Hello all. I am a relatively new seller, but, I've been helping my mother list and photograph on Ebay since I was a teenager. I am now in my late 20s. I decided to start my own account a few months ago and am already doing fantastically. I have 300 items up, just got top rated seller status, have been paying all my invoices on time, and just doing really well.
As soon as I got the green-light to use promoted listings (you have to be on the site for 90 days or so and have a certain amount of sales), my sales skyrocketed when I could place a promotional rate on all my listings. With Ebay being so saturated, the boost from promoted listings really helped. Back when I was in my early 20s and helping mom with her store, there weren't as many sellers on and things sold like hot cakes. Now, there are a lot of people selling similar things and there's no guarantee that your listing will be in a decent placement in the search results. This is why promoted listings help so much. My mother, for example, has a thousand items up for sale and I'd estimate that at least 60% of all of her sales are from promoted listings. Promoted listings = more visibility vs someone finding the item organically.
So, here are my graphs on impressions. As you can see, around October 3rd-4th, something happened. My promoted impressions flat lined. They flatlined for three weeks even though my promotional rate hadn't changed and was still at the rate that it's always been at. I reached out to Ebay a few times. One representative saw no issues on my account and said that everything was in tip top shape and that there was nothing wrong. Then, I got someone to look into it again the other day and they saw that my account had a restriction placed on it without my knowledge. I was told that my account got a restriction placed upon it that took away my promoted listings "bump" that helped people see my promotional listings. I immediately started thinking about what I could have done wrong. First and foremost, I will admit that my sales tanked during these three weeks. I was making decent money but all of a sudden found myself making $70 in one week and that's even less if you consider the fact that a nice chunk of that will go towards fees. I was assured that I did absolutely nothing wrong. I was told that Ebay's security restricted my promoted items visibility until my October invoice gets automatically charged in a few days. So, from what I gather, all of this happened because they want to be sure that I will pay for my October invoice this month. Why would they assume that I wouldn't pay for my October invoice? I have paid for every single invoice that has been automatically charged at the end of the month without fail. The reason is always: "Well, you're a new seller, so..." but I am also a new seller who has done absolutely nothing wrong. Within the time that I have been here, I have sold quite a lot. I've also listed quite a lot, I've paid for all of my invoices, got top rated seller, power seller, and have never shown any indication that I would not follow the rules or pay my invoices on time.
Now, I know that some people might say something along the lines of: "Why do you need promoted listing visibility so badly? If you didn't sell in highly saturated categories, you'd have more sales even without the boost of promoted listings." and you are right. Yes, this is true. My mother and father have me legally employed underneath them to rummage for items, photograph, and list on their Ebay account which is separate and is doing really well because they have 1,000+ items up at any given time. Before the pandemic hit, I would go to thrift stores multiple times a week, Amazon returns liquidation places, estate sales, storage auctions, bargain stores, etc. a lot. I'd sometimes haul in hundreds of items a week and would get to work. Thus, they would give me a paycheck twice a month and things were fantastic. I'd find all sorts of items. In February, I got married and now I'm still helping my parents with their Ebay account and they pay me for it (English isn't their first language and they're not as technologically savvy with uploading photos and writing descriptions), but now my husband and I are trying to also get to that level where we have 1,000 items+ up and are doing as well. Basically, the whole family at this point is really into doing the whole Ebay thing and it really helps pay the bills and bring in extra cash.
However, one thing that has changed during the pandemic is my ability to safely go out and search for items. At first, I found a lot of local thrift stores closed and no one wanting to do garage sales or estate sales. The Amazon return liquidation place that I would go to was temporarily closed for a while. Things are opening back up but it's still not safe to go digging around through items that dozens of other people could have touched during these times. Luckily, my parents and I have a large inventory of stashed items that we sort of accumulated and are now rationing between the two of us. They may go out to a few garage and estate sales and we divide the items up between us, or maybe my husband and I will go to the thrift store whenever it has a 50% off storewide sale, and, we help each other out by sharing our finds and items with one another. We basically used to do this stuff more often during pre-pandemic times but now limit how much we go out and how much we expose ourselves to thrifting, rummaging around garage sales, liquidation stores, etc. for safety reasons. So yes, during pre-pandemic times, I could find hot and fresh items more easily that wouldn't really need a promotional boost all that much. Most times, I actually will find something really hot and trendy and it will sell within hours or days of me listing it. But with the other stuff? Yeah, putting a promotional rate on all the harder to sell stuff that we have in our inventory really helps sales. So to have that taken away from me for three weeks, without explanation, for no other reason other than me being a newer member... I was just so disheartened. I would have really appreciated at least an email or a phone call to let me know that: "Hey. You're kind of new to Ebay. New sellers sometimes get restricted and all that. Your item visibility is going to go down and your sales probably will too because we're limiting your promotional item impressions as a security precaution which will be lifted once you pay your October invoice." and you know what? I actually would have understood and it would have been better than me wondering what the heck I did wrong for my impressions to go down as low as they did. I actually was thinking that the impressions graphs may have been broken or glitching out.
Once again, I was informed that I did absolutely nothing wrong. This was apparently a security thing that they placed on me because I'm new. They said that it'll go away once I pay for my October invoice. Yes, I've paid for every past invoice and have never been late. I was even told that they know that I did nothing wrong and have followed the rules on here to the T. I'm just new, so, I had three weeks of having my item visibility lowered and my sales tanked because of this. I asked multiple times if paying my invoice now would resolve this issue, since there is a way of paying for invoices early rather than waiting to be automatically charged, but, I was informed by more than one Ebay representative that I might be double charged if I pay my invoice early. So yes, I could pay my invoice right now and have this issue fully resolved, but I was advised not to do so because the system may just end up double charging me in a few days. That just seems like such a glitch that should not be happening. If someone pays for their invoice early, it should be automatically blocked from double charging you. What is this, the year 2000? It's 2020 and we should have more intelligent automated systems in place.
All in all, they should notify people before making drastic implementations that can affect someone's sales or their views. I was affected for nearly a month and will continue to be for the next five days or so. They should also offer solutions that can better fix someone's problem. I got this restriction put on my account because I'm new and they just want to test me by seeing if I'll pay for October's invoice or not. Why the system thought that I wouldn't... I have no idea. Either way, I've offered to fix this multiple times by saying that I can pay for my invoice right now if it'll make this restriction disappear, only to be met with: "Oh no, don't pay for your invoice now. The system might double charge you." which just isn't good enough.
1) They seriously need to inform people and let them know when there is a weird change or restriction put on their account. If I didn't probe around and ask customer service multiple times, I never would have known that this restriction was even a thing that they did behind the scenes and without my knowledge.
2) Offering no solution in this day and age to such a simple to solve problem is laughable. They say that I'm new, so, they put this restriction on me until they see that I'll pay my October invoice in full. Well, here I am, offering to pay my October invoice early, yet I can't even do that because apparently they're running some antiquated automated payment functions that can double charge my debit card or Paypal account if I pay early. Meaning, I have to deal with 5-6 more days of this nonsense.
Really frustrated. Hoping that once this nightmare is over, things will move along more steadily.
