cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Just me, or has even Ebay For Business gone sharply downhill?

I somehow didn't even know about EFB on Facebook until maybe 18 months ago.  Since then I have turned there for help maybe 6 or 7 times when I was absolutely sure I couldn't find it on my own (usually after already trying with a phone rep).  The first few times were amazing, like magic, someone there helping me in private messages within hours after making my post, looking up my account and advising me on exactly the right thing to do (or just doing it FOR me), lickety split.  Then the next time or two was maybe a little slower to get a response, a less perfect solution (I really can't remember the circumstances, maybe just tougher problems).  The last one was very friendly and SEEMED to know what she was talking about, but it turned out her answer was incorrect. Now today .....ugh.  

First of all I posted the question 3 or 4 days ago, then the guy "Carl" was either totally inept or wittholding information from me.  I wanted to know why my impressions suddenly plummeted on October 2nd (see attached graph).  Before you type "Promoted Listings Advanced" I already considered that, but that rolled out before this date.  And before you say "New Item Specifics and category changes" that didn't happen until the 12th.  I noticed the drop around the 7th or 8th and started fussing over my listings, revising some, ending and 'sell similar' ing some.  And then a few days later I went in and spiked most of their promoted ad rates higher than I ever dreamed I would go ......but still nothing, no increase in my impressions.  

But this Carl guy, he starts by asking me if I have "a good amount" of listings that have been up "a long time."  --What is that even supposed to mean?  Ha, I actually knew what he was getting at, the idea that the algorithm wasn't showing my older listings because they were "stale" or whatever, but I have no idea whether "a good amount" of my listings have been there a "long time" or how long is long.  I said I tend to sell around the same number of items as I list new ones, but the ones that sell could be recent or fairly old (again, not sure if what I call old is the same as him, but figured I'd let him give the obvious GUESS answer he wanted to give before I'd press for something better).  And sure enough, he suggested doing the very kinds of tinkering I just said I had already tried.  Then it occurred to me, was he even IN my account, or just making a PURE guess, based on my answer to his vague question?  So I asked and he said he was looking at my account, saying my sales are up from last year (which is true but not the point).  He said the new IS/Category changes were bound to treat "old" listings really "nasty" and reiterated doing stuff to make them seem more active, including checking to make sure they were in the right categories and were not missing any of the new IS's.  I already did that days ago too.  And it still wouldn't explain why my drop happened back on Oct. 2nd.  Nor why even NEW listings are getting terrible growth in view counts.  --I know, that has already been discussed regarding the Advanced PM thing, but as you can see, my impressions were doing fine by the end of September.  

I just wonder, is anyone else finding EFB going downhill too?  Is there ANYONE who can actually help anymore? 



Screen Shot 2021-10-25 at 1.49.08 PM.png

Message 1 of 40
latest reply
39 REPLIES 39

Re: Just me, or has even Ebay For Business gone sharply downhill?

After today I am totally done with Ebay. I am having the same problems AND, after being with Ebay for 20 years, now they want to make sure I am "me" and that my bank account is right?? In the mean time they hold all my funds and I still have to pay for shipping my items. I am SO done. Moving everything over to etsy. Done! I wish you luck, mam. 😞

Message 2 of 40
latest reply

Re: Just me, or has even Ebay For Business gone sharply downhill?

I am still getting generally good answers from EFB facebook reps and use them almost always over phone calls /chats except for MP issues which generally require a call to MP agents.  But there is definitely a much longer response time.  It is taking 2 to 3 days to get any response to my initial questions where a year ago responses were almost always the same day.  Seems more like a staffing shortage.

 

Regarding big drops is sales in the last month.  It does appear they have a new playbook on how to answer those.  They also told me that having some long-tail items could be a drag on the store overall.  That is NEW and DIFFERENT from what they were saying a year ago.

 

In the past it was clear that really old listings with no changes get less views unless they are unique / rare items unless you freshen them from time to time.  But I had been told repeatedly that that effects ONLY those exact items and should have NO effect on my store overall or newly listed items.  I have been running with that assumption for a while and leave up my long-tail items rather than donate / dump them (because they normally do sell eventually).

 

If there really has been a change where individual items can drag down a whole stores search results that is a very important change / development. The more quick and accurate responses from EFB from the past year or two I used to get were consistent on individual items not hurting the store overall except in extreme circumstances.  After reading your messages with EFB (and mine) it seems like a change to the search has happened?  It would be good to know the truth on this.  Or are there just a few mis-informed help dialogs that agents have to choose from when they are looking up pre-written issues for sellers with dropped off a cliff sales?

