eBay

new_spin_boutique · ‎08-17-2023

Hi fellow eBayers.

Due to the increasingly crippling site issues and erratic behavior of our platform, I decided to cross list my entire store. Then, I decided, let's just try promoting the 2/3 of my store that is not promoted, at 3%, just to see. If eBay is demanding I pay a little more in addition to the standard fees(which is charged on shipping & tax) + store subscription, then maybe it's worth playing their game so that I can avoid having to worry about managing two platforms.

After two days, here is the data that I have from my performance tab. While the data indicates that my impressions more than doubled, my views barely increased, my sales plummeted(including ZERO promoted sales), and I picked up a significantly less amount of watchers than I typically do in the same time period.

What I can deduce from this, is the site is broken. I don't sell junk. I sell, mostly, sought after necessities. In this economic time, as it has been shown in history, consumers seek out cost-saving opportunities for said necessities when the cost of living increases or the ability to meet the monetary needs of the cost of living decreases. eBay, in the categories of necessities, SHOULD be thriving. There SHOULD be an uptick. Parents still need to clothe and feed their children. People still need to dress appropriately for the jobs they have that barely pay their bills.

eBay has created a situation where it has become difficult, if not impossible, for the buyer to find the item they're seeking, difficult for the seller to connect with the appropriate buyer, and is, instead, relying on extorting sellers for meaningless traffic that exacerbates the problems on this site.

I'm happy to pay fees to conduct business on this platform. I'm happy to look past eBay charging fees on shipping & TAX collected. I'm happy to pay the store subscription costs. I'm happy to work with eBay to help improve the platform. I'm happy to cater to my customers, because, they're OUR customers. I'm happy to take lower offers for those in a bad financial situation. I'm happy to go far above and beyond to provide positive experiences for buyers, to my own financial detriment. I'm happy to provide free returns for customers who are less than satisfied and eat the costs. I'm happy to take more photos than necessary, and painstakingly detail anything that could be perceived as an imperfection. I'm happy to forget about the fact that I can't find a customer service rep that can provide customer service, or can even express themselves clearly, or has basic knowledge of the platform.

I can go on, and on, and on about all of the problems. We didn't even dive into policy issues that are exploited, daily, and the lack of recourse that we have.

eBay has become a real 'you know what' show. It's unhealthy for the buyers and the sellers. This effort to strongarm the difference between what eBay was and what it is, out of the sellers, only serves to further accelerate the decline of the site.

I don't want to cross list and build on another platform. Though very easy to do with today's tools, I have been an ambassador for the platform for so long, participating in every way that I could to help improve the site - sending in videos when asked to, participating in eBay Council, etc. However, at this point, it has become apparent it was all for not. This new system is literally destroying the platform as without the sellers and the buyers, eBay is just a bunch of (broken) code. The sellers are eBay's customers and the buyers are OUR customers. Without the sellers, you have no buyers. Without the buyers, eBay has assets to liquidate to pay off its debt.

vvvIMPRESSIONSvvv

new_spin_boutique · ‎08-18-2023

@zamo-zuan Were you on D2D or Handling Time when the switch occurred?

If you don't mind, let me ask you another question since you seem to have this stuff nailed down pretty well - One of the behaviors that I've noticed since the switch over to EIS was just after the switch, I no longer was selling outside of a two state radius except for rare occasions. I'm in North Carolina, and typically my nearby orders from my state or the two state proximity around me were maybe 1 in 5... after EIS, I was shipping 10 to 1 to nearby states and my sales dramatically declined.

Then I removed myself from EIS and after a day or two, thing got back to normal. However starting around the 8th, which was the deadline for swapping our First Class Package over to GA, I began to only sell to a two state radius again, at about a 10 to 1 ratio, with the significantly reduced sales.

Do you have any information on why that is? It seems the engine is now weighting relative distance of the buyer for items and it may explain why large chunks of search results aren't showing, as they may be outside of a proximity related to the GA zoning. Any info you have could be helpful and thank you for your two insightful posts.

joliztoyco · ‎08-18-2023

You're right.

The joke was on me.

And steering your sales into those classifications was pretty smart.

Not only can you can afford to use PL's to get ahead of your competitors, you still pay less than most of us.

