Does anyone else here have the new Listings Quality Report that Harry Temkin demoed in the December Seller Check In yet? It is being rolled out this month and would be under Performance>Traffic in Seller Hub.
I originally had high hopes for this new feature but after digging into it for a few days I'm fairly disappointed.
I'll start with the instructions screen for this report for those who haven't seen it yet.
The first issue for me is that the report says we have 0% MPN filled in for our listings. In our categories, the field is called Manufacturer Part Number. It's a required field and 100% of our listings have that IS filled in.
Is this just a data mapping issue? Are other parts of our business being hurt because eBay doesn't have this field standardized across all categories? Should I create a custom IS, name it "MPN", and fill in redundant information just to make this report happy and if so, will it have any other effect positive or negative on our listings?
The description of the "opportunity" marks says they are simply measuring the difference between the top 10% and bottom 10% of listings. All that means is there is a difference, not necessarily that the difference has any particular meaning or relevance or that making eBay's suggested "improvements" will have any positive result.
The big red box may be meant to trigger sellers into thinking this is a critical issue on their account, but if you look at the sales conversion section it is pretty clear that Free Returns isn't driving sales conversion for the bottom 10% using it more than the top 10%.
eBay seems to be trying to give the impression that offering Free Returns will result in more page views, but again because all they are doing is highlighting a difference, there is simply no data here to actually identify *if* that difference is the cause of higher click through rates or just a coincidence.
In fact, this report shows that for this category, our sales rank is 2 out of 4,931 sellers, *if* that is accurate it would seem not having Seller Paid Returns isn't really hurting us too badly.
This report also seems to think we have 0% Promoted Listings enabled when in fact 100% of our listings are in active Promoted Listings campaigns.
I'm not even sure how to interpret the data about Google Shopping. It says Google Shopping Applies 0%, but then further down where it shows individual listings, every line has a check mark which one might think would indicate a "positive" or "yes" that Google Shopping applied. Maybe the check mark just means the listing is eligible for Google Shopping and the 0% section shows how many were actually sent to Google? I don't know, and there is nothing in the instructions or report that clarifies this.
Also, the instructions and Harry Temkin's video both say if you have listings that are rejected for Google Shopping, it will show a separate tab in the spread sheet so you can address any issues causing rejection. I do *not* have that tab, so I would have to assume none of our listings are rejected.
With multiple data points which are obviously not accurate, it causes me to question the validity and accuracy of the entire report and renders it pretty much useless to me.
On top of that, some of the elements of this report seem to be designed to nudge sellers to take action that eBay wants them to take by making it look like a critical issue to be addressed, when in reality there is no data here to show that making those suggested "improvements" will have a positive effect on your account.
Bottom line for me, at a minimum this report is not ready for Prime Time and should be taken with a gigantic grain of salt.
I'd be interested to hear if anyone else who has access to this feature is seeing similar issues.
@valueaddedresource wrote:
@mcdougle4248 wrote:
Thank you for the clarification on the Google Shopping question. Do you know how often the report is updated?
@mcdougle4248 it looks like it's updated every 2 days and is lagged 2 days behind?
Wait a minute, I just realized looking at it today that the timestamp changed since yesterday?! What is going on here?
It's only a 37 minute difference but I'm going to check to see if anything changed in the report. 🙄
@valueaddedresource wrote:
@valueaddedresource wrote:
@mcdougle4248 wrote:
Thank you for the clarification on the Google Shopping question. Do you know how often the report is updated?
@mcdougle4248 it looks like it's updated every 2 days and is lagged 2 days behind?
Wait a minute, I just realized looking at it today that the timestamp changed since yesterday?! What is going on here?
It's only a 37 minute difference but I'm going to check to see if anything changed in the report. 🙄
I am seeing the same timestamp change. The report I am seeing now does have some percentage changes across most areas, but nothing more than 2%. Overall, nothing of consequence changed.
