eBay

zamo-zuan · ‎08-22-2018

I noticed today as I was browsing our "My eBay > Account" page, that there was a flag on the Powerseller Level bar, saying that that our Powerseller level dropped. Previously I believe we were titanium (or at least platinum), and now we are silver?

I called in about this and the first rep I spoke to said it seems the "global" sales are is not calculating properly, and that our amount of transactions meet the "Gold" requirement.

After getting off the phone, I read through the page again, and I noticed that it mentions you can reach the powerlevel if you have the amount of sales OR the amount of transactions. Our transaction amount meets Gold, but our sales amount should be even higher than gold.

So I called back again, and the new rep I spoke to said that the reason the seller level dropped is because "Global sales no longer include domestic sales"???

I asked if this was a recent change, and he said yes, and that is why the drop happened suddenly this month. So I searched to see if information regarding this was in any of the Summer Update notes I could find, and I could not find anything...?

I even googled "eBay powerseller update" within the last year, and no results from any of the updates mentioning powerseller at all? I checked every page on here - https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/seller-updates/2018-summer/index.html - no mention of powerseller?

So right now I'm getting conflicting information from eBay, I'm not sure if this is an intended change that hit all stores, or a bug that is affecting all stores, or a bug that is affecting us specifically?

It would not make much sense to me if powerlevel was only an indicator of how many sales you make out of the US... but stranger things have happened on eBay?

Can anyone clarify? Is this affecting you as well? Did you powerseller level drop? Are global sales no longer including domestic sales?

If this was an intentional change, I'm wondering why it was not included in the update notes....?

tunicaslot · ‎09-20-2018

zamo - here's more about it on Ina's latest blog - again annonymous sources - so take from it what you can.

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl

zamo-zuan · ‎09-20-2018

@Anonymous wrote:
According to your press from this morning you think the change in Power Seller status is responsible for your drop in sales?

@tunicaslot wrote:
zamo - here's more about it on Ina's latest blog - again annonymous sources - so take from it what you can.

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl

Thanks for the link!

In response to Bigger, I don't think so, as prior to this happening, our issue was resolved and recovery started. When we dropped to Silver, I called in and eBay fixed it for us. Now we dropped to silver again, and no noticable changes yet.

I am still very certain that the statistic issues I mentioned in the past on the sellers health report were at least one of the main contributors to the drop we had personally. As soon as those statistic issues were worked out, we were going back to normal.

We have been 25-20% below last year ever since. But slowly going up each month. Since we are still slowly moving up, it's hard to say if we are "back to normal" yet as that will take time after basically 6 months of dropping.

But I would not be surprised if this powerseller change could trigger something related to a drop. I do not believe this is intended at all. EBay was not even sure what to say when discussing this. But if this were truly intended, it would make the powerselling global statistics pointless. Basically everyone would be in such a low ranking.

Also, it happened outside of any notices, no notice in any sellers updates, or anything. Definitely seems unintended.

EBay is not even sure the exact amount of weight this has, which is to be expected becuase they don't even know what weighs heavily in the algorithm.

But with how eBay works, powerseller status very likely affects multiple different systems on eBay. Their metrics are very complex and not only used for 1 specific eBay function. Powerseller was decreased a bit in weight since TRS, so it probably has a smaller affect. But a smaller weight, that affects multiple moving parts, can definitely have larger results in the right circumstances.

I can say just from our own store, that we are still doing about as well as we have since June. We seen a slight drop from Labor Day weekend. Now we are going up a slight bit faster since Labor day, but I think that is just be things evening themselves out again. Our impressions remain stable.

Without a doubt, drops related to powerseller should definitely be investigated. Any drop that could potentially affect visibility, should be thought of as highest priority, period.

And either way, the powerseller issue should be fixed. These measurements are pretty pointless.

gramophone-georg · ‎09-20-2018

Just typical eBay. Nobody is sure how anything works- or if it works- or why it works when it works, or what the policies really mean.

Everyone asking you why you're concerned has their head in the sand. If these metrics no longer mean anything... then why is eBay tracking them? Seems everything they track has teeth and can bite a seller at any time.