Message 3 of 40
latest reply

Re: Just me, or has even Ebay For Business gone sharply downhill?

Thank you for that very thoughtful reply. 

I agree that the delayed response on EFB is very likely due to staff shortages same as most industries right now, and I don't know if they answer over the weekend at all, but if not, then that explains some of my wait in this case.  As for the throttling effect on individual old listings versus whole store drag due to (some) unacceptable amount of old listings (whatever they consider old), I am right on the same page with you --I thought the staleness of a listing affected only its' own placement, and if that dynamic changed to whole-store, that is something they definitely did without a heads up.  

 

Here are some more bits of info and thoughts, if you have time for reading and considering. 

Now, you mention the sales drop last month, and I think that is worth considering, unlike Carl’s comparison of my sales in this time frame last year (when I sold totally different items and had fewer listings, so it’s a moot point).  But yes, I did experience a sudden drop in sales (and views counts) in mid-September that seemed to correlate with the PLA rollout like so many people were saying.  But for me, it only lasted about a week, then I started picking back up again …..but I want to be clear here ……picking up as in “somewhat”, certainly nowhere near the heyday I was having all summer.  I knew better than to try to make this distinction with Carl, because that could give him the excuse to say I just had really great things to offer this summer, that I no longer have because I sold them.  And I really didn’t want to stray too far from the actual thing I asked about, IMPRESSIONS showing an overnight plummet on October 2nd, and staying there. 

Sure, I’m still selling a few things, but for all I know, that is just from people who have me as a Favorite Seller, deciding to browse my store and seeing what I have nowadays, or people who saw one thing of mine and decided to check out the rest of my store.  If there’s a way to see how many of my ‘sold’s came directly from searches, I’d love to know (do you?) but all I know is, crappy impressions metrics CAN’T NOT make a negative difference.  I should still be selling a bunch, ESPECIALLY cool new listings I’ve posted, things I know people want, and also because I frikkin raised my promoted ad rates to near, at, or ABOVE the suggested rate!!!   Like I told Carl (and he just refused to acknowledge it), I made these spikes in promotions around mid-October, so why isn’t there even the slightest sustained uptick in those bars, starting then?  Is the ad rate adjustment feature just like a nob on a Fisher Price toy or something??

And like I also told him, I was already trying alllllll the tinkering around with my listings like he said.

With one exception ……and I didn’t mention this, but it may be just the thing: The dozen or so items I have listed for a local vintage store guy (he keeps them for sale in his store, and if he sells them first he tells me, so I can end the listings, but if I sell them, we split 50/50 because I do the shipping and everything).  I keep those listings’ ad rates fairly low unlike my own items, because I think the old feller would have a hard time understanding the concept, so I just ‘eat’ whatever I have to pay for promoting, out of my half of the sale revenue.  Some of them I have ended and relisted as “sell similar” to make them seem completely new, as recently as August.  Some, I haven’t touched since April (again, I don’t know if that would make them “old” or not, without knowing the algorithm’s standard).  But I see there’s ONE, just one, I haven’t touched in any way since I posted it, and it’s currently my oldest listing of all. 

Guess when I listed it?  September 30th of last year, exactly one year plus one day before my Impressions plummet.  Yeah it could be a coincidence.  But here’s how I’m going to find out.  I’m going to do some experiments to test this “whole store” drag from “some amount” of “old” listings, starting with just that one.  I’m going to end/sell similar it right now, not change it’s ad rate or anything else.  I want to do this systematically with controlled variables, meaning not trying multiple things at once.  With each change, I will watch my Impressions for a couple days, to see if any uptick occurs.  If nothing happens with that one item, I’ll next go to the next-oldest listings, see if they make a difference. 

If you have read this far and want to know what (if anything) I discover, reply so below, and I promise I will make updates right here.

Message 4 of 40
latest reply

Re: Just me, or has even Ebay For Business gone sharply downhill?


@babclassics wrote:

 

In the past it was clear that really old listings with no changes get less views unless they are unique / rare items unless you freshen them from time to time.  But I had been told repeatedly that that effects ONLY those exact items and should have NO effect on my store overall or newly listed items.  I have been running with that assumption for a while and leave up my long-tail items rather than donate / dump them (because they normally do sell eventually).

