Is my own success my own worst enemy?

[richard1rst]

I am an anchor store and a TRS+ seller. As such I pay 9.15% FVF and I get an extra 3% discount on shipping.

If, as all corporations are expected to do, eBay seeks to maximize their profits, then, through their search algorithms,  directing a sale to a non-store seller paying 10% or, better yet, an under FVF penalty paying 14-15% FVF makes them more money than if I make the sale and, as a bonus, they do not give up the extra shipping discount..

Admittedly on one sale it will not make a bit of difference, but on thousands and thousands of sales then, as Tip O’Neill once famously said, pretty soon you’re talking about some real money.

******

Everybody seems to have an unprovable conspiracy theory, I thought I would throw one more on the pile.

(I’ll leave it up to your mindset to decide if I am being serious or not)

[bigdeals.etc]

You can always cancel your store and truly find out 😀

[lasantino]

ohhhh,, that's really next level evil..

first ebay does not give an option to appeal false snad, 

then too many snad get a seller penalized with 50% more fvf

then they skew search results to favor the listings that provide them them most commission..

and for the sellers that aren't yet penalized with the 50% additional fvf.. since their listings aren't showing up as much, the sellers desperately start agreeing to ebay promotions.. 

yikes..

[luckythewinner]

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@richard1rst wrote:

If, as all corporations are expected to do, eBay seeks to maximize their profits, then, through their search algorithms,  directing a sale to a non-store seller paying 10% or, better yet, an under FVF penalty paying 14-15% FVF makes them more money than if I make the sale and, as a bonus, they do not give up the extra shipping discount..

---

There are two conflicting conspiracy theories that are regularly put forward on this messageboard: 

a) the eBay programmers are so useless that the site is plagued with glitches and problems and they can barely keep the site running; and 

b) eBay's programmers have developed such a sophisticed site that it can direct sales to specific sellers, limit sales, hide listings, punish sellers for political views, and tie their success to their messageboard posts ... and do so without (a) anyone figuring out how it works, and (b) while keeping virtually every item from every seller easily accessible in search anytime someone here tries to prove that listings are being hidden.

[turquoisetulips]

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@richard1rst wrote:

I am an anchor store and a TRS+ seller. As such I pay 9.15% FVF and I get an extra 3% discount on shipping.

If, as all corporations are expected to do, eBay seeks to maximize their profits, then, through their search algorithms,  directing a sale to a non-store seller paying 10% or, better yet, an under FVF penalty paying 14-15% FVF makes them more money than if I make the sale and, as a bonus, they do not give up the extra shipping discount..

Admittedly on one sale it will not make a bit of difference, but on thousands and thousands of sales then, as Tip O’Neill once famously said, pretty soon you’re talking about some real money.

******

Everybody seems to have an unprovable conspiracy theory, I thought I would throw one more on the pile.

(I’ll leave it up to your mindset to decide if I am being serious or not)

---

I'll believe anything,, even with things with   the most nefarious intentions   after seeing what's going on in DC right  now . Tulips 

[lex-talon]

Only you can answer that question. I don't believe in conspiracy theories.

[dasarock]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@richard1rst wrote:

If, as all corporations are expected to do, eBay seeks to maximize their profits, then, through their search algorithms,  directing a sale to a non-store seller paying 10% or, better yet, an under FVF penalty paying 14-15% FVF makes them more money than if I make the sale and, as a bonus, they do not give up the extra shipping discount..

---

There are two conflicting conspiracy theories that are regularly put forward on this messageboard: 

a) the eBay programmers are so useless that the site is plagued with glitches and problems and they can barely keep the site running; and 

b) eBay's programmers have developed such a sophisticed site that it can direct sales to specific sellers, limit sales, hide listings, punish sellers for political views, and tie their success to their messageboard posts ... and do so without (a) anyone figuring out how it works, and (b) while keeping virtually every item from every seller easily accessible in search anytime someone here tries to prove that listings are being hidden.

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b. is very easy to code when you know the complete dataset ebay uses.  but they are just conspiracy theories … as you wish lucky, as you wish 🙂

[mam98031]

I don't buy it!

[mam98031]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@richard1rst wrote:

If, as all corporations are expected to do, eBay seeks to maximize their profits, then, through their search algorithms,  directing a sale to a non-store seller paying 10% or, better yet, an under FVF penalty paying 14-15% FVF makes them more money than if I make the sale and, as a bonus, they do not give up the extra shipping discount..

---

There are two conflicting conspiracy theories that are regularly put forward on this messageboard: 

a) the eBay programmers are so useless that the site is plagued with glitches and problems and they can barely keep the site running; and 

b) eBay's programmers have developed such a sophisticed site that it can direct sales to specific sellers, limit sales, hide listings, punish sellers for political views, and tie their success to their messageboard posts ... and do so without (a) anyone figuring out how it works, and (b) while keeping virtually every item from every seller easily accessible in search anytime someone here tries to prove that listings are being hidden.

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Excellent observation.  Let's have our cake and eat it too.  Use whichever reason best fits your agenda.

[dippitydoo]

Lucky, that was so delightful I had to save a snipping! Well done!

-Dippity

[hillbillymedia]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@richard1rst wrote:

If, as all corporations are expected to do, eBay seeks to maximize their profits, then, through their search algorithms,  directing a sale to a non-store seller paying 10% or, better yet, an under FVF penalty paying 14-15% FVF makes them more money than if I make the sale and, as a bonus, they do not give up the extra shipping discount..

