So who else has been seeing a pattern of alternating good/bad days since mid Feb?

[blurryrobot]

Because I sure seem to have that going. 

It's not as visible in my "number of sales graph".  Some of those "good" (mediocre) days I sell 5 items to make the total, other days 10, but Ebay seems to be doing some sort of rationing here since mid-Feb based on how many dollars they think I should be making per day. 

I can't see any other way to get such a clearly inorganic pattern. Suspect there is code that looks at day 1's sales and if they seem 'excessive' it clamps down somehow on day 2.    And the reverse, if they seem 'insufficient'.  And I think that whatever constants they are using, are turned up too high, which is making this visible as an alternating overshoot / undershoot. 

Now, some of you are going to look at the daily average and think, well, that seems pretty good. But in fact it's terrible.  Because my livelihood is running a full on curio shop with a good proportion of my inventory listed, 6000+ items.    

But regardless of what level sales should be, they should NOT be so obviously alternating like that.  
THAT is not organic.   That is not recession.  That is clear manipulation by the platform. 
And counterproductive to themselves too, because they get a percentage of sales. 

For goodness sake Ebay, TAKE your fees.  But let my customers shop!

[nickelsanddimes2015]

Been this way for me. It's up and down all the time.

[laststopgeneralstore]

No, Been pretty consistent, aside from the one really low day but that day I was making some significant changes throughout my store. Yes their are days your going to be up but you're also going to have days that your down. Very rarely will have 2 days with the same sales. I wouldn't worry day to day or compare month to month. I like to compare every 120 days and/or 180 days. As long as your hitting your average for the month then what's the difference if you got it all on one day or the last day?

[b86fiero]

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@joels-retrocade wrote:

Patterns happen organically sometimes, it's life.  Humans tend to make connections that aren't there (myself included lol).

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I hear you and agree with that statement.

Recently I installed gray and white marble tile in my half bath and laundry room.  Immediately after I saw a "troll head with a long neck" in the pattern.  Seriously.  Dead serious.  100% true.  Nobody notices until I point it out to them.  Then yes, they see it and can't stop talking about it. 

Patterns can seem random until someone shows you an alternative view. 

[inhawaii]

I only now read your entire post.

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@blurryrobot wrote:

But regardless of what level sales should be, they should NOT be so obviously alternating like that.  
THAT is not organic.   That is not recession.  That is clear manipulation by the platform. 
And counterproductive to themselves too, because they get a percentage of sales. 

For goodness sake Ebay, TAKE your fees.  But let my customers shop!

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Clear manipulation?

Are you kidding me?

That just blows my mind.

How long have you been in business?

[laststopgeneralstore]

Also, you're highlighting roughly only 2 weeks out of the past 9.5 weeks of this new year, which looks like on average you were probably down a little. Not a big deal. Show us your year to date chart or your last 6 months-year. You're going to have ups and down no matter what. eBay isn't after you.

[joliztoyco]

It starts when you're always afraid.
Step out of line, and the men come and take you away... 🙂

[coolections]

That is a normal event which you should accept as normal. Anything else is a wild conspiracy.

[chapeau-noir]

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@b86fiero wrote:

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@joels-retrocade wrote:

Patterns happen organically sometimes, it's life.  Humans tend to make connections that aren't there (myself included lol).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hear you and agree with that statement.

Recently I installed gray and white marble tile in my half bath and laundry room.  Immediately after I saw a "troll head with a long neck" in the pattern.  Seriously.  Dead serious.  100% true.  Nobody notices until I point it out to them.  Then yes, they see it and can't stop talking about it. 

Patterns can seem random until someone shows you an alternative view. 

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There's a whole subreddit devoted to that - I had to quit reading it because I was starting to see weird patterns everywhere so can't remember the name.  There were a lot of really wild images on there of everyday objects just around the house, at work, etc.

The human brain is formulated to try to make order out of chaos.

[iamalwaysright]

I have. But not really thinking too much into it.

[keziak]

I saw that word "switch" coming from miles away! Does it really  make since that a huge company like Ebay drills down to the individual level to parcel out sales as it sees fit?

[pcobra93]

My sales are bad following a day I mention FBI, CIA, NSA, ATF and Let's Go Brandon....I think they are listening to me!!!

[keziak]

I am reminded of the Nicholas Cage movie "Knowing". It's been criticized but I love it's warped little heart and watch it often. He pretty rapidly detects order from a chaos of numbers on a piece of paper though his scientist colleague urges him to consider how easily one can see patterns that aren't there, or don't mean anything. But of course in the movie it DOES. Saying no more, great movie though.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@blurryrobot 

So who else has been seeing a pattern of alternating good/bad days since mid Feb?

Not me.

[traditonalproducts]

THAT'S THE TRUTH!!

[mightymouse]

What is good or bad days anymore on Ebay. What I like is when a buyer check you listing and shows up as free shipping but then at check out shows up as 11.50 then complains that I'm messing with them, but it is the way Ebay promotes items to "trick buyers".

Also their new item specifics has really messed up searches. I just did a search for 1 pattern of Wedgwood "Dinner Plates"  and it brought up 1400 listing but only 180 of what I was looking for, the rest were odd pattern or not plates. Do you thing this might be affecting sales???