GTC listing question / UPC and effect

[geotouloupos]

Ok i hope someone can help me out on this one...

I had an item that was selling very well to US buyers. The reason was the low price and quality  (was the lowest on ebay since i can get it directly from manufucturer) . I decided to list the item with GTC format since  every time the 30 days listings were ending sooner.  While in GTC mode the item had sold 14 pieces very fast and i added 14 on the top by revising item listing. So it was like 14 sold  -  14 left. Sales stopped suddently for a month. I could not understand why and i called ebay and the employee there said that their system showed somehow that the stock was zero. He told me to cancel the listing and relist the item as new and also add UPC. By doing this i lost the first place in results and the item started to have  less views than before. Note that the price etc are still the same as before. The new item listing sold only 2 pieces to a returning US customer who bought before and sent me a message that he will buy 1 more since he was happy. Until today the item sales have been zero and i can not undertand the reason for that.  Iam wondering if revisions on GTC listings afect visibility and i still do not undertand how a best selling item can suddently go dead of sales. I have asked ebay to take a look on that but what iam getting are confusing answers from people that look more pazzled than me after they see the history of previews transactions. Any ideas?

[johnfduda]

You gain respect from viewers who can see that you've sold a number before so those buyers are silently approving your item.

The advice to relist was obviously bad. Some sellers say you gain exposure in best match ranking with a new listing, but it's my opinion that a number of previous sales trumps a new listing. I see lots of sellers with multiple short lasting listings for the same item so they think a new listing trumps multiple sales.

Myself I think your better off with one listing with multiple sales especially if the reason for the sales is the low total price.

[johnfduda]

The only purpose for the UPC is to tie the pictures and Item Specifics in the data base together.

Picture the database for black bra. There's million of them on eBay. But when you have a UPC for one black bra you got a database item with some real meat to it. You can sell the pictures knowing that they're relevant to the item in question. Same with the Item Specifics. The database line item with a UPC gives some definite meaning to the IS.

[johnfduda]

Speaking of pictures. The watermarks, name me a multi national company that would pay a programmer to write a program to remove watermarks from a picture. A picture created by a small mom or pop business operator. Who else in the world: eBay maybe some Chinese scammer.

That watermark really embarasses eBay when they sell your competitor a picture for a listing that competes with mom or pop's listing. Copywrited Mom and Pop can't  have that in the eBay catalog.