Yep, there are significant differences in the one from yesterday with listing status as of Jan 6,2021 at 10:59 pm Pacific vs the one I just downloaded that is supposedly with listing status as of Jan 6, 2021 at 11:36 PM Pacific. 😧
There are 2 categories in the 10:59 that are not in the 11:36 and 1 category in the 11:36 that wasn't in the 10:59.
Comparing categories that are the same, it looks like many of the top 10% and bottom 10% numbers have shifted up or down by at least a few percentage points, which may be accurate if there was a shift in which sellers were included in those numbers, but I'm not sure.
The most concerning change is in one category it thinks I went from 58% to 60% of listings with UPCs - I did not make any edits to UPC codes for any listings either during that 37 minute window or in fact any time in the last few months.
Here is the summary page section for that category
10:59
11:36
I also highlighted the different icons for "click through rate". I'll fully admit that I am just being super nit picky here so please forgive me. 🤣 But to me it just speaks to the obviously lazy, not fully thought out or tested execution of this entire report.
"If you can't do the little things right, you will never do the big things right." ~ Admiral William H. McRaven.
This screenshot is from the summary page of the 10:59 report. Multiple categories on the same report don't even use the same icons.
At this point I honestly think eBay needs to back up and start this whole project from square one.
Apparently eBay thinks there is an "opportunity" for me here because 20% of the top 10% have 14 Day Returns....when I have 100% of listings with 30 day returns.
This is terrible advice!
First of all, why in the world would eBay ever advise me that I should change to a less favorable to the buyer return policy?!
Secondly, if I followed this advice, there goes our TRS+ discount.
Thanks eBay, but I think I'll pass on that opportunity. 🤣
@valueaddedresource wrote:Apparently eBay thinks there is an "opportunity" for me here because 20% of the top 10% have 14 Day Returns....when I have 100% of listings with 30 day returns.
This is terrible advice!
First of all, why in the world would eBay ever advise me that I should change to a less favorable to the buyer return policy?!
Secondly, if I followed this advice, there goes our TRS+ discount.
Thanks eBay, but I think I'll pass on that opportunity. 🤣
That is crazy!
@mcdougle4248 wrote:
@valueaddedresource wrote:Apparently eBay thinks there is an "opportunity" for me here because 20% of the top 10% have 14 Day Returns....when I have 100% of listings with 30 day returns.
This is terrible advice!
First of all, why in the world would eBay ever advise me that I should change to a less favorable to the buyer return policy?!
Secondly, if I followed this advice, there goes our TRS+ discount.
Thanks eBay, but I think I'll pass on that opportunity. 🤣
That is crazy!
I know, right?! Even taking out the fact that we are already using 30 day returns - look at the fact that it also shows the top 10% has 40% using 30 days compared to the 20% using 14 days that presumably presents an "opportunity". In what world would 14 day be the right suggestion here at all?
Any halfway ethical and competent tech company that actually cared about creating a useful feature for its paying users would have programed this thing with some basic logic to determine if the user was *already* offering a higher level of service and if so, don't display that "suggestion".
This is some amateur level startup programming here, not what we *should* be getting from an established 25 year old multi-billion dollar "tech giant". 🤣
@mcdougle4248 wrote:
I just noticed a new time stamp.
On this new report I now have 1 listing that supposedly Google Shopping rejected (it had not been rejected on the two previous reports). So, I decided to see if I could find it on Google Shopping and bingo there it is!
@mcdougle4248 wrote:
I just noticed a new time stamp.
Huh, mine updated too. So I guess the "updated once every two days" doesn't really mean "updated once every two days". It means "updated once a day based on the status from 2 days prior"....unless they update it again 37 minutes later?! I'm so confused. 🤣
@mcdougle4248 wrote:
@mcdougle4248 wrote:
I just noticed a new time stamp.
On this new report I now have 1 listing that supposedly Google Shopping rejected (it had not been rejected on the two previous reports). So, I decided to see if I could find it on Google Shopping and bingo there it is!
Oh wow. I suppose it could have been rejected on the 7th and then accepted now?
The 2 day lag time is going to make it tough to try to check/track accuracy and improvements (or lack thereof) from any changes made. 🤔
