eBay

vintageista · ‎11-07-2018

I don't like to buy into conspiracy memes but something is REALLY wrong at eBay or they have just decided they don't want me any longer! I run 3 sites on eBay, my main site, the one I spend the most time on and depend on, is the site with this name, I've been here 20 years & other than a few slow periods, it has made rather dependable sales, I am now down 29.6% since last month.

I have a smaller collectibles site & I fully realize those are not hot items, but have been making occasional sales there, that site is down 42.1% same period . The 3rd site I am helping a terminally-ill friend with, just so he can run out his inventory, it is small, doesn't require much maintenance, mostly all I have to do is mail packages, but has made steady sales for years, it is down 26.8%,

These sites are very different types of products, so really can't be blamed on specific merchandise. This has all happened since OCT 15 to now! Nothing seems to help! I am to the point of panic! I had to borrow money from my son to pay my rent this month if I can no longer depend on eBay, I will be out on the street by year's end! This has always been the best selling season, but not this year! The economy is good, stores are packed! But something is just not right!

I've heard all the stories of eBay wanting to get rid of small sellers and I never put much stock in that, but now I am wondering, is it maybe true??

I really wish I knew some way to jazz sales, but nothing seems to be working any longer!

castlemagicmemories · ‎11-21-2018

@emerald40 wrote:
I will be honest. My faberware coffee pot broke. Without even thinking about it I went right on the River to buy another one.

There was a recent thread by an OP that bought a new with tags coffeepot on Ebay~he received it and it was used with glaring coffee stains and wear marks not apparent in the listing nor mentioned in the description. Perhaps that threads stayed in your mind and influenced your actions.

I recently attempted to buy a clothing item. Many listings failed to have any measurements and attempts to get those measurements took time. I can see why a buyer might decide to give up.

pauyo_43 · ‎11-21-2018

@zamo-zuan wrote:
@pauyo_43 wrote:
Sorry, I meant to say up 30 listings.
This is the one to worry about. If you are at all able to, I would call eBay and ask to speak to the MSO Sellers Health department, to see if they could look over your account to see if there's any issues.

They are able to generate a report on your store, and if you look through this readout, for ANY statistics that don't add up, then you can confirm if it's the bug that affected us.

Heads up though - I've been told unless you have an Anchor Subscription on eBay you can't speak to sellers health... but it can not hurt to attempt to either way.

Please let me know how it goes!

Ok, I was waiting for this to happen. Generally my sales are up toward the middle/end of the month. With their sliding sales comparison, this means that I sometimes outsell myself from the previous month. Today my sales are up 14.8%. Magically my active listings are up.....hold on for it......46.1%.

Now I'm not going to get anywhere near the health group......but maybe you could pass on these figures? Because this is so wrong, it's well, ridiculous.

zamo-zuan · ‎11-21-2018

@tunicaslot wrote:
Used clothing do not require UPC's - they come up just fine in search - at least for the time being. The fact some may not have as high of a visbility is due to the algorithm. There are many factors that figure into it including but not limited too key words in title, return policy, free shipping, number of pictures so buyers can clearly view the item and any defects, price point, return ratio, previous sales, defects ect..

Used items is a whole different ballgame than new items expecially if they aren't included in the catalog yet - so a lot of the points you bring up aren't even in play for a seller of used clothing.

I commend you for trying to help others and I'm sure they appreciate it. How are your impressions thru google search as those impressions are lower for me than previously.

The seller I was helping at the time I did the research was actually selling new clothes, when we tested the UPC's. I doubted the issue at first, but it really did come up that (at the time, at least) there seemed to be that UPC issue I mention. Hopefully it's fixed (this was probably 2-3 months ago). But it's good if others are aware that UPC's MAY be an issue with the new catalog.

Regarding the algorithm, yep I completely understand, and I do know the algorithm fluctuates a bit (every month or 2 honestly, we try to stay up to date as possible in the changes in our category).

You are actually able to see the ranking that eBay gives your items in search (with the algorithm taken in to consideration). This is on the Analyze page in the Growth section. It compares your listings to similar listings, and you can compare views/conversion rates/etc. That is the one I'm referring to.

If you are able to be ranked #1, yet you are half impressions of the #2 or #3 rank, it definitely indicates a problem.

Most of the time, people assume "I searched my item and it showed up, it can't be a visibility issue!". That's not necessarily accurate. If you searched your item and it showed up #1, yet you are still getting a fraction of the impressions, that suggests a deeper issue. Because the search confirmed that you still have #1 placement. There's some possibly mild differences due to taxonomy, but if you have #1 placement, and are selling the same item, anything above 20% or maybe 30% difference, becomes unusual.

Oh and the used thing, that's one of the major issues. We were told the new catalog is not active in Motors, because it's not required. We had a big ordeal getting ourselves added. After months they partially added us, then months later they had us fully/properly added.

I can say with 100% certainty, being added to the new catalog had a significant affect on our visibility. You were able to see on the graphs the exact date that we were added to the catalog.

Also to back this up, several Utah reps have discussed the new catalog becoming central in search in September.

