eBay

coffeebean832 · ‎04-25-2021

I don't know if this has been brought up yet as I haven't had much time to check in on this board recently. A quick search didn't turn up this topic.

I was checking something from my store page and found that eBay is showing sponsored listings on my store page. This wasn't happening last week. Yes, they were my own sponsored listings, but if a buyer is already browsing our stores- not browsing in general search- then we sellers shouldn't have to deal with sponsored listings and additional ad fees. Are we competing against ourselves now?

I use promoted listings to help my listings be found in general search amongst the millions of listings from other sellers. Within my own store it's really easy for a buyer to find my listings without sponsored listings popping up- especially when buyers filter by category.

Obviously this is a fee grab by eBay, but I think it's done in incredibly poor taste.

coffeebean832 · ‎04-25-2021

Out of 48 listings per page, 8 are sponsored.

Tagging @valueaddedresource and @mcdougle4248 since we were all discussing the PL credit going away- I thought you might have an interest in this topic. Valueadded- took me a while to find your ID since you changed it!

go-bad-chicken · ‎04-25-2021

@coffeebean832 wrote:
I don't know if this has been brought up yet as I haven't had much time to check in on this board recently. A quick search didn't turn up this topic.

I was checking something from my store page and found that eBay is showing sponsored listings on my store page. This wasn't happening last week. Yes, they were my own sponsored listings, but if a buyer is already browsing our stores- not browsing in general search- then we sellers shouldn't have to deal with sponsored listings and additional ad fees. Are we competing against ourselves now?

I use promoted listings to help my listings be found in general search amongst the millions of listings from other sellers. Within my own store it's really easy for a buyer to find my listings without sponsored listings popping up- especially when buyers filter by category.

Obviously this is a fee grab by eBay, but I think it's done in incredibly poor taste.

@coffeebean832

I have made this very same point many times with eBay. They feel that when a seller utilizes sponsored listings then all is fair. My opinion has always been that if a seller subscribes to a monthly store subscription then that store and the listings within in it IMO should be sandboxed. Unfortunately eBay feels differently. And unfortunately for eBay this is why I am unwilling to advertise and promote my eBay store via social media.

What seller in their right mind is going to expend their time and energy promoting and advertising their eBay store when each of their listings within that store contain somwhere between 18 to 24 competitors listings as well as their own advertised listings, which of course come with an extra cost?

IMO eBay stores should be sandboxed, devoid of any and all sponsored lisings. But that's me.

You're mileage may vary.

bigdeals.etc · ‎04-25-2021

@coffeebean832 Wow that’s crazy and totally shady on eBay’s part. I don’t think I’m seeing it when I search for things in my store though. I wonder if it’s because I’m still using the old store format.

valueaddedresource · ‎04-26-2021

@coffeebean832 wrote:
I don't know if this has been brought up yet as I haven't had much time to check in on this board recently. A quick search didn't turn up this topic.

I was checking something from my store page and found that eBay is showing sponsored listings on my store page. This wasn't happening last week. Yes, they were my own sponsored listings, but if a buyer is already browsing our stores- not browsing in general search- then we sellers shouldn't have to deal with sponsored listings and additional ad fees. Are we competing against ourselves now?

I use promoted listings to help my listings be found in general search amongst the millions of listings from other sellers. Within my own store it's really easy for a buyer to find my listings without sponsored listings popping up- especially when buyers filter by category.

Obviously this is a fee grab by eBay, but I think it's done in incredibly poor taste.

Thanks for the tag @coffeebean832 ! Do you have screenshots of this you'd be willing to share?

I agree filling a seller's store pages with their own promoted listings is a bit of foul play on eBay's part, especially when sellers are already paying a premium for the store subscription.

It certainly makes the statistics eBay shows for search vs non search impressions very interesting too. Typically I've seen the non-search impressions fairly consistently in the 80%+ range for several sellers I've talked to about this. I wonder how much of that non-search placement is within a seller's own store or listings. 🤔

mcdougle4248 · ‎04-26-2021

@coffeebean832

Thank you for sharing. I checked my store and do not see any promoted listings within my store.

coffeebean832 · ‎04-26-2021

My main store (sells new product) does not show sponsored listings on the store page.

