We have had random days where impressions and views double or triple for promoted listings but then drop back to the same declining pattern. It seems like there is a "switch" being turned on and off at random times.
For the people reporting sales back to normal for August or random months/weeks. We had that happen June into July and then it halved overnight and on steady decline since. Again, we have had a few days where we see some listings all the sudden "turn on" for a day or few hours and impressions skyrocket, views skyrocket, and then sales come in, but we are used to many sales a day and tens of thousands of dollars in sales a week just on eBay. With 15-20 million impressions and 50K+ of views monthly, but we are now down to 3.6 million a month, less than 10K views, etc and that is with everything promoted quadruple, many of our most popular items priced lower and lower every week. We are lucky to have a few sales a day right now.
Have read the economy angle, which is certainly true, but we also have seen days where literally impressions skyrocket and then its like a switch is turned off a day or two later. June into mid July we had 3 weeks of normal sales. But then a cliff drop by almost 50% over night and then a steady decline since then (other than the few days where things blip on).
We have had over a decade of experience selling online. Accounts on all major marketplaces. Experienced Ups and Downs. Bad economy's and Good economy's. Watched our category become more saturated and scarce at different times. Watched small sellers become huge and big sellers fail as well. There are definitely categories experiencing saturation and price cuts due to world factors right now, but we have dealt with that before and certainly periods of decline.
Watching impressions, views, and sales fall to levels that we have not see in our entirety on eBay, when our other marketplaces are not having the same cliff like dive in metrics does point to an issue with promoted listings program code or changes made late spring. We believe this because when things do blip back to normal it is always a skyrocket in promoted views, impressions and sales via promoted listings, and even sales on listings that are not the most competitive or cheapest.
The things that many of the experienced sellers are detailing with the PLS, PLA and relation to impressions, views, and ultimately sales are not simply a coincidence across all different types of categories. We are not saying everyone experiencing a slowdown is dealing with the same cause, since some people do not even use PLS or PLA, but many of the long time sellers on this thread do and are detailing it, pointing to the extreme surges or drops in impressions. Like some code or something is blocking or interfering.
It is not a coincidence that some of the people here are noticing days or weeks where their impressions skyrocket back to normal levels from months ago and then one day it drops by 50-75%. Just wondering if it is an accidental issue or if it is eBay testing different things on the back-end to see how it affects different sellers across different categories.