Yes...I'm impressed.

Pardon me while I dig out my coin collection. 😁

ajs_coins_and_alchemy · ‎08-18-2023

@joliztoyco wrote:
You're right.
The joke was on me.
And steering your sales into those classifications was pretty smart.
Not only can you can afford to use PL's to get ahead of your competitors, you still pay less than most of us.
Yes...I'm impressed.
Pardon me while I dig out my coin collection. 😁

Ahh, sorry, I can't take credit for that one. I didn't know about the fee discount at the beginning ... actually I didn't even steer myself into the coin market ... or EBay selling at all. How I got here at all is completely whimsical ... in under 18 months I went from ZERO EBay experience and ZERO knowledge of coins (other than how to count the change in my pocket and pay with it) and ZERO sales/marketing/business experience... 18 months later I'm a coin/bullion dealer on EBay with over $100k gross sales.

Grandma asked me to sell some of her stuff on EBay (had some misc collectibles and old coins). I began researching and looking for comps as any good seller does. I noticed a pattern of auctions going significantly under value, couldn't find an explanation for it, realized there was enough gap between sale price and value to be able to purchase them? resell, pay the EBay fees and make a tidy profit when all said and done... boom.... here I am now.... then I realized modest store fee leads to major savings on FVF, stumbled upon that one too.

I fell into this, completely and utterly whimsically, took a TON of work, but has been extremely worthwhile.

new_spin_boutique · ‎08-19-2023

After 48 hours of promoting everything and experiencing the worst sales that I have experienced in years, I turned off ALL promotions and sold more than I had since early August. As you can see, my impressions dropped by half, my views actually went up, and my sales returned to normal.

For the folks who want to attack this data as being insufficient or are claiming that impressions don't correlate to sales

#1 - this is a small sample size. The purpose isn't intended to prove the effectiveness of promoting, universally, as there are an infinite amount of variables which I can't replicate with my small store. This experiment of mine is to simply provide my experience, and when combined with the experiences of many other sellers it helps to paint a clearer picture. My experience is not dissimilar from other sellers.

#2 Impressions absolutely correlate with sales. This is why promoted listings DRIVES TRAFFIC to you listings. The more traffic you have, the more sales you make. Over the years of selling clothes, I average 1 sale per day per 150 items I have in my store. This has always been the case until Feb/March of this year, where the erratic behavior began.

The purpose of my tests is to share my data. I promoted 1200 items and I had my worst sales day in 5 years or more. I turned off promoted, completely, no all 1800 items, and I had my best sales day in a month or so, and my rate of watchers returned to normal.

Does this mean that it's BECAUSE of the promoting - NO.

Does this mean that it's in spite of promoting - NO

Does it mean that eBay is not functioning as it should - Not necessarily, but when I combine all of my data and all of my years of experience, the unending number of problems I witness on a daily basis with errors, search problems, servers down, etc for past six months - It's safe to conclude the site is broken.

Promoting all of my items was a last ditch effort to restore some sort of normalcy, and it utterly failed. It almost couldn't have failed in a more dramatic way. The data from the performance tab makes zero sense - THREE TIMES THE IMPRESSIONS - same amount of views - worst sales in years. Turn promotions off - Dramatically less impressions - same amount of views - sales return to normal

If the site were working properly, the expectation should be - promote your items, increase your impressions, increase your views, increase your sales. Not the other way around. I'm not the ONLY person who has shared this experience. There are dozens of folks on social media who I have personally encountered who also had this very same experience.

ajs_coins_and_alchemy · ‎08-19-2023

If you feel satisfied with your results, and you find peace with those results and conclusions, then good. Whatever brings you inner peace.

I find the conclusions statistically insignificant and all of it hoo-ey. I "attack" your results as you say. Why? Your time period is way too short.

I average $400 gross sales per day. Actually $400.35 if we want to be specific. My last 5 days of sales are as follows: $500, $130, $1,000, $155, $540.

In 72 hours I went from $130 to $1000 back to $155. No auctions (so no fixed end dates/times). All BINS. All promoted. Nothing changed. Just sporadic sales. I do a lot of $300-$600 days but I get crazy $100-$1,000 swings frequently.

