Ebay sales are slow

[dollface18]

How is everyone doing with eBay sales, It's so slow.

[lobby_of_hobbies_and_collectibles]

Mine have actually been amazing this week. Last 31 days I'm at 10k in sales when I normally do like 6-7k

[inhawaii]

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@lobby_of_hobbies_and_collectibles wrote:

Mine have actually been amazing this week. Last 31 days I'm at 10k in sales when I normally do like 6-7k

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Great! 

I guess sales aren't slow for everyone, just some.

[ulfesharpe]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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They don't hide them forever.  We may have a hidden listing in a buyer's search return.  The listing is not hidden on the entire site, just for that single buyer return.

You've been a seller for quite a while.  If you haven't read the User Agreement that YOU agreed to when you became a member on Ebay, that is on you, not Ebay.

FYI, I didn't write the rules, so don't shoot the messenger, it serves no purpose.

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Ha-a! "We" 🙂 

T&Cs — Okay, so in the end it's my fault 🙂 You know, I'm not even considering that everybody joins unknowingly because nobody reads T&Cs... but that T&Cs are funny things. Even if people DID read T&Cs when signing up they wouldn't truly understand most it — not without the experience and a detailed perception of how it works. For example, without knowing how it works you could read somewhere "we may use an algorithm to select certain listings to provide a better experience for the user". Doesn't sound too bad, right? But without your experience as a seller (which only comes after having to agree with T&Cs to open your account) you won't realise that it means that possibly the "algorithm" (i.e. Ebay) whenever it encounters a certain set of pre-programmed conditions, will sink the listings that you were charged for and were expecting to be in equal terms with everybody else's. 

There's always a displacement between experience and T&Cs and maybe that's why nobody reads it. People only go back to it to confirm that whoever wrote it was already anticipating a certain problem. And that's what T&Cs are really for.

Anyway, I'm not trying to shoot the messenger, obviously. We're just talking about this and that (while it's not forbidden). Cheers!

[fbusoni]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@fbusoni  Obviously, I can't speak to the exact results you and your friend were seeing, but for some years now ebay has been VERY clear that the Search algo considers a range of factors, including whatever ebay knows (or the algo thinks it knows) about the BUYER. So, just a simplified example, assume both Buyer A and Buyer B have a long history of purchasing on ebay, and Buyer A has ALWAYS bought items with free shipping and Buyer B has never done so....Buyer A is more likely to be shown items with Free Shipping, and Buyer B is more likely to be shown a mix. 

As I say, that's a very simplified example, the algo is so complex that in a real test results are unlikely to be so obvious.

But knowing what little we know about the algo, I would say , particularly for broad search terms and search results with many matching items, we should have NO expectation that Buyer A and Buyer B will be shown all the same things, much less in the same order. 

Also, keep in mind , from ebay's perspective, search is about showing items that the algo believes will convert. Sellers tend to see Search as something that should provide all the exact items the buyer is searching for, but ebay search (as with most ecommerce platforms) is not designed to be a simple response to a query, it is designed to provide an item the buyer will buy. (How well ebay succeeds at this is, of course, open to debate) However, and I wish I could recall the exact statistic, some years ago (pre PLS as I recall) ebay provided the percentage of items sold that were purchased from, I think it was the top three slots in search results) and it was a VERY high number. Which suggests that either buyers are not as "comparison shopping minded" as many sellers believe, or that ebay's search results ---at least the top few slots---are often better attuned to what the buyer wants than we tend to think.

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques  

Right, I was merely responding to what @sakic92710 observed:

"Not everyone can see every listing.  Leaves plenty of room for sellers to lose out on a sale because a certain buyer does not see their item in his/her search."

[fbusoni]

@ulfesharpe 

My favorite paragraphs of the eBay user agreement are no. 4 and the paragraph immediately preceding it:

 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@fbusoni  And that is one reason most people don't read T&Cs...because most of them have some version of that:  "But, when it comes right down to it, we can do whatever we feel like, for any or no discernable reason. Have a nice day!"

[mam98031]

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@fbusoni wrote:

@ulfesharpe 

My favorite paragraphs of the eBay user agreement are no. 4 and the paragraph immediately preceding it:

 

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Some of that is legal kind of stuff and some is site security.

For example, seller accounts that have not been active for quite a while and have not yet done the verification and information process for Managed Payments presents a security risk to the site.

Inactive accounts are the most targeted by hackers to take that account over and use it for their purposes.  

So while it may not sit well with you, there is good reason for it.  And closing those accounts harms no one.  If that member comes back someday to find out their account was closed, they can contact Ebay and work through whatever they need to do to either reactivate it or start a new account.

[mam98031]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@fbusoni  And that is one reason most people don't read T&Cs...because most of them have some version of that:  "But, when it comes right down to it, we can do whatever we feel like, for any or no discernable reason. Have a nice day!"

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LIkely because they own the site and we don't.

[ginapeet]

down 50 % and some items no views.paying to promote an item and still no views on it.

[ginapeet]

hahahaha 16 collar dog collars

[ladyindecadence]

I've come to the conclusion that the variables used to determine search placement are being tinkered with far more often now then in the past.

For years you could figure out what would get you the best search placement. And once you had that figured out it wasn't hard to keep your items visible.  About once or twice a year ebay would make a major search update and you would be back to square one, however you had a lot of previous knowledge to base your tests on. It usually didn't take long to get your store ranking high again.

Over the past two years the variables in search seem to change almost daily and have made it much harder to figure out what the algorithm wants (as what it wants seems to be constantly changing). I think that they have fully implemented AI that adjusts the algorithm in real time based on consumer purchase metrics.

The algorithm in the past seems to have been more focused on seller metrics and price so that good sellers with good deals got better placement.  Now it seems to be more about sell through rate and promotions.

[wpt05]

When you list an auction item for one penny with free shipping and it's getting no action then you'll know you've hit rock bottom.  I'm not writing this as a joke.  If you don't believe me, take a look.  There were over 300 similar items that were sold in the past 3 months.  Mine is not even getting a sniff.  

[chapeau-noir]

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@ulfesharpe wrote:

What sales? I thought we were here because we've committed terrible crimes in a past life.

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Only after we've passed through the 6th Circle.