It’s not just me....

[vintagequeennyc]

As I said in earlier threads, my sales are down atrociously the past two months. And not getting any better. 

Well, a few weeks ago, I started keeping track more closely of some of the sales of sellers I watch in my selling categories. These are sellers that sell very similar inventory and are what I consider to be fairly big sellers. These are the sellers I watch to gauge the market, prices, velocity, growth, etc. All of these sellers have very consistent sales and have shown continued growth, or at least stayed constant with their sales volume for at least the past year. 

Over the past few weeks, every single one of these sellers has also seen a massive decrease in sales. Their number of sold listings for the past 90 days has been dropping steadily every day I’ve checked. Most are now MANY hundreds of sold listings below what they are normally. Even a few of these sellers, the biggest ones, have seen a tremendous decline in sales. Its very sobering to witness. 

I’m not happy that others aren’t doing well either. But there is some small measure of comfort to see that it’s ‘not just me’ who’s experiencing this crazy drop off in sales. It’s definitely happening across the board here at eBay. The real question is WILL it ever pick back up or are the pie pieces just going to get smaller and smaller till we’re all starving? 

I think anyone who says ‘my sales are great!’ are the anomaly and outliers here now. 

[mam98031]

OK

[equid0x]

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@moms**art**window** wrote:

i'm kinda optimistic that the brand can only bottom out so much then at some point there is only up,i'm starting to see some method to the madness,it takes them a long time to tweak things when it's obvious it needs tweaking if they could tweak as fast as they made changes it would be a hole lot smoother,they really need some deeper thinkers there,master chess player types to tweak this platform in it's layout and rules and regulations to optimize

One thing that would help me optimize sales is if i had control over how my best match worked in my store.

If they let sellers do this they might be surprised how much difference it would make in sales.

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I agree and I think many excellent suggestions get posted here but it doesn't seem like eBay really listens to what their customers are saying. They've mentioned increasing seller protection but it seems like its little more than lipservice. They said they'll be doing more to block bad buyers but shouldn't they have been doing that already to begin with?

[tunicaslot]

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@vociferous_commenter wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

They are always tweaking that darn formula they use for search returns.  It is hard to keep up with all they do to it.  Then there is always the super secret part as well.

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This is key to keep in mind.

Even with the best of intentions (and clear internal communications), what eventually gets conveyed to customers through forums, CS, or social teams is possibly obsolete and likely has gone through a modicum of "telephone game" distortion by the time it's conveyed. This especially so for such a complex mechanism as a search algo that may require over simplification of key factors when communicating to a general audience.

A couple thoughts:

• Keep in mind the reduction in marketing was S&M expense, not explicitly "advertising" (nor purchased traffic).
  
  
• S&M expense decreased ~$200m from Q4 and ~$14m  YoY.
  
  
• eBay ran many eBay-subsidized sitewide flash sales last year that were essentially funded by every seller, but they were particularly exploited by users who would load up on tech items and wait for flash sale, thus disproportionately driving sales to merchants with higher ASP tech items (often with thinner margins. eBay did start exuding certain items). eBay was basically 'buying' buyers and GMV through the plethora of 15% and 20% sitewide flash sales at an unsustainable rate.
  
  Here's more context to Wenig's quote:
  
  As we mentioned last quarter, we entered the year with the intention to reduce low ROI marketing spend while maintaining the focus on driving positive buyer growth with new product experiences and targeted marketing. In Q1, that's exactly what we did. We removed a significant amount of promotional spend that tended to subsidize higher priced items at low ROI. The impact of this change was lower GMV, driven by lower average price but steady sold item growth.
  eBay has done a couple things in its favor by implementing an evergreen GTC including:
  
  
• Naturally, this has eliminated any slack or possible "dead time" between relisting, all FP listings are revenue generating all the time without days or weeks sitting in sellers' unsolds not producing revenue.
  
  
• It's significantly "widened" the spectrum that the Best Match algo can factor in against listing aging with sales velocity.
  If you think of any given listing as a "neutral baseline" when freshly listed, as sales more rapidly accumulate against that listing over time that's "good", and naturally the fewer sales that the listing yields is "bad", relatively speaking.
  
  Now, instead of just 30 days of data to factor sales velocity of a given listing for Best Match purposes, in the future eBay will be able to factor all the way back to Q1 of 2019 whether the listing has 1 sale or tens of thousands, giving time aging a much longer runway in whatever way it may be factored into Best Match calculus.

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Thank you for your input - it makes sense. And I hope people don't get me wrong - I'm for providing the buyer with a good buying experience and excellent customer service. That is the way I treat buyers as that is how I want to be treated as a buyer. 

I just want to know that all these hoops I jump thru is not just blowing smoke up my you know what - and right now that's exactly what it look like. 

[batboy.inc]

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@escuintla wrote:

Whether we believe it or not, many people started the year with higher property taxes to pay, high price of gas, produce, and I put an example, a piece of celery is $2.99, almost triple the last price.  So, all and everything added, don't expect people to be buying as they used to do. 

There has to be something up with the whole celery thing.  A celery bunch (is that the right word? pack? pod? herd?) was listed at $4.59 at the grocery store this morning.  I really like celery, but not that much.  The unopened tub of dilly dip can just stay closed for now until celery prices level off (not that I'm expecting any sort of mark down in the near future---even if the stuff sits there and rots, the grocery store I frequent has it's own GTC policy: good till composted).  

[lovefindingtreasures2]

Unusual cold weather and rainfall did in this years celery crop, prices are going up everywhere, including Canada.

And- if you love tomatoes, might want to plant some of your own this year!! The termination of the 2013 Suspension Agreement on fresh tomatoes from Mexico is sending tomato prices up, they are expected to be 40-85% more expensive than current prices 😞

I wonder if that will trickle down to ketchup and all things tomato, or just fresh tomatoes coming up from Mexico?