 

If there really has been a change where individual items can drag down a whole stores search results that is a very important change / development. The more quick and accurate responses from EFB from the past year or two I used to get were consistent on individual items not hurting the store overall except in extreme circumstances.  After reading your messages with EFB (and mine) it seems like a change to the search has happened?  It would be good to know the truth on this.  Or are there just a few mis-informed help dialogs that agents have to choose from when they are looking up pre-written issues for sellers with dropped off a cliff sales?


EBay had claimed this, but it was never actually true. They actually had an area specifically for a variable tracking the percentage of stale/stagnant in the MSO Sellers Health business readout (that you could only get from the MSO Sellers Health team). 

 

But the "Underperforming Listings" page was always an index of the stagnant/stale items on your account , so you knew what items are being held to that.

 

Problem is, this week they're REMOVING the underperforming listings page! So now we're going to have no way to tell which items are stale/stagnant!

 

The only reports left on the Seller Hub are to do with promotions. Figures.

 

So what are we supposed to do as an actionable change to improve impressions nowadays? They've literally left no options other than investing more in promotions, and they're in the process of removing every other tool we have at our disposal to address issues ourselves.

 

It's impossible to know what listings have a problem in eBay's eyes. Even the listing report only says "Make sure you have 6 images". It does NOT highlight ANY of the items on the underperforming page that are counted as stagnant!

 

Furthermore, it still says we're #1 in our category for impressions. Meanwhile, our impressions have dropped 26% from last month. So this is a clear indicator that the entire category is dropping right now... Coincidentally right as they remove the "Market comparison" module so we no longer have evidence to show that sellers are dropping more than the market is.

 

All part of the plan.

Message 5 of 40
latest reply

Re: Just me, or has even Ebay For Business gone sharply downhill?


@gurlcat wrote:


Guess when I listed it?  September 30th of last year, exactly one year plus one day before my Impressions plummet.  Yeah it could be a coincidence.  But here’s how I’m going to find out.  I’m going to do some experiments to test this “whole store” drag from “some amount” of “old” listings, starting with just that one.  I’m going to end/sell similar it right now, not change it’s ad rate or anything else.  I want to do this systematically with controlled variables, meaning not trying multiple things at once.  With each change, I will watch my Impressions for a couple days, to see if any uptick occurs.  If nothing happens with that one item, I’ll next go to the next-oldest listings, see if they make a difference. 


We had the same thing happen exactly 1 month earlier than you. EBay said it was a "test" in reply #32 in the post below.  Apparently that "test" became permanent, and has been extended to more and more categories this year.

 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Potential-problem-with-Promoted-Listings-impressions/td-p/3121...

Message 6 of 40
latest reply

Re: Just me, or has even Ebay For Business gone sharply downhill?

And regarding the PL impression spikes, you're not alone on that either:

 

PL_10-26-21.png

 

That big drop was a few days that we tested a lower rate. 

 

We had put MORE ITEMS at a HIGHER RATE than before when we put them back on, and you could see that despite investing more than before, we're LOWER than we were before!

Simply ending the old promotions seems to have caused permanent damage to our impressions. It's not even safe to adjust your rates! If you do, you'll see long term losses.

 

Even more alarming, look at how the ORGANIC impressions dropped! This is not supposed to EVER be possible! Organic impressions is defined as not altered by promotions/payments. I'm no lawyer, but logically there may even be legal implications considering this... 

Message 7 of 40
latest reply

Re: Just me, or has even Ebay For Business gone sharply downhill?

That is .....um.....one hell of a bleak picture you paint there.  And I usually don't pay much mind to cynicism for it's own sake, but it sounds like you actually know what you're talking about.  So, when you say "and they're in the process of removing every other tool we have at our disposal to address issues ourselves" can you state what other tools we're going to lose?  I already noticed they've refused to make the listings page sortable by view counts, which I've seen TONS of people beg for, for years, and how hard would that programming be?  Now I suppose you're going to tell me they're going to remove view counts altogether (pleasenopleasenopleaseno......). 

Message 8 of 40
latest reply

Re: Just me, or has even Ebay For Business gone sharply downhill?


@gurlcat wrote:

That is .....um.....one hell of a bleak picture you paint there.  And I usually don't pay much mind to cynicism for it's own sake, but it sounds like you actually know what you're talking about.  So, when you say "and they're in the process of removing every other tool we have at our disposal to address issues ourselves" can you state what other tools we're going to lose?  I already noticed they've refused to make the listings page sortable by view counts, which I've seen TONS of people beg for, for years, and how hard would that programming be?  Now I suppose you're going to tell me they're going to remove view counts altogether (pleasenopleasenopleaseno......). 