My mini-store (account less than 2 years old and sells preowned stuff from my household, mostly clothing/accessories) does show sponsored listings on the store page.

I've viewed friends' stores and stores of sellers I purchased from recently- most do not show sponsored listings, but a couple did.

My conclusion is that this is one of a couple different scenarios-

1- It's a "test" and will soon be rolled out to everyone.

or

2- It's only affecting "casual" sellers.

I did take screenshots, but it will take me a while to redact them for privacy. I'll post them later. @valueaddedresource @mcdougle4248 @bigdeals.etc @go-bad-chicken

bigdeals.etc · ‎04-26-2021

@coffeebean832 wrote:
My main store (sells new product) does not show sponsored listings on the store page.

My mini-store (account less than 2 years old and sells preowned stuff from my household, mostly clothing/accessories) does show sponsored listings on the store page.

I've viewed friends' stores and stores of sellers I purchased from recently- most do not show sponsored listings, but a couple did.

My conclusion is that this is one of a couple different scenarios-

1- It's a "test" and will soon be rolled out to everyone.
or
2- It's only affecting "casual" sellers.

I did take screenshots, but it will take me a while to redact them for privacy. I'll post them later. @valueaddedresource @mcdougle4248 @bigdeals.etc @go-bad-chicken

Ugh. I'm all too familiar with scenario #1. I've come to believe that ebay has thrown me into a "guinea pig group" to toss me into every single test they are doing for sellers. Many times in the past I post about weird things going on in my account that people hear don't see yet. So it's to my surprise that I'm not in this group.... yet. My other accounts don't have them neither.

coffeebean832 · ‎04-26-2021

I dug a little more. This seems to be tied to a referral link. I viewed my store page from a link within eBay, but I don't remember what page I clicked from- Seller Hub, Feedback page, from a listing? In any event, this referral info was at the end of my store URL:

?_sop=12&rt=nc

When I view my store without that info in the URL, there are no sponsored listings. When I view my store with that code tagged on to the end of the store URL- viola, sponsored listings appear.

@eburtonlab- is there any chance you know which page(s) adds that referral code when clicking a store link? I dug around my browser history but haven't been able to pinpoint it. Part of the issue is that I often open pages in new tabs, and I was very actively working on the store last night, so I don't know where I clicked from.

eburtonlab · ‎04-26-2021

@coffeebean832

?_sop=12&rt=nc

I believe that the sop=12 sets the sort order to "Best Match". If the change the number to "10" the sort will be "newly listed", etc.

I am not sure what the rt=nc part does. Searching for that parameter returns a lot of pages with eBay links that use that, but not much in the way of explanation that I can find.

I typically use an ad blocker that blocks sponsored listings, so I tend to not notice or see any of those referrals or listings, just the non-sponsored organic listings.

I wonder if you follow the store link from within a sponsored listing if that makes any difference. I did not notice any difference in the links when I tried a few variations just now, though.

coffeebean832 · ‎04-26-2021

Yes- that's it. It's the best match sort code. My store defaulted to an ending soonest sort when I opened the link. When I change it to best match sort the sponsored listings appear.

I did some testing with 2 other browsers- so far this is only happening in Chrome.

@mcdougle4248- Since you post with a selling ID I'm using your store as an example for a screenshot. In Chrome with best match sort- I can now see your own sponsored listings within your store. The sponsored listings didn't appear when I had a newly listed sort.

mcdougle4248 · ‎04-26-2021

@coffeebean832

WOW!!! Thank you for the screenshot.

mcdougle4248 · ‎04-26-2021

@coffeebean832

Yep, I duplicated your results in my store using Best Match. Interesting that I have 64 listings and Best Match indicates 52, while Newly Listed indicates 64. I am also using Chrome.

coffeebean832 · ‎04-26-2021

I've now checked 3 other browsers- Safari, Firefox and Brave- no sponsored listings. It's only happening in Chrome. It wasn't happening a week or so ago- it's a new change.

Now the question is- do I tag the eBay team, hoping it's an error they can fix- or do I not risk bringing it to their attention because what if it's an intended result across all browsers, so the "fix" is that it becomes more widespread?