[onefinemother]

There is no doubt that the GTC has resulted in my decrease in sales!  Think about it.  I got 50 free listings and special offers throughout the month and used 30 day listings almost exclusively.  That allowed me to have anywhere from 50-500 listings per month and my sales kept increasing on both my and my husband's accounts.  Now we do 10 day auctions and can only list about 16 items (x2 relists) because we aren't going to pay to list items with sales so poor.  One of our accounts got an extra 100 listings this month, but the other did not for the first time in a couple of years.   If this keeps us, it will be the end of us after 20 years.  I know no body cares because someone else will jump in and take my sales, but it's a shame that we can't all continue on like before.   

[mynewfindstore]

So I am still very confused about how to handle my store in order to make the most sales possible.  I am still ending listings that have no watchers and fewer views.  I am sending offers to watchers (which does not convert very often...I think a lot of buyers do not read messages!)  Most of our listings are ONE quantity listings so sales history is meaningless to us mostly.  Sales history = sold items!  We do have a handful of variations listings but my focus is on the single listing and what to do to maximize its visibility.  For those items without watchers, I am ending those before they are scheduled to relist, selling similar and changing the price/title/maybe other details.  Should I be doing something differently??

[equid0x]

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@batboy.inc wrote:

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@escuintla wrote:

Whether we believe it or not, many people started the year with higher property taxes to pay, high price of gas, produce, and I put an example, a piece of celery is $2.99, almost triple the last price.  So, all and everything added, don't expect people to be buying as they used to do. 

There has to be something up with the whole celery thing.  A celery bunch (is that the right word? pack? pod? herd?) was listed at $4.59 at the grocery store this morning.  I really like celery, but not that much.  The unopened tub of dilly dip can just stay closed for now until celery prices level off (not that I'm expecting any sort of mark down in the near future---even if the stuff sits there and rots, the grocery store I frequent has it's own GTC policy: good till composted).  

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Celery is still fairly cheap where I am but I noticed tomato juice products have basically doubled in price since the last I bought them (maybe, several weeks ago...). Also, I can't find any limes here in town for less than 3/$1 when I used to be able to get them for 10/$1. The local "open air" produce markets aren't even carrying them. 

[equid0x]

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@lovefindingtreasures2 wrote:
Unusual cold weather and rainfall did in this years celery crop, prices are going up everywhere, including Canada.

And- if you love tomatoes, might want to plant some of your own this year!! The termination of the 2013 Suspension Agreement on fresh tomatoes from Mexico is sending tomato prices up, they are expected to be 40-85% more expensive than current prices 😞

I wonder if that will trickle down to ketchup and all things tomato, or just fresh tomatoes coming up from Mexico?

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Ah ha! Should have read the next post down... good to know!

[iamonourside]

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@mam98031 wrote:

I asked the question on the Weekly Chat regarding ending a GTC and reposting it or just revising the GTC.  You can find their answer here.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-Chat-with-eBay-Staff/Community-Chat-May-8-1-00-pm-PT-General-To...

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In addition to Brian's direct response to your question, I read Trinton's summary, pasted below, added emphasis mine. 

"If a seller needs to make changes to a Fixed price listing that result in the listing being re-indexed, is it better for the seller to create a new listing or make changes to the existing listing?

Anytime an item is listed, relisted, listed via sell similar, or revised it may go through an indexing process before being visible in search results. We moved to the Good Til Cancelled duration to maintain listing URLs, sales history, and overall engagement from buyers. The more engagement a listing has (such as views), the more prominently the listing may appear in search results both on and off eBay.

If you need to make updates to an item you are selling, we recommend you use the revision process to ensure the listing’s history and URL remain the same. This will ensure the best visibility and increase your chances of a successful sale."

This seems the definitive answer to the question, "a priori"  (meaning EVERYTHING ELSE BEING EQUAL): revise, don't relist.

Of course, nothing is ever exactly the same for every seller. People share how a change affected themselves, but forget about the 1000s of other factors at play, and say "if YOU do this, this same thing will happen".   I think you very cordially added that point to this conversation, but "backs" were already "up."

I VERY much appreciate your getting the question I've wondered about answered in chat.

[mam98031]

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@iamonourside wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

I asked the question on the Weekly Chat regarding ending a GTC and reposting it or just revising the GTC.  You can find their answer here.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-Chat-with-eBay-Staff/Community-Chat-May-8-1-00-pm-PT-General-To...

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In addition to Brian's direct response to your question, I read Trinton's summary, pasted below, added emphasis mine. 

"If a seller needs to make changes to a Fixed price listing that result in the listing being re-indexed, is it better for the seller to create a new listing or make changes to the existing listing?

Anytime an item is listed, relisted, listed via sell similar, or revised it may go through an indexing process before being visible in search results. We moved to the Good Til Cancelled duration to maintain listing URLs, sales history, and overall engagement from buyers. The more engagement a listing has (such as views), the more prominently the listing may appear in search results both on and off eBay.

If you need to make updates to an item you are selling, we recommend you use the revision process to ensure the listing’s history and URL remain the same. This will ensure the best visibility and increase your chances of a successful sale."

This seems the definitive answer to the question, "a priori"  (meaning EVERYTHING ELSE BEING EQUAL): revise, don't relist.

Of course, nothing is ever exactly the same for every seller. People share how a change affected themselves, but forget about the 1000s of other factors at play, and say "if YOU do this, this same thing will happen".   I think you very cordially added that point to this conversation, but "backs" were already "up."

I VERY much appreciate your getting the question I've wondered about answered in chat.

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Yes, but do keep in mind that if there is no sales history and the views are high on the listing, it often is better to close the listing and then do a sell similar to freshen the entire listing.