My views are low even with "Promoted Listings" . Is eBay throttling accounts ?

[oachalon]

My views are low even with "Promoted Listings" . Is eBay throttling accounts ?  Or is the eBay thing just no longer an interest to todays buyers?

[slyders_finds]

Maybe 8 months ago I noticed a big slowdown in sales. I decided to give promoted listings a chance again. Interestingly almost everything I sold, Ebay said that was due to promoted listings. Then it was about half and half. Then didn't seem to be working at all for views or sales so I stopped using it. 

[kalyoth]

ebay has been manipulating things for over 5 years now with its own algorithms. I went 6-8 months with no sales at one point past few years. 2-3 views. Then suddenly end of a quarter BOOM sales flood in. It's all a shell game that they hide sellers within to try & make the most money by hiding the low value sellers & manipulate final sale prices.

[ferrucciobusoni]

Your views may be low because interest in your items is low.  

Funny how that never seems to occur to buyers here.

"Throttling" accounts?   Why and to what end?  Reminds me of those who think the USG is listening to their phone calls.  Sure they do ... but only if you are are calling a cave in Afghanistan twice a week.

Finally, I can assure you that eBay is a great interest.  I've received about 25 orders this year from first time buyers who found my items by searching Google.   

[lakefor94]

@oachalon 

Buyers have to actually want to buy what you are selling.

If you have a lot of competition for certain popular items, then promoted listings might assist with sales if you habe the right price.

If the items are not very popular (long tail), then your pricing, listing quality, item titles, item specifics, photos, shipping time, etc. will tell the tale of sales. 

[ferrucciobusoni]

"It's all a shell game that they hide sellers within to try & make the most money by hiding the low value sellers & manipulate final sale prices."

eBay does not have to "hide" low value sellers.   🙂

As for "manipulating final sale prices"... I've not experienced that in 24 years.  I read the agreement I signed with eBay when I joined in 2000 and they have upheld their end of the bargain ever since.

[mr_lincoln]

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@oachalon wrote:

My views are low even with "Promoted Listings" . Is eBay throttling accounts ?  Or is the eBay thing just no longer an interest to todays buyers?

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@oachalon   Controlling visibility might be more accurate.  Internet sales venues are fee driven for their main source of income.  So in some regards nothing is off the table in achieving increased fees for their income purposes.

In general terms, the more Sellers agree to pay the venues the better their sales will be.  The question then becomes can Sellers cover 20% - 30% (or more) in fees to move their items and still make their desired profit?   

[isaiah53-57]

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@mr_lincoln wrote:

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@oachalon wrote:

My views are low even with "Promoted Listings" . Is eBay throttling accounts ?  Or is the eBay thing just no longer an interest to todays buyers?

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@oachalon   Controlling visibility might be more accurate.  Internet sales venues are fee driven for their main source of income.  So in some regards nothing is off the table in achieving increased fees for their income purposes.

In general terms, the more Sellers agree to pay the venues the better their sales will be.  The question then becomes can Sellers cover 20% - 30% (or more) in fees to move their items and still make their desired profit?   

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@mr_lincoln

Like the post, but what would be the difference between controlling visibility and throttling?

[mr_lincoln]

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@isaiah53-57 wrote:

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@mr_lincoln wrote:

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@oachalon wrote:

My views are low even with "Promoted Listings" . Is eBay throttling accounts ?  Or is the eBay thing just no longer an interest to todays buyers?

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@oachalon   Controlling visibility might be more accurate.  Internet sales venues are fee driven for their main source of income.  So in some regards nothing is off the table in achieving increased fees for their income purposes.

In general terms, the more Sellers agree to pay the venues the better their sales will be.  The question then becomes can Sellers cover 20% - 30% (or more) in fees to move their items and still make their desired profit?   

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@mr_lincoln

Like the post, but what would be the difference between controlling visibility and throttling?

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@isaiah53-57   Members can call it what they want, the result is the same ... 

[broto_64]

I think some people have the mistaken belief that if they put something on the internet, people will see it.

So riddle me this:
A buyer searches for a widget.
One thousand sellers have that exact widget for sale.

The first page of results can show up to 200 results.

So what happens to the other 800?

Also most buyers never go much past the first few results, most buyers never see page 2 results.

So did ebay "throttle" the results?

[asset_liquidators]

Except an eBay employee admitted they throttle accounts years ago.

[casualdrip]

To be fair when you apply promoted to your listings you are literally paying for views. So the more you pay the more views you get. Don't get me wrong your pricing and quality of items has a lot to do with it. But the promoted listing concept is paying for views which leads to more sales. 

[asset_liquidators]

Several years ago an eBay exec (I believe it was a mid-level exec) admitted they throttled sales and then quickly tried to back track when he realized he let the cat out of the bag. IIRC fe was gone shortly after that snafu. I am surprised more long-time eBayers dont remember this.

[casualdrip]

do you happen to have an article or anything showing this claim?

[mam98031]

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@asset_liquidators wrote:

Except an eBay employee admitted they throttle accounts years ago.

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It is in the User Agreement for the site that we ALL have to agree to in order to have an account.

In section 6 it states:  

• To drive a positive user experience, a listing may not appear in some search and browse results regardless of the sort order chosen by the buyer,

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/member-behaviour-policies/user-agreement?id=4259#section6

[mam98031]

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@casualdrip wrote:

To be fair when you apply promoted to your listings you are literally paying for views. So the more you pay the more views you get. Don't get me wrong your pricing and quality of items has a lot to do with it. But the promoted listing concept is paying for views which leads to more sales. 

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I disagree.  Paying for views is different.  But you are correct that when you Promote a listing, it is the desired result to get more views and then in turn more sales.

The more you pay for Promoted listings the higher your item is in the search returns.  While one would hope that translates into more views and sales, it doesn't always accomplish that.

Not all sellers use Promoted listings, heck not even most sellers use Promoted listings and many seller that use no type of Promoted Listings are doing fine with sales.  You just need to review the recently release 1st Quarter Ebay financials to see this.

You can't have all sellers using Promoted Listings.  If that were to happen then no one wins but Ebay.  However we are no where close to that at this time.

PL works great in some categories and not so much in others.  Each seller has to decide what they believe is right for them.  That however doesn't mean it is right for others.