GOOD NEWS - Most items I've ever had listed.... BAD NEWS - Views and Sales are down!

[natoman777]

My wife and I have the most items listed on eBay since we have been using it (since 1999).  Sales were very good in January, but February has slowed.  eBay...please quit messing with the site!  Fix the search engine...invest in some advertising for us.  It is hard to be motivated to keep adding to my store on eBay when 50% or more sell on FB Marketplace instead. 

[natoman777]

@chapeau-noirWell... it depends on what is trendy still.  I do have some button ups that would just be old clothes.  Some brands are highly sought after.  As far as Tshirts go it mainly has to do with the style (all over print, wrap around, sports, bands, etc...) 

[siamjane8]

@redlinear   you hit the nail on the head

   For some reason, ebay does not understand that the search is the single biggest deterrent from sales!   Even though actual buyers and sellers continue to point it out and are basically begging ebay to roll back the search algorithms to when they were actually accurate and relevant- they refuse to listen and take action.

    They should have data as to how many searches end up in a buyer not converting to a sale and moving on...... they just wont admit its because the search is so bad and they were frustrated and left.

[siamjane8]

@redlinear Exactly! Since you sell car parts- im sure you have seen as i have- that there is a collector or a person that is passionate about EVERY car ever built, even if if it was a mainstream flop. If i have one part- i dont need 43 buyers, just one buyer in literally billions of people on this planet.  We have sold the most obscure or seemingly undesirable parts and items that you could think of.  it simply about connecting the item with the the correct buyer..... thats where ebay comes in- thats why we pay ebay fees to list here. For visibility.   But with ebay search- the visibility is harshly manipulated and the rest is just irrelevant results.

[skeletonstore]

ebay has been broken for quite some time now.  I literally could sell a piece of ripped up paper now I couldn't sell gold pokemon cards.  I suspect wokeism is to blame.  They're hiring people who have no business doing such a job. That whole everyone gets a star mentality and let's fix what's not broken is the problem.  They've been trying and morphing into amazon for years and leaving a lot of sellers in the dust.  They also routinely shadow ban sellers and made announcements years ago they would do this regularly.  Artificial intelligence is park of the woke police state such as found on facebook.  My city's crime rate is too high to sell on there and the criminal culture doesn't exactly shop or are consumers unless it's drugs.  I'd like to see a study done on sales.  I bet sales were much better years ago for most and the best sales are coming from amazon dropshippers which flood the site with their hundreds of thousands of listings.  That's money right into another country's hands and out of American sellers in particular who need money to pay bills not to maintain their regime.  

[movieman630]

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@coolections wrote:

More listings DO NOT guarantee an increase in sales. In fact, IMO less listings do. Reason being is all the stuff that no one wants you should immediately remove. Keep only the stuff that has the most views and watchers. Doing that will get you a higher sell-through rate. People who have 3,000 listings but only sell 30 things a month will be farther down the best match list then people who have 1,000 listing and sell 30 things a month.

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That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard on here.  Less does not equal more sales.  It's not only wrong statistically speaking it's just not probable. 

[natoman777]

@movieman630Thanks for pointing out that!  There is also the algorithm part of listing on eBay that helps get your items seen.  If you list 3000 dollar tree junk items I guess that theory might work haha..

[chapeau-noir]

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@movieman630 wrote:

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@coolections wrote:

More listings DO NOT guarantee an increase in sales. In fact, IMO less listings do. Reason being is all the stuff that no one wants you should immediately remove. Keep only the stuff that has the most views and watchers. Doing that will get you a higher sell-through rate. People who have 3,000 listings but only sell 30 things a month will be farther down the best match list then people who have 1,000 listing and sell 30 things a month.

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That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard on here.  Less does not equal more sales.  It's not only wrong statistically speaking it's just not probable. 

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I think the point is that the smaller proportion of old, constantly renewing listings with little interest, the better. 

[yuzuha]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

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I think the point is that the smaller proportion of old, constantly renewing listings with little interest, the better. 

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Exactly. Sales lead to more sales, and if you've got a huge number of listings that have next to no interest in terms of views/watchers/sales, that's just going to drag everything else down.

[natoman777]

So my sales out of the blue picked up on Saturday.. I listed a ton.  FB Marketplace still outsold eBay.  Crazy because I know a ton of people who didn't even know you can purchase items for shipment on FB.  eBay needs to begin to really spend some $ on adds.  They can no longer assume people are familiar with them, especially the youngest age groups.

[Anonymous]

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@fallgold4031 wrote:

 Not Ebay's fault

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In 2010 eBay negotiated a deal between eBay, USPS and China Post to create cobranded shipping labels for eBay's Chinese Communist vendors.