If I can make such a swing in 72 hrs with no changes whatsoever, I see no statistical significance or correlation in data you pulled in a 48hr period.

Maybe your market is different. Maybe such swings are not common for you. Maybe there are other factors at play that make my data statistically insignificant and yours statistically significant. But as you've presented it, and in my own selling experience, I can't draw the same lines or connect any of those dots.

So sorry for "attacking" your data... but that's just the scientist in me.

Again, whatever brings you peace of mind is priceless I suppose.

new_spin_boutique · ‎08-19-2023

@ajs_coins_and_alchemy

My data is the data that eBay provides. If my data is inaccurate, then the data coming from eBay is inaccurate. I'm providing my experience.

You sell in a very niche category. Ephemera, coins, stamps, cancellations, postal stuff - that's about as niche as it gets. When you sell necessities, it's a different ballgame. For years, I could count on very specific sales behavior within a narrow tolerance. That changed in February for all of us who sell in these necessities categories.

Previously, I had a huge store, lots of volume, listed around 70 per day, in necessities. The behavior then was the same when I was listing 15 per day. Watchers, offers, email correspondence, sales - all were predictable. Again, that changed in Feb/March.

The conclusion is the site is broken and that for many and many others - promoting items is damaging the quality of our traffic and our sales. Multiple people expressed the site issues in this thread, including a seller who has a massive auto parts store.

Your 363 niche items and your experience with them isn't comparable to necessity items with millions of customers each day.

new_spin_boutique · ‎08-19-2023

@ajs_coins_and_alchemy

Here is an example so you understand how unrelated your experience is to mine. BTW, I used to sell what you sell and I stopped selling that due to the erratic sales behavior.

My father HAD one of the largest stamp/coin stores on eBay for over 15 years....

Mint proofs - 211 sales per day on eBay, on average

Men's short sleeve shirts - 18,890 sales per day, on average

ajs_coins_and_alchemy · ‎08-19-2023

Congratulations for finding the lack of correlation in our items that I already expressed, and showing you can clearly compare apples to oranges. I made a point to clearly state our markets are very different and those factors may prove consequential.

I Still know how to conduct an experiment... kinda what I went to school for.

You find validity, I dont. Very simple. Whatever brings you peace and helps you sleep at night.

P.S. My eratic daily sales don't reflect anything eratic longer term. Weekly & monthly is consistent, daily is eratic. No skin off my back. Also, only do coins. I don't touch stamps, ephemera, cancellations etc with a 10ft pole. I'm happy with my "363 niche items", they generally sell through in full within 3 months w/ no issue.

I don't honestly understand the clothing market. I actually 100% don't understand buying clothing on EBay. Thats just me. Proud to admit it all. But I do understand experiments. I stand by my statements/assertions.

new_spin_boutique · ‎08-19-2023

@ajs_coins_and_alchemy

Right, you don't understand. Thank you for admitting it.

Would you like to learn?

What you don't understand, is eBay. It's not clothes that you don't understand.

Do you think I sell clothes and not coins because I like clothes more than I like coins? NO

Do you think that I sell clothes and not coins because it's more fun to do so? NO

The reason why I sell clothes is because of two reasons - I understand eBay and I want to make the greatest income that I can with the lowest amount of time committed with lower risk. I chose, after many years of selling the types of things you're selling, clothes. Why? Because I understand eBay.

If I were doing this for fun, I'd sell what you sell.

You attempted to discredit my data by providing your experience with COINS as a comparison. Scroll up, there it is.

You said

"

I find the conclusions statistically insignificant and all of it hoo-ey. I "attack" your results as you say. Why? Your time period is way too short.

I average $400 gross sales per day. Actually $400.35 if we want to be specific. My last 5 days of sales are as follows: $500, $130, $1,000, $155, $540.

In 72 hours I went from $130 to $1000 back to $155. No auctions (so no fixed end dates/times). All BINS. All promoted. Nothing changed. Just sporadic sales. I do a lot of $300-$600 days but I get crazy $100-$1,000 swings frequently.

If I can make such a swing in 72 hrs with no changes whatsoever, I see no statistical significance or correlation in data you pulled in a 48hr period.

