I want to keep that customer there and on the other side as a buyer if I enter a store I entered it because I want to see that store. While in that store I should never see other sellers items.

The Stuff U Want

dhbookds · ‎03-09-2025

nobody likes it, but it's not going to change

greatcards4you · ‎03-09-2025

I already acknowledged this reality in my original post.

I do not care about what may be there. As I also said in my original post I pay for offsite advertising to drive traffic to my listings. I am not doing this to provide free advertising for other people. And yes, I know it is my choice to pay for the clicks. But that is what someone does when they are trying to "mind their own business".

greatcards4you · ‎03-09-2025

Yeah it really didn't bother me until someone contacted me demanding I lower the price on one of my items because they saw it cheaper on my listing page ..... I am all for consumers educating themselves before they make a purchase, but not in my " livingroom" that I am paying rent for.

funfactorychannel · ‎03-09-2025

i complained about this awhile ago as well 😞

Sad part is we dont even get one row for our items. At least give us one row!

chapeau-noir · ‎03-09-2025

@luckythewinner wrote:
they see my item taking up about 1/4 of the page.... along with....
"similar items" (not mine)
"inspired by your recent views" (not my items)
"You may also like" (not my items)
"more to explore" (Not my items)
"related searches" (Not my items)

And when they view another seller's item, they see that item taking up about 1/4 of the page.... along with....
"similar items" (maybe your items)
"inspired by your recent views" (maybe your items)
"You may also like" (maybe your items)
"more to explore" (maybe your items)
"related searches" (Not my items)

This is brought up over and over again as some sort of justification, but even with half-decent matching, statistically it's a pretty slim chance of our listings magically popping up to be looked at (amongst the other 100+ listings crammed in), even slimmer that the prospective buyer will scroll through hundreds of listings to actually find ours.

“The illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a little longer.” - Henry Kissinger

"Wherever law ends, tyranny begins" -John Locke

fashunu4eeuh · ‎03-09-2025

Hi @greatcards4you your assessment of the situation is spot on. And a common complaint in the forum for years now.

I don’t see this as a fair practice, but don’t worry about its impact on my sales since i know eBay will never give up such an easy and lucrative monetization of our listings. All i can do is to 1) make sure my items (plus shipping) are competitively priced, 2) offer the utmost in customer service (like Free Shipping and Returns) and 3) maintain as many unusual or OOAK items as i can in my eBay inventory. I leave the commodities and commonplace for elsewhere. That lessens the chance of similar goods getting listed right next to mine. If it does occur, the first two steps become more important in setting my listings apart from the crowd..

fbusoni · ‎03-10-2025

@greatcards4you

The silver lining here (if you can call it that) is that there are no ads on your storefront per se. I suspect that people bookmark your storefront to refer to it periodically.

Let's hope that that does not change... to my mind, ads on the storefront would invalidate the concept of an eBay "store."

eBay seller since 1999. This is a posting ID.

luckythewinner · ‎03-10-2025

@chapeau-noir wrote:
@luckythewinner wrote:
they see my item taking up about 1/4 of the page.... along with....
"similar items" (not mine)
"inspired by your recent views" (not my items)
"You may also like" (not my items)
"more to explore" (Not my items)
"related searches" (Not my items)

And when they view another seller's item, they see that item taking up about 1/4 of the page.... along with....
"similar items" (maybe your items)
"inspired by your recent views" (maybe your items)
"You may also like" (maybe your items)
"more to explore" (maybe your items)
"related searches" (Not my items)

This is brought up over and over again as some sort of justification, but even with half-decent matching, statistically it's a pretty slim chance of our listings magically popping up to be looked at (amongst the other 100+ listings crammed in), even slimmer that the prospective buyer will scroll through hundreds of listings to actually find ours.

I didn't bring it up as "justification".

I brought it up to provide a more nuanced view of the situation.

chevymontecarlo88 · ‎03-10-2025

@greatcards4you

Have confidence in what you are selling and set yourself apart from those who do compete with you. (pictures, descriptions and price)

Maybe they will offer an AD FREE store option (for a fee) in the future.

- Roasting id

meme6253 · ‎03-10-2025

I have to agree with you, I don't like it either & i am pretty sure most of us don't, But it is something ebay implemented & i guess we have to live with it.