This was to exploit and misuse a 1969 Universal Postal Union agreement that gave subsidized rates to developing countries and to help poor people. Communist China was still considered a developing country under this agreement.

These Chinese packages could weigh up to 4.4 pounds and would be treated as First Class Mail when then reached the United States. Domestic First Class Mail was limited to 13 ounces (15.999 ounces commercial). The public was told this was needed to offset the dropping volumes of domestic First Class Mail. The income from these packages would help save USPS.

That was a complete lie as USPS lost money on every single package and was unable to change the rates due to the UPU agreement. USPS had always made money on foreign mail, but in 2010 they saw income dramatically drop. The only reason they made any money on foreign mail that year was because eBay's program only ran half the year.

From 2011 onward USPS lost increasing amounts on foreign mail due to eBay's program. Amazon later copied eBay's program. Obama, Biden and the U.S. Congress sat by and did nothing while USPS lost billions due to eBay' program. To make up for these loses USPS raised domestic rate, slowed services, shut facilities and shortened hours. eBay  in turn earned more FVF on these higher rates.

This destroyed many eBay sellers who could not compete due to the subsidies Chinese Communist vendors got from the UPU program and the Chinese government. A U.S. seller could literally be given free inventory and they would not be able to sell it as the Chinese vendors could offer at a cheaper price direct form China. This eBay program allowed China to dump goods into the U.S. via out own postal system, thus further destroying domestic manufacturing.

This all came to an end with Trump, who told other nations to fix the issue or the U.S. would withdrawal from the UPU treaty. When they did not listen he began the 1 year withdrawal process. Faced with not being able to ship their mail and packages into the largest economy in the world the other countries backed down, thus saving USPS further billions on loses.

Of course eBay is responsible.

[coolections]

@movieman630   It might seem ridiculous to you, but I know for a fact the higher the sell through the more visibility on the first page of best match you get. Those who collect dust are always on the bottom and complaining. They are the ones who blame Ebay for lack of sales.

[redlinear]

Correct.  eBay's search favors (to a great extent) newer listings over older listings.
  And if you are not the 1st page of a search?  It's going to hurt sales.
There are methods of helping a listing stay up high.   But, it usually requires more time on something that should already be done.  And/Or more money.  
There are lots of ways to be seen.  But many times the cost/time are just not worth it.
HOWEVER, on older listings?  They will eventually come back to the top....once for sure, maybe twice... each year.  
My main issue is that the search should NOT favor new listings over old WITHOUT the searcher filtering it that way.   A searcher has the option to filter new-to-old or old-to-new.  eBay should NOT be doing that for somebody.
I try to tailor my listings for certain FILTER parameters that I think searchers might use.  "I think" means if I get no sales, it's my fault.   But, "much" of the algorithm parameters are out of my control. I don't know how much that algorithm favors one thing more than another.  SO, I now have to attempt to outwit it....usually by paying more and spending more time tinkering with my already finished listings.

[chapeau-noir]

@redlinear HOWEVER, on older listings? They will eventually come back to the top....once for sure, maybe twice... each year. 

How do you determine this? (honest question)

[redlinear]

@chapeau-noir 
One day, last summer.  
I took around 20 pics of Peavey amp knobs and other misc parts off of a Peavey amplifier. (I parted out a Peavey amp).    I dropped all these little parts in "Tub-47".  
I also took 20 pics of some misc Harley Davidson stuff I had.  (put those parts in the same location Tub-47).
Did the same with a few other little, unrelated items.
LISTED all of those items the next day.

This morning, I went to Tub-47 and pulled two Peavey items, two Harley parts, and a Can-Am item.  Shipped the five items to five different buyers.  (all of these items in tub-47 were listed on the same day)

This type of thing happens EVER DAY.

[chapeau-noir]

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@redlinear wrote:

One day, last summer.  
I took around 20 pics of Peavey amp knobs and other misc parts off of a Peavey amplifier. (I parted out a Peavey amp).    I dropped all these little parts in "Tub-47".  
I also took 20 pics of some misc Harley Davidson stuff I had.  (put those parts in the same location Tub-47).
Did the same with a few other little, unrelated items.
LISTED all of those items the next day.

This morning, I went to Tub-47 and pulled two Peavey items, two Harley parts, and a Can-Am item.  Shipped the five items to five different buyers.  (all of these items in tub-47 were listed on the same day)

This type of thing happens EVER DAY.

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OK, I thought there was an objective criteria for the once or twice a year rise in actual search results (i.e., indexing, relevancy, etc.) - since I sell seasonally, I sell old stuff all the time when the season rolls around again, but that's not the same as a rise in relevancy at a one or so year mark. Maybe because our markets are so different.

I'm always looking for that edge lol!