Sudden drop in sales May 2022

[partfinds]

Please, report here if you recently within a week or so experienced sudden drop in sales. We can then ask Velvet to pass it on to technical team for review of the accounts. https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Updates-are-happening-to-some-item-specifics-and-category/m-p/...

[partfinds]

Not just seller hub but everything from search through listing/bulk, messaging and sales. Maybe they getting tests for FALL SELLER UPDATES

[hollywoodblond]

I agree with your assessment on Ebay search results.  I've noticed it 3 years ago all was good,  this year we moved to another state and sales have slowed almost to a stop. I'm considering closing my store account since its only use is to put sales on a time away hold and does & nothing else. Promotions does nothing to increase sales as far as my testing goes. IMO Ebay is reacting to market pressure and will continue to filter out the small sellers as they want sellers from Amazon to seller thru. Those numbers must be huge.

[lawnmowerpartsstore2]

I can only imagine

[replacementradios]

I was starting to think eBay had addressed this issue. Sales were close to normal levels over the last week plus. Then came this weekend... Our sales dropped off a cliff again. eBay orders being processed today are about half of what they normally are for a Monday.

[zamo-zuan]

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@nuclearomen wrote:

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idk, never heard of them admitting to something like using ones account as testing... 

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https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Potential-problem-with-Promoted-Listings-impressions/m-p/31218...

eBay regularly conducts testing to help optimize our advertising platforms and products. While in some cases those tests may impact our ad marketplace, we recommend that you continue to monitor your campaign settings and consider our Promoted Listings best practices to help you achieve your performance objectives. Thank you for selling on eBay. Brian

That was in response to when I had reported the drops in the category, which was the beginning of us having to invest 3-4% to get the same amount of impressions as before.

And this only affected some sellers, and did not affect others, as shown in the thread. And it did NOT affect all sellers in this category, as I had confirmed with other sellers in this category.

This is besides the fact that the algorithms that hit us then were the same as the ones that hit everyone else last month. You see the graphs I share in the OP of that thread? Compare them to the graphs of another seller in our category who DID NOT KNOW about the 1% changes last month:

That's what happened when he had left his campaigns at 1%. 

Look familiar? Compare to our charts in my 2020 thread for what eBay told us was a "test".

Here's our own 2020 graph for easy comparison:

[nuclearomen]

@zamo-zuan i meant when you have issues, they won't say "oh yes, well the stop in your sales, that's because we ARE using your account as testing" because then they would have to take responsibility and they won't so they just say things like "it's your prices", "need to invest more in PL elections", "no buying right now due to covid"...you get the point. 

Nope, my graph didn't do that for the lack of sale of past 2 months, I had already had elections at the new min. of 2% - but my impressions dropped by like 10,000-15,000 and were riding on around 10,000 mark, but my impressions PL vs organic never reverse like that - flatlining... you know something is wrong when organic rides higher then the PL impressions. 

[zamo-zuan]

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@nuclearomen wrote:

Nope, my graph didn't do that for the lack of sale of past 2 months, I had already had elections at the new min. of 2% - but my impressions dropped by like 10,000-15,000 and were riding on around 10,000 mark, but my impressions PL vs organic never reverse like that - flatlining... you know something is wrong when organic rides higher then the PL impressions. 

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Yep. So that other seller is actually in our category. He worked his way up, based upon my advice, and it turns out he has to invest the same amount to keep a solid percentage of impressions. 

And that last line, that's exactly the point. I've said before on here that it's like a switch that is turned on or off. That made it extremely easy to spot what was going on in the category. Because there's few random sellers. The real competitors in the category have all met with each other and/or worked with each other in the past. Especially throughout the tariffs - we had to lean on each other when certain parts were sold out, etc. So we have a strong working relationship with the top sellers, and have discussed how much has been invested in to promotions.

Some sellers were able to continue at 1% in 2020 as their "switch". Some had their "switch" at 2%. Others had the same 3-4% "switch" as us. It was by no means a level playing field.

EBay saying it was a "test" just pours salt on the wound. Imagine how it feels to have had to invest 3-4% since 2020, and to see other people who were still at 1% go through exactly the environment we lived in for 2 years?

It's a shame that everyone in this category is being introduced to what we been through for 2 years, but it's an absolute outrage that we've went through this while others didn't have to play by the same rules. 

And a question I really want answered: What determined us as needing to pay more than everyone else? A bigger inventory? More traffic? No matter what they choose, it's not fair, but their motive will likely skirt the line of ethics.

[lawnmowerpartsstore2]

So it looks like their test is to see if you will pay more money . Hmmmmm

[my_boston_baked_beans]

Even if all these assessments/metrics are valid the most important question/questions are what can we, as sellers, do about changing the outcome?? I can agree with all the metrics and assessments, but that does not bring me closer to a SOLUTION!

[my_boston_baked_beans]

I would say there has been a steady drop in sales period for some time now<

[zamo-zuan]

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@lawnmowerpartsstore2 wrote:

So it looks like their test is to see if you will pay more money . Hmmmmm

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Pretty much.

But it's a situation where we HAD to pay more money, or else we'd lose > 50% of our traffic.

And since then, as I'd reported elsewhere, lowering PL investment nowadays lowers Organic traffic. So unless this is a bug that eBay happens to fix (which after 1 year of this happening, and it only becoming weighed more heavily, seems doubtful).... That's probably something else others can look forward to.

[lawnmowerpartsstore2]

Well im pretty old. Back in my day we use to call doing business like that: is like doing business with the mafia (Gangsters) The question is: when does the money grab end. Just asking for a friend 🤔  

[nuclearomen]

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@my_boston_baked_beans wrote:

Even if all these assessments/metrics are valid the most important question/questions are what can we, as sellers, do about changing the outcome?? I can agree with all the metrics and assessments, but that does not bring me closer to a SOLUTION!

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@my_boston_baked_beans unfortunately - there is only one solution > invest more in PLS elections. There is nothing - really nothing - anyone can do as it's ebay steering the vehicle. I tried everything - the only thing that made any difference in sales was to give more $$ up. 

[goombaymama]

Last night Microsoft had a major email glitch.  Email would not automatically refresh the latest.  I'm taking their bulletin and rewording it for ebay.  Can you imagine ebay taking such an initiative?!?

Our review of the data analytics has ruled out the possibility of this event being a result of a network or  infrastructure issue. We're pivoting our investigation to the web user interface code to see if any recent changes or an existing code issue that has recently been exposed is causing this problem, which we expect will take some time to analyze and develop a solution.   Scope of impact: search results are not accurate.

[woodyscomicchest]

I'm a low volume seller but my sales have virtually stopped. I'm down 49.75% on my 90 day rolling average as of 08/17/2022. I list and relist everyday as well as send offers and mark my items down to a virtually non existent profit. 

THANKS EBAY FOR NOTHING.🤦

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