@gurlcat  I can tell you that @zamo-zuan definitely know what he's talking about on this one. 👍

 

Just FYI though, a little side hack (at least while eBay still lets it work) that will let you sort the listing page by view counts.

 

When you go to these links, it should take you right there if you are already logged in to your selling account, if not it may ask you to log in.

 

This should sort it by highest views first:

 

https://www.ebay.com/sh/lst/active?sort=-visitCount 

 

And if you want to see lowest views first, use this instead:

 

https://www.ebay.com/sh/lst/active?sort=visitCount

Message 9 of 40
latest reply

Re: Just me, or has even Ebay For Business gone sharply downhill?

Wow, thanks!

Message 10 of 40
latest reply

Re: Just me, or has even Ebay For Business gone sharply downhill?


@gurlcat wrote:

Wow, thanks!


@gurlcat you're welcome! Hopefully they don't do anything to kill that method any time soon. lol

Message 11 of 40
latest reply

Re: Just me, or has even Ebay For Business gone sharply downhill?

Yeah I just earlier today noticed that the impressions-by-listing chart is not sortable by any metric other than 'Quantity available' --about the most worthless of all, for the type of information needed from those listings data.  It would actually be less insulting if none of the columns were sortable, but having just that one, it's like they're FLAUNTING in our faces "We could make this useful for you if we wanted to. We just don't." 

Now, what's interesting to compare here is, you can see both my organic AND promoted impressions tanked overnight, whereas your organics stayed the same.  

But one thing that is spookily similar is what that rep said to you in your forum post, and what Carl said to me.  The SAME junk about "monitor your campaigns" (wth does that even MEAN?) and keep up "best practices."  Exact words.   But at least your guy admitted it was something THEY did.  I'm guessing that from how your post took off, they told their reps to stop revealing that to sellers when we reach out.  

Maybe the biggest bummer of all is to see that this was NOT a temporary downshift for you, even with trying to increase your ad rates just like I did.  Since you have a full month's more data to work with than I have, can you tell me this: are your sales down in proportion to the drop in impressions, or even roughly thereabouts?  If so, how are you coping with such a loss of revenue, and do have a plan if you keep seeing no end in sight?

Message 12 of 40
latest reply

Re: Just me, or has even Ebay For Business gone sharply downhill?


@gurlcat wrote:

That is .....um.....one hell of a bleak picture you paint there.  And I usually don't pay much mind to cynicism for it's own sake, but it sounds like you actually know what you're talking about.  So, when you say "and they're in the process of removing every other tool we have at our disposal to address issues ourselves" can you state what other tools we're going to lose?  I already noticed they've refused to make the listings page sortable by view counts, which I've seen TONS of people beg for, for years, and how hard would that programming be?  Now I suppose you're going to tell me they're going to remove view counts altogether (pleasenopleasenopleaseno......). 


Apologies if it seems bleak, but I think as sellers on eBay we have to be honest about eBay in the good and the bad. 

 

Regarding view counts, when they were doing a trial for the listing reports eBay had a Zoom meeting with me and my top request was to be able to sort. Because it's not very helpful if their statistics page doesn't let you check the performance of your top/bottom listings and compare them. So I'm definitely in agreement on that front, but as @valueaddedresource mentioned there's a work-around now.

 

So to give more detail of what I mean while the page is still here, you could check the "Research > listing improvements" tab of Seller Hub:

 

zamozuan_0-1635347770050.png

 

This tab is one of the very few places that eBay's system actually informs you of what listings it has "flagged" and that you could take action on. If your listing is showing up here, basically eBay has determined there's a "problem" with it that needs to be resolved.

 

But you notice on top, it says it's being "phased out" literally tomorrow. 

 

On this page on the top right it has that "Download Report" button. This report has some data that helps explain how this system works. Here's a list of some of the important ones:

 

  • Listing last revised date
  • Number of days since last sale
  • Guidance ID
  • Guidance last updated on date
  • Listing Under Achieving Score

This exposes how the system works. Basically, if eBay sees a "problem" in your listing, internally it creates a "Guidance" recommendation for the item. Any items with a "Guidance" recommendation show up on this page. EBay doesn't tell you exactly what the guidance wants you to do, but if you see an item showing up on this page, it's basically saying "You need to take action" on these listings.

