Throttling-what to do about it

[cb-boards]

Let me preface this by saying I understand that there is not universal acceptance that eBay throttles their sellers; I respect the opinion of those people who feel they do not and hope that they will do me the courtesy of respecting mine and to please not turn this post into a debate about whether or not eBay throttles sellers, to what extent they do, how or why they would do such etc.   I do not mean for this to come off as rude, I just would like this thread to stay on point and be an ongoing discussion amongst sellers who believe eBay does throttle us with tips on how to best deal and position ourselves in such an environment.

With that being said, I have a particular listing that up until 2 weeks ago, over the prior 3 months I had sold a whopping total of 5 of these items.  About 2 weeks ago I managed to sell 3 in a 2 day period to different buyers.  Over the course of the next 2 weeks I sold 19...about 4x the amount in two weeks then I had sold in the prior 3 months!!!  This is not an exogenous event, I have seen these types of patterns so many times that I can not possibly think it is an exogenous coincidence. 

 It seems very obvious to me that if you want sales, you need visibility for your listings.  In order to get visibility for your listings you need sales. A classic chicken vs. eg scenario.   eBay buries the listings of items that don't sell and give enhanced visibility to those that do.  I usually do a few things to circumvent this sort of throttling.  (This example above is one of the instances where I did nothing to the listing as an attempt to  illustrate my point about eBay throttling. )  But I usually:

1) When an item that doesn't have