cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

First week of no sales since starting in 1999

Very tired of dealing with this company sales has been dropping starting ten years back.

I sell vintage cadillac parts and have had customers tell me over and over that  when they search for parts  all is found is 3 pages of fuzzy dice and 5 pages of led lights after that they give up.If there platform is not working then why  come her to buy.[ low traffic means no sales]

Message 1 of 12
latest reply
11 REPLIES 11

First week of no sales since starting in 1999

Search is beyond a mess!! And eBay does nothing about fixing it. 😞 

Message 2 of 12
latest reply

First week of no sales since starting in 1999


@belairmark wrote:

I sell vintage cadillac parts and have had customers tell me over and over that  when they search for parts  all is found is 3 pages of fuzzy dice and 5 pages of led lights


I searched for three of your Cadillac items, and they came up #1 in search with various key words* ... no fuzzy dice.

 

Do you have examples of how searching for your items is not working?

 

 

 

* - The only time one of your items didn't come up in search was when I used "1960" rather than "60", but that was because the title was "1959 60 Cadillac 4 door rear view mirror" and no where in the listing did I see "1960".

Message 3 of 12
latest reply

First week of no sales since starting in 1999


@orangehound wrote:

@belairmark wrote:

I sell vintage cadillac parts and have had customers tell me over and over that  when they search for parts  all is found is 3 pages of fuzzy dice and 5 pages of led lights


I searched for three of your Cadillac items, and they came up #1 in search with various key words* ... no fuzzy dice.

 

Do you have examples of how searching for your items is not working?

 

 

 

* - The only time one of your items didn't come up in search was when I used "1960" rather than "60", but that was because the title was "1959 60 Cadillac 4 door rear view mirror" and no where in the listing did I see "1960".


Search issues are intermittent and seem to cycle. In our case, it's harder to find our items later in the day, unless if we have a particularly slow morning (which happens to mean our sales will pick up in the evening).

 

Ourselves, and I'm sure many more sellers, have definitely had reports of buyers saying the same things. They can't find our items. Other reports saying if they seen it earlier, but then check later and can no longer find it.

 

I also linked to a post recently from some months back where I posted screenshots of items not appearing properly even when sorted by price, and issues with the "show all" or "matching less". I could link it if you'd like, but come to think of it, I think I recall that I posted those screenshots in response to your request, haha. 

Message 4 of 12
latest reply

First week of no sales since starting in 1999

I ran an experiment the other day. Searched under the used classification for "2018 Honda Accord Headlight"  five times in five hours. Not once did I get the same number of search results (a variance of several hundred listings) and the results were ordered dramatically differently each time. Also I found very few promoted listings which seems questionable, since I know a lot of people (myself included) are running promos at a flat 1%. My listing wasn't in any of the results any of the times I searched, but if I filtered by my username it magically appeared. 

 

Seems legit.

Message 5 of 12
latest reply

First week of no sales since starting in 1999


@redline_auto_llc wrote:

I ran an experiment the other day. Searched under the used classification for "2018 Honda Accord Headlight"  five times in five hours. Not once did I get the same number of search results (a variance of several hundred listings) and the results were ordered dramatically differently each time. Also I found very few promoted listings which seems questionable, since I know a lot of people (myself included) are running promos at a flat 1%. My listing wasn't in any of the results any of the times I searched, but if I filtered by my username it magically appeared. 

 

Seems legit.


Might be good to collect some screenshots or put together a spreadsheet and share here. 

If we could collect data for different sellers, it might finally give some legitimacy to the problem we're facing, despite so many claiming this does not happen.

Message 6 of 12
latest reply

First week of no sales since starting in 1999

Agree, I went to do a quick price comparable on an item that I was ready to sell and found a few. Went back later to check again and found different listings of the item and the ones that I was going to compare with were gone. Thought that was a little strange.

Message 7 of 12
latest reply

First week of no sales since starting in 1999


@zamo-zuan wrote:


Search issues are intermittent and seem to cycle. 


I get that ... I call it the eBay lava lamp, where sometimes you are on the top and sometimes on the bottom.

 

But, I thought the OP was implying that his listings (or some of them) were never visible and not in the lava lamp cycle.  So, some specific examples are important to try to understand why they aren't visible.

Message 8 of 12
latest reply

First week of no sales since starting in 1999


@belairmark wrote:

Very tired of dealing with this company sales has been dropping starting ten years back.

I sell vintage cadillac parts and have had customers tell me over and over that  when they search for parts  all is found is 3 pages of fuzzy dice and 5 pages of led lights after that they give up.If there platform is not working then why  come her to buy.[ low traffic means no sales]


Sorry this is happening to you.

 

I stopped buying here after nine years.  2019 changed my desire to want to shop here anymore.  Still hoping for something to change, which is why I post.  I also wanted to sell, but after reading the many negative experiences here and having my own, I would never try now.

 

eBay is good at not listening to their Sellers, so I think the decline in sales will continue until they do (which will probably be too late).

 

GMV is down for both US and International markets.  Comparing Q2 19 with Q2 18, International GMV is down 4.1 % and US GMV is down 4.7%.

Message 9 of 12
latest reply

First week of no sales since starting in 1999

One thing I forgot to mention:

 

GMV does not include returns, unpaid items & cancellations, so it’s not a true indicator of all "completed sales." If there are a lot of returns and cancellations (which I see an uptrend in), then the true sales numbers are lower.

Message 10 of 12
latest reply

First week of no sales since starting in 1999

I've had a regular customer tell me he didn't see all of my listings until after 3 tries. But he is an older guy and might have missed something.

 

However, I do find it strange that GTC listings seem to drop into a limbo period. They are popular when first listed and sales seem to pop up again when they are close to ending. I should create a chart or something to see if my gut feelings are true, but quite frankly, there is so little profit in this most days I hate to devote even more time to it. I do not blame GTC, I think sorts and visibility are more of the culprits.

 

I've tried a few promoted listings and didn't really see any increased activity.

Message 11 of 12
latest reply

First week of no sales since starting in 1999

Search gets WORSE EVERY DAY! I have been listing and researching tools the last few days, last time was early this morning. Fast forward to tonight 12 hrs later, I do a search for a "Signed Hand Blown Glass Saw Tooth Bulb Vase" EXPECTING only to be shown Glass Vases in some form and lots of them. What Does This CRAZY MONSTER AI SEARCH show me? EXACTLY 5 Glass Vases and 15 plus assorted tools including drill bits, hand tools, electric tools all stock photos and drop shipper garbage, You would think they would have actually thrown a SAW in there because it was in the TITLE but NO. ( none of the TOOLS they showed me I was researching either the last few days) There are over 100,000 glass vases on this site and this is what I get in search! This is the biggest culprit behind the lack of sales on this site. People don't put up with this stuff for long before they bail for good!

Message 12 of 12
latest reply