 

More often than not, if you adjust the price on this page to be a little bit cheaper, or edit the listing if it's lacking images/etc. If you adjust the right thing, it will be removed from the underperforming page.

 

Also you could see the date on there. The longer has passed since the date, the heavier the "stagnant/stale" penalty gets on the item. Meaning it will appear lower and lower in search as more time has surpassed without you "resolving the guidance".

 

In other words, to summarize, if eBay sees a problem in your listing it penalizes your listing, unless you address the "guidance" that was generated.

 

Potentially your store - rather than your listings - could be receiving the penalty if you have enough listings included here. The MSO Sellers Health sheet shows they have a number to track the percentage of your listings that are included here and it is indeed included in their algorithms.

 

With that said, as mentioned earlier, they're removing this feature tomorrow. Why? I have no idea. It's basically the only page on Seller Hub that lets us know what listings have a problem! So now we're not going to have any way at all to check which listings are "problems" in eBay's system!

 

It says in the notice that "You can view actionable insights for your listings on the Seller Hub listing page". But if we check that report, it doesn't have any of the data about "guidance" or what listings of yours that eBay sees as a problem. 

 

Let's take a look at what is tracked in the new report:

 

  • Current Promoted Status
  • Impressions
  • Top 20 slot organic/promoted impressions
  • Change in top 20 slot promotions
  • Non-search promoted impressions
  • Non-search organic impressions
  • Total promoted impressions
  • Page views
  • Promoted page views
  • Click through rate
  • Sales conversion rate

It's clear what the trend here is. This is certainly not a replacement for what they're removing. It's literally all about promotions, promotions, promotions. This is what eBay calls "actionable" apparently....?

 

But it's missing the point of what the Underperforming page was useful for. For years, when sellers were having problems, my advice was to address the Underperforming page. It's the one source that eBay gave where they said "These are the listings that are a problem - you need to fix these!" And if you do, it improved performance.

 

More importantly, it helped sellers diagnose the issue when impressions were lacking. If their views or sales are lacking? That's something actionable. But lack of impressions? That's how much you appear in search - that's up to eBay's algorithms. Until tomorrow, we have a list of what the algorithm sees as a "problem", but after tomorrow, there'll be no way to tell. The only tools that will remain are the listing quality report and the new traffic report.  Neither of them help resolve this issue.


Based on the tools that we'll have tomorrow onward, the only data eBay is giving us to resolve these problems are promotion recommendations. 

Message 13 of 40
latest reply

Re: Just me, or has even Ebay For Business gone sharply downhill?

Check it out, either they already "phased" me out, or ALL my listings are so problem-free, my impressions should be sky high! 

Screen Shot 2021-10-27 at 11.45.19 AM.png



And maybe this is what Carl looked at when he told me:

"Like I was saying, I'm not going to have any quick and easy answers for you here. There's nothing on the back end where your views would be limited, so we have to go with best practices because that's what works best."

--Yeah that same "best practices" mumbo jumbo the rep told you in your post a month ago.  Even though he admitted it was because of a "test" they were doing, which Carl did not, or anything else "on the back end."  I think the thing that really infuriates me most is, the "best practices" suggestion implies that YOU, the seller, must not be doing best practices.  And with the endless forms of supposed best practices, planting that idea in the seller's head seems to have the goal of sending them spinning their wheels endlessly, trying to figure out what they're not doing good enough.  

I know the term "gaslighting" is so buzzy in present political circles that people often use it incorrectly, but I can't think of a better word for pretending your company isn't strategically steering its' sales people toward ONE choice, without saying what it is, so that they think there is still such a thing as a choice.   But even if their goal is to force us to promote, and promote BIG, then why didn't my impressions go up one bit after I raised all my rates so high?  That's what makes it feel like gaslighting that turned into a housefire, via some GLITCH that they can't even control or aren't aware of.  

I asked you in another reply, maybe you didn't see, have your sales gone down proportionately to your sunken impressions, and if so how are you coping, and do you have any ideas for how to get back up??

Message 14 of 40
latest reply

Re: Just me, or has even Ebay For Business gone sharply downhill?

I don't think they have gone down hill, but because they are the best ''go to'', they are no doubt inundated.

I know I never link anyone to CS (obvious reasons) always to Facebook - poor people are probably exhausted LOL

********************************************************************
I have been imported from Australia and this is my posting ID
Message 15 of 40
latest reply