That's why I say, it's not a good combination with used/collectible/OOAK/vintage items. You can't really get them in the new catalog, and it DOES affect search, even if it's not required in your category yet.

To make it further problematic, I was told the catalog team prioritizes cases that are in "required" categories, and the reason it took over 6 months for us to be added was because our category isn't required.

Once the tools are on eBay where we can add to the catalog ourselves, this won't be an issue. But I feel really bad for any sellers who sell items that don't work with the catalog too well at the moment.

With Google, eBay seems to have broken something since the Spring update. All of our primary category items have been removed since around then. Some of our newer listings show up on Google, but after a couple months, they disappear.

I'm not sure why eBay has never resolved the issues with Google search. I remember them going on since at least 2014 or 2015. It would definitely benefit eBay quite a bit!

pauyo_43 · ‎11-21-2018

@pauyo_43 wrote:
@zamo-zuan wrote:
@pauyo_43 wrote:
Sorry, I meant to say up 30 listings.
This is the one to worry about. If you are at all able to, I would call eBay and ask to speak to the MSO Sellers Health department, to see if they could look over your account to see if there's any issues.

They are able to generate a report on your store, and if you look through this readout, for ANY statistics that don't add up, then you can confirm if it's the bug that affected us.

Heads up though - I've been told unless you have an Anchor Subscription on eBay you can't speak to sellers health... but it can not hurt to attempt to either way.

Please let me know how it goes!
Ok, I was waiting for this to happen. Generally my sales are up toward the middle/end of the month. With their sliding sales comparison, this means that I sometimes outsell myself from the previous month. Today my sales are up 14.8%. Magically my active listings are up.....hold on for it......46.1%.

Now I'm not going to get anywhere near the health group......but maybe you could pass on these figures? Because this is so wrong, it's well, ridiculous.

@zamo-zuan

Is this the problem you are talking about????

zamo-zuan · ‎11-21-2018

@pauyo_43 wrote:
@pauyo_43 wrote:
@zamo-zuan wrote:
@pauyo_43 wrote:
Sorry, I meant to say up 30 listings.
This is the one to worry about. If you are at all able to, I would call eBay and ask to speak to the MSO Sellers Health department, to see if they could look over your account to see if there's any issues.

They are able to generate a report on your store, and if you look through this readout, for ANY statistics that don't add up, then you can confirm if it's the bug that affected us.

Heads up though - I've been told unless you have an Anchor Subscription on eBay you can't speak to sellers health... but it can not hurt to attempt to either way.

Please let me know how it goes!
Ok, I was waiting for this to happen. Generally my sales are up toward the middle/end of the month. With their sliding sales comparison, this means that I sometimes outsell myself from the previous month. Today my sales are up 14.8%. Magically my active listings are up.....hold on for it......46.1%.

Now I'm not going to get anywhere near the health group......but maybe you could pass on these figures? Because this is so wrong, it's well, ridiculous.
@zamo-zuan
Is this the problem you are talking about????

I think so.

Basically the entire time of our statistics issue, we constantly got those active listing down messages, even though at the time our listings were up week to week. Many times it was "down 50%" and so on.

Coincidentally, some of the issues with our sellers health sheets, were the "Active Listings" and "Total Listings" numbers NOT adding up properly.

Once the issue was fixed on our sellers helath sheets, we constantly got Active Listings Up messages for a few months, until impressions were back to normal.

If you got the Active Listings UP message... that is a good thing!!! It could mean the issue is already resolved for you!

Let's see if your sales continute to increase now that you received that message. If they do, they will match up perfectly with the results I've had on our own store in the past, and there's been over 5 different forum members who I've discussed with, who have confirmed similar results!

Without a doubt, I believe those Active Listing messages can be related to the tech issues we had on our account. As more and more sellers have the same results, I'm more and more confident that it is at the very least, related in some cases.

Regarding sellers health, you usually have to convince eBay CSR's that there's a problem worth looking at to speak to Sellers Health. So I can't easily pass along the information. And to be honest, it wouldn't matter anyway, because Sellers Health was never able to explain it. What they can do, is generate a business readout for your store, that has statistics which are not available on eBay directly. But they would not give me a readout for someone elses store.

pauyo_43 · ‎11-21-2018

@zamo-zuan

Unfortunately this is the third month in a row that has played out like this. I get a few days of really good sales, then it says I'm down in listings again and the sales stop. I try to keep my listing numbers consistent so it's not due to drops in that. It is connected to the visibility issue, I am very sure and I'm also sure that's why they don't want to fix it.

You may have had more hmmmph due to cash flow to get them to help you, but as you said, you are still down over last year. They don't seem to care about the fees I was paying, which was generally $1500-$2000 a month. Now it's around $600. I know so many more sellers who have had greater drops that mine and greater $$$. Eventually this loss of revenue has to show on their financial sheets.

pharper999 · ‎01-16-2019

You're welcome. It's been a bit of time since this but if you see this...I think they've fixed some of the bugs in the search algorithms. My search returns are not showing junk as often and my sales have popped back up. I think its increasingly important to have "new listings" in the feed.