Trust me... if they are tracking it... it means something to some nameless, faceless "team" out there in the eBayverse, and it seems that during the holiday shopping season teams everywhere flip switches to activate minefields that sellers never knew existed.

I hate to sound like a nattering nabob of negativity, but we've see it every year since 2007, starting off with annoying site changes that caused sales drops to the big one around Thanksgiving of 2013 where someone flipped the "defect" switch early and suddeny thousands of sellers- including some megas- woke up and found themselves banned from selling out of the blue and had to fight to get their selling priviliges reinstated. Some lost nearly their whole holiday selling season.

Here we go again, it seems... eBay... where today's "glitch" is tomorrow's "policy".

Hopefully this one is JUST a "glitch".

Chaos is NOT an "industry standard".

Anonymous · ‎09-20-2018

Typo - I meant to say "the" press not "your" press.

I think eBay is more likely to drop the PS program than fix anything.

My Power Seller level was removed from my dashboard a while ago so I have no visibility to it even though my sales qualify, but I don't think it makes a difference.

I have seen weird things going on with traffic and impressions that have had an effect on my sales.

zamo-zuan · ‎09-20-2018

@Anonymous wrote:
Typo - I meant to say "the" press not "your" press.

I think eBay is more likely to drop the PS program than fix anything.

My Power Seller level was removed from my dashboard a while ago so I have no visibility to it even though my sales qualify, but I don't think it makes a difference.

I have seen weird things going on with traffic and impressions that have had an effect on my sales.

Well, thing is, if they are adjusting how it works, it seems unlikely that they are going to drop it. Even if this was an error on their part, that means they are doing "something" to change how the PS system works. This mean it's intended for something still, and it's intended purpose likely changed.

But with the current implementation, it's likely not working for it's intended purpose.

I'm a software developer & database manager myself. So just because the PS isnt affecting our account, is not enough information to say it's not making a difference for others. Usually algorithms are based on multiple factors. Low PS might be 1 knock against a seller, but you may need 3 to actually have an affect in search, for example.

As the poster 2 up from this said, if it's there, it very likely does something. But it's hard to say what.

Any correlation to visibility issues should definitely be prioritized though. Visibility on a marketplace should only take a back seat to billing issues in my opinion. People pay marketplaces for visibility. So Billing & Visibility should be the top factors. And sellers should have security in these things. That's something we don't have too much of right now.

Anonymous · ‎09-20-2018

@Anonymous, can you tell us what Power Seller means at this point in time? Aside from buyers having to wait 7 days to leave negative feedback, does it have any effect on an account? Does it affect search placement or anything else?

zamo-zuan · ‎09-20-2018

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous, can you tell us what Power Seller means at this point in time? Aside from buyers having to wait 7 days to leave negative feedback, does it have any effect on an account? Does it affect search placement or anything else?

To be honest, I don't think we can get a clear answer on that.

Some reps have told me that it does have an affect, just a more minor one.

Some have said it doesn't mean much anymore and that's why CSR's have the ability to override it.

The real answer is, it probably has a very specific role in the algorithm. But eBay does not inform their staff of how the algorithm works.

carlmarxx · ‎09-20-2018

@helloandgoodmorning wrote:
@zamo-zuan wrote:
But if the US sales have not been included in global calculations for a year... we should have seen this drop a year ago. If this is true... Why did it happen this month, rather than a year ago?

Does not make sense that the formula would change for everyone else a year ago, but for us just now.
No because it's a 12 month lookback. You had enough US based sales in the last month before the change that you kept the status until now when the last month of US counted sales rolled off. Now it's only your global transactions from the past 12 months that count towards your global stats.

Kind hard to get international sale's when USPS FCMI Rates aren't Fair competitive priced with other countrys ! FCMI for 1 Oz. to 8 Oz's depending on Courty ship to can very any where from $9.00 + to $12.00 + and 9 Oz to 15 Oz.'s $14.00+ to $2400 + . And Once it get's over 1 lb. You are talking over $28.00 an up. I'm considering going to GSP for items over 15 Oz's .