Maybe your market is different. Maybe such swings are not common for you."

I am illustrating, for you, just how incomparable your market is to mine. You don't understand eBay therefore you don't understand necessities markets, therefore you don't understand why this data is actually statistically significant. You have some formal scientific training ... whoop dee do - Did they teach you about eBay and Cassini in your elite scientific training? LOL

siamjane8 · ‎08-19-2023

@new_spin_boutique

Some people are just contrarians or like to hear themselves speak lol. I would just ignore their attempts to "tell you why you are wrong.

Some, like a certain "cool" just have no idea what they are talking about and come here hiding behind "posting accounts" to cheerlead and argue with genuine sellers that are just trying to get help or understanding with why eBay is not working properly. Yes most real true sellers that do any amount is sales for any amount of time here can see real issues with tech that limit sales. It's just factual. We may not know why because eBay is not forthcoming with any data or explanations but we can see the facts behind our data and experience.

You are 100% correct in saying eBay is broken, even a merchant support agent that has been at eBay for 15 years told me the other day that they have recognized that the search is broken and the higher ups are starting to question what is wrong. Sending your customer base offsite to use Google search to find eBay listings.....I don't think they meant for it to end up like this-they just don't have the experience or the technical knowledge to put 2+2 together coupled, with a stubburness and arrogance preventing then from listening to the actual customers....... And you get test after test, change after change, and paid trolls and cheerleaders trying to direct and distract those who in earnest are trying to make ebay better.

new_spin_boutique · ‎08-19-2023

Thank you for that. I deal with over-educated quasi-scientists all the time. They all behave in that way when presented with data that conflicts with their positions. They can't stand being wrong or even challenged. No biggie... the conversation speaks for itself for any onlooker to read.

To your other point, the site IS broken and the veterans know it. I would encourage anyone just joining this discussion to go to page 3 and read Zamo-Zuan's accounts of his experience. As a massive auto parts dealer with unique software that connects to eBay's API system, he's in a unique position to observe the output of the platform. Combined with his experience as one of the largest sellers on the platform, we couldn't ask for a more grounded and informed perspective.

siamjane8 · ‎08-19-2023

@new_spin_boutique agreed- zamu is a great asset to the ebay community and actually ebay itself if they would value his data and research. He always has the references and dats to back up his findings- not just empty opinions.

As new_spin_boutique mentioned above, zamu is one of the regular and trustworthy users that you will find contribute here on a regular basis with no hidden agenda- just trying to help improve or fix ebay for the benefit of all...... Like myself- i believe zamu does not discourage competition but wants the platform to work for all sellers alike....but realizes the one competition we cant work with is ebay working against us.

If you are new here- you will quickly start to recognize 7 or 8 usernames that just come here to criticize and argue with genuine sellers and tell everyone they are doing it wrong and ebay has never done anything wrong or ebay never has glitches etc. It will become quite obvious that their motives are not to help but to antagonize. Some of them may be ebay employees, some may be paid by the post to cheerlead for ebay, or they may just be "that type of person", but it was never more telling than several years ago when that scandal hit and the FBI was investigating the higher-ups at ebay- every single one of those "cheerleaders" stopped posting cold turkey on the same day it hit the news and were gone for about a year before popping up again.

gurlcat · ‎08-28-2023

@lonebuck-books wrote:
You know it is a mess when the best way to find something on eBay is by googling it with the word 'eBay' added.

Whoa. Is that true?

the-hook-and-the-loop · ‎08-28-2023

YES!!!!!!!!

gurlcat · ‎08-28-2023

@the-hook-and-the-loop wrote:
YES!!!!!!!!

LOL, I guess I should have asked a more specific question. Not that I doubt the veracity, but considering multiple people in this thread alone seem to be of the same consensus, I'm just curious as to how it was arrived at. I'm on these boards in starts and fits, sometimes don't visit for many days on end, so did I miss a discussion where this hypothesis was tested and results shared? I don't mean a whole journal article report, lol. Just something beyond people "feeling" like it's more fruitful to use google as ebay's search engine for a particular item.
The problem with things that sound like they could easily be true is, someone can state it as fact and lots of people will easily just believe it, you know?