Ebay is making it literally impossible to find listings. Recreational sellers may as well give up.

[70rag428]

I've been selling on ebay for 26 years. The days of setting up an auction or "buy it now" listing and getting prospective buyers to actually view your listing page, are gone. Ebay is basically forcing sellers to buy into their "Reach more buyers on eBay" option which supposedly puts your listing closer to the top of  search pages. The problem with that is the cost...it's 12%! Last I checked, ebay fees are around 13% of the sale. Add that to the 12% ebay wants for reach more buyers feature, and now the seller cost balloons to 25%! Sellers that buy into this feature, now leap ahead of sellers that don't have this feature....And they don't even have to sell the same basic thing. Their listings get priority even if they're selling something completely different. The result is, recreational seller's listings get no exposure. They are completely buried. All of my listings are lost in the ebay twilight zone, where listings go to die...Out to the corn field.     

[jeopricville]

Inhawaii will get you straightened out! Depend on him!

[redlinear]

@70rag428 
  You are 85% correct.
Yet, you are missing 85% of the problem.  It's not JUST promoted listings.  There's a whole lot of other stuff eBay is doing, and allowing, that make search results very poor for shoppers that are looking for "the deal".
"The deal" being the lowest price, best quality item....most of the time.  
It's extremely frustrating 

[double2trouble]

My biggest problem still is using the eBay search for something specific I need, and nothing coming up. Then a Google search brings up an active listing for exactly what I was looking for. If there are 1000 of them for sale, I understand, but when it is the ONLY one for sale, I don't get that. I am in the business of repairing things. When I am looking for something specific, that is what I need. Something else is not going to fit the bill. You want to make the sale, show me what I need. 

[tobaccocardyahoo]

There is far less interest in many items than there was in the past. There are far more offers of many of those items than there were in the past. Not even the people who bought them before want them now.

Ebay has never shared it's definition of Best Match in the search. It has probably changed what constitutes a best match.

Ebay offers sellers an opportunity to get ahead of their competition by paying a promotional fee. It can provide value to the seller if there are more offers than there are buyers and there are buyers looking to buy.

With only a few offers, a seller needs to have something that has enough interest, or have a lot of patience to wait for a buyer to purchase their items.

Way back when, some sellers could get some quick cash by listing a few items on Ebay. Now most cannot.

[my_boston_baked_beans]

As a 24 year seller (other ID) I have pretty much given up on ebay for providing consistant sales. I am downsizing, and use other venues over ebay. Ebay was once a profitable venue especially for antique & vintage not anymore. 

If I make a sale I celebrate if not I keep listing elsewhere!

[reallynicestamps]

The cost of Promoted Listings is 2%.

That's the minimum and the only one I use.

EBay "suggests" higher rates.

Any eBay suggestion is good for eBay.

I have found that while PL does bring more Views, it doesn't bring more sales of PL listings.

It seems to bring customers to my Store, where they browse and then buy something else.

I do find targetted Best Offers fairly successful (around 10% end in a sale).

If PL does not result in a sale, it doesn't cost anything, so I use it for the increased Views.

[reallynicestamps]

"The deal" being the lowest price, best quality item....most of the time.

The lowest price is not always "the deal".

The best quality is not always "the deal".

The highest price is not always the best quality, for that matter.

[eburtonlab]

My biggest problem still is using the eBay search for something specific I need, and nothing coming up. Then a Google search brings up an active listing for exactly what I was looking for.

Can you give an example of what you are searching for that cannot be found?

If you do not have a recent example handy, I can certainly understand that and I do believe you when you say you were unable to find something on eBay, but were able to find it using Google. I have run into that before. Usually I am able to figure out why the item did not appear in the original search, and how to change the search to find it. Over time I have picked up a few search tricks.

Being able to look at an actual current example might be instructive. Even if the problem is ultimately on eBay's end, there may be a way to modify your search to get the results you need without resorting to Google. Plus, being able to tell eBay exactly how the search is failing may help to get eBay to implement a fix or alter how certain keywords are treated, at least. It is also possible that the problem is on the seller's end -- perhaps the seller listed in the "wrong" category, or used the wrong keywords, making the listing much harder for buyers to find. If so, there may still be ways to modify your search to increase your chances of finding something.

If a seller is clever, the seller can make it easy for any buyer to find the listing.

If a buyer is clever, the buyer can find a listing even if a seller (or eBay) makes it hard.

If eBay is clever, eBay can help buyers find listings that are otherwise hard to find.

If no one is clever, I suppose there is always Google.

[onefootflipper1]

Original poster, you seem to mostly sell auto parts. 

The auto parts category is suffering from a basically viral set of item specifics that make the items that use it hit on basically every single search. I call it viral because it has spread to hundreds or thousands of sellers because of people hitting the sell similar button.

However most of your items seem to be extremely longtail. I can't imagine used Chevelle seat belt parts are that fast of a seller. Overwhelming majority of owners would never need them, it isn't like they break that often. People doing back to factory restorations on old drag cars with stripped interiors probably don't come along on a daily basis.

[tobaccocardyahoo]

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@eburtonlab wrote:

If no one is clever, I suppose there is always Google.

---

External views on my listings are usually 20% higher on days when my sales are good.

One of the reasons for external views is the view originated with a search engine.

[bandrarmoire]

You dont have to do 12%. I dont ever do 12%.

[redlinear]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

"The deal" being the lowest price, best quality item....most of the time.

The lowest price is not always "the deal".

The best quality is not always "the deal".

The highest price is not always the best quality, for that matter.

---

Most of the time........
And, most everybody shopping on eBay is looking for "their" best deal.   Which isn't easy to find if the search results don't show ALL of what you ask for.  If sorts and filters don't do what they claim.
  eBay's search function is an insult to shoppers.
If I search "round fish net", I want to be shown EVERYTHING with round fish net in the title.  If I'm looking for a round fish landing net, and I see a bunch of fish net stockings with round holes?  I'm smart enough to change my search parameters.   I don't need eBay making assumptions for me. 
  As a shopper, that has stopped by eBay's site, I probably think SEARCH, searches titles.  I'm not aware SEARCH pulls results from all over the place, or that sellers can pay money just for better exposure. 
  eBay is doing themselves no favors by treating their shoppers like they are dumb.  
I walk into a car dealership and ask to see the Red Corvettes.  The salesman takes to the Brown ones, then the Blue ones, then the Green ones....I'm leaving before we get to the White ones.

[gurlcat]

I would agree 100% if eBay were the only site behaving that way, but it is typical everywhere.  I can picture someone who rarely orders online getting frustrated, but I think most have learned by now that you have to play with the left-screen refinements to narrow the results appropriately. 

[lb23cavaliersmvp]

I searched for 1965 Chevy Caprice steering wheel and your listing was the 5th one. Did you pay a PL?