Followers

[merira-75]

Is there a way that I can see who my followers are on Ebay?

[chevymontecarlo88]

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@merira-75 wrote:

Is there a way that I can see who my followers are on Ebay?

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On eBay, No. 

But in real life, use the picture below to rotate your head. YMMV 😀

[wastingtime101]

You can see if a buyer that purchases from you is a follower. Screenshot here.

But you cannot see a list of your followers anywhere. eBay removed that ability many years ago.

[chevymontecarlo88]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

You can see if a buyer that purchases from you is a follower. Screenshot here.

But you cannot see a list of your followers anywhere. eBay removed that ability many years ago.

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I wish they didn't. Having the ability to know that before the sale is more important than after. IMHO

Many watchers could be your competition, (or someone that is trolling) and it would be nice to know who they are before sending them any discount coupons/offers. YMMV

I wonder why the chose to remove that option? Did they think it was causing direct-to-direct communications that violated policy? (poaching buyers to offline transactions) 

[ebooksdiva]

I think you are confusing followers and watchers. You have never been able to see who watchers on your items are.

You used to be able to see who was following your profile or store. Watchers are not the same as followers. 

[wastingtime101]

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@chevymontecarlo88 wrote:

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I wonder why the chose to remove that option? Did they think it was causing direct-to-direct communications that violated policy? (poaching buyers to offline transactions) 

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I wouldn't be surprised if offline transactions played a small part, but the main reason was privacy issues.

That's about followers, though. As ebooksdiva said it sounds like you're conflating followers with watchers.

[chevymontecarlo88]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

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@chevymontecarlo88 wrote:

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I wonder why the chose to remove that option? Did they think it was causing direct-to-direct communications that violated policy? (poaching buyers to offline transactions) 

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I wouldn't be surprised if offline transactions played a small part, but the main reason was privacy issues.

That's about followers, though. As ebooksdiva said it sounds like you're conflating followers with watchers.

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Yes, followers. (not watchers)

What info could be revealed that might violate someone's privacy? All they can see is their username, items listed or sold (maybe not sold for long), and location. I don't see how that info would impact eBay as much as users trying to pry others off the site. (loss of fees/transactions) Either way it is what it is. Apologies for drifting off from the OP question.

[wastingtime101]

Followers used to be public, not just seller-facing. So if I clicked on your profile I could see everybody you were following and everybody that was following you.

A lot of people abused it, and not just by trying to take sales offline. eBay eventually cut it off entirely.

Back when we had visibility I could see a lot of my followers were competitors (ones that liked to steal my photos 🙄).

When you send newsletters and discounts to followers, you can't pick/choose - it's either all followers or none. So you've gotta assume there will always be some amount of competitors in there, along with legit interested shoppers. Whether you can see the list or not, that's almost always going to be true.

In addition, followers have the option to unsubscribe from your newsletter if they don't want unsolicited communications. In the past sellers were contacting followers about new products and other stuff and buyers were getting annoyed by the SPAM.

[chevymontecarlo88]

I preferred having the visibility for those exact reasons. It was interesting (sometimes revealing) to see who follows who but more importantly who is viewing your moves. (sales/promotions) 

Thanks @wastingtime101 👍