---

There are two conflicting conspiracy theories that are regularly put forward on this messageboard: 

a) the eBay programmers are so useless that the site is plagued with glitches and problems and they can barely keep the site running; and 

b) eBay's programmers have developed such a sophisticed site that it can direct sales to specific sellers, limit sales, hide listings, punish sellers for political views, and tie their success to their messageboard posts ... and do so without (a) anyone figuring out how it works, and (b) while keeping virtually every item from every seller easily accessible in search anytime someone here tries to prove that listings are being hidden.

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Conspiracies aside, is it possible that in an attempt to do B) they have created A)?

[hillbillymedia]

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@richard1rst wrote:

I am an anchor store and a TRS+ seller. As such I pay 9.15% FVF and I get an extra 3% discount on shipping.

If, as all corporations are expected to do, eBay seeks to maximize their profits, then, through their search algorithms,  directing a sale to a non-store seller paying 10% or, better yet, an under FVF penalty paying 14-15% FVF makes them more money than if I make the sale and, as a bonus, they do not give up the extra shipping discount..

Admittedly on one sale it will not make a bit of difference, but on thousands and thousands of sales then, as Tip O’Neill once famously said, pretty soon you’re talking about some real money.

******

Everybody seems to have an unprovable conspiracy theory, I thought I would throw one more on the pile.

(I’ll leave it up to your mindset to decide if I am being serious or not)

---

I admit, I really haven`t put much thought to it but...wouldn`t "pay to play" promoted listings negate this conspiracy? I realize not everyone uses promoted listings but....anyone can use them if they chose to.

[zamo-zuan]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@richard1rst wrote:

If, as all corporations are expected to do, eBay seeks to maximize their profits, then, through their search algorithms,  directing a sale to a non-store seller paying 10% or, better yet, an under FVF penalty paying 14-15% FVF makes them more money than if I make the sale and, as a bonus, they do not give up the extra shipping discount..

---

There are two conflicting conspiracy theories that are regularly put forward on this messageboard: 

a) the eBay programmers are so useless that the site is plagued with glitches and problems and they can barely keep the site running; and 

b) eBay's programmers have developed such a sophisticed site that it can direct sales to specific sellers, limit sales, hide listings, punish sellers for political views, and tie their success to their messageboard posts ... and do so without (a) anyone figuring out how it works, and (b) while keeping virtually every item from every seller easily accessible in search anytime someone here tries to prove that listings are being hidden.

---

We can avoid theories as to what exactly is happening in terms of motives. No conspiracies.

But much of the things you list we *can* observe as true.

- You can search your own items to see that it's true that your listings do get hidden periodically. I've provided screenshots on this forum of this happening even when sorted by price, and provided videos to eBay regarding this.

- You can search items to see that the results that show up are random and appear in different patterns.

- You can see glitch after glitch affecting your stores, purchases, and so on.

- We have documented examples of Y2K errors in Guaranteed Delivery.

- We have documented examples of eBay losing listing data for images.

- We have documented examples of eBay corrupting shipping information with "ShippingDetails" missing errors (easily noticable in the eBay API).

- We have documented examples of traffic being directed towards sellers who copy listings that are completely inferior in terms of price, shipping, feedback, SEO statistics, and are not TRS. The only thing they have going for them is being a newer store.

- We have documented examples of eBay corrupting returns information (listings that have "no return information"; not "no returns", but return information is simply gone. Which is impossible for sellers to do manually as listings are required to have return information in order to submit a revisal.

- We have documented examples of a large portion of our inventory having corrupted data on our Sellers Health reports. This coincided with a >50% drop in visbility. Once this data was repaired, our visibility returned to normal.

- You can take a look at the performance of top 10 sellers to see a site wide decline for the most successful in most categories.

- We can notice easily identifiable patterns when we go above "10% up from last month" to where our visibility plummets to nothing.

- We have reported several times that the VeRO system is incorrectly punishing sellers. EBay's VeRO team states that "Fair Warning" should not be resulting in a VeRO violation and VeRO violations should only be happening in the case of a take down (and @luckythewinner had agreed with these sentiments in the past). Yet ourselves and other stores have documented evidence of those fair warnings giving VeRO violations on the Sellers Health report linked to drops in visibility for 60 days! This has been reported to eBay with no resolution, and is still happening. 

- We have documented examples of sellers not following the same feedback policies as everyone else and having thousands of feedback revised, yet their "Feedback Revisal Rate" is still 0.

- We have documented examples of eBay inviting other markets to list MILLIONS of new listings in crowded categories for decreased listing fees.

- EBay has admit to "Stagnant Listings" causing a huge drop in visibility for listings, without ever informing sellers of this potentially happening to them until after their traffic dropped by ~50%.

- EBay has admit to "risk factors" that are not visible to sellers or even CS, that may cause decreases in visibility for seller accounts with absolutely no transparency.

This is by no means an all-inclusive list. These are just some random issues off the top of my head.

Again, this is not a "conspiracy theory", these are things that either have documented evidence or can be observed by anyone with a little bit of research.

You can build any theory you like as to why, who, or what is causing these things. But make no mistake, this is the truth of what is happening on eBay.

[a_c_green]

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@richard1rst wrote:

Admittedly on one sale it will not make a bit of difference, but on thousands and thousands of sales then, as Tip O’Neill once famously said, pretty soon you’re talking about some real money.

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Perhaps you're thinking of what Sen. Everett Dirksen is credited with saying? "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money." There's some debate over whether he said it exactly like that, but it's a good line anyway. 

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_Dirksen 

[dasarock]

@zamo-zuan 

very good and informative post zamo.  many items listed of which I have posted about from time to time and either ignored to told that I am imagining ghoulies in the clockwork gears here...  enjoyed reading that someone else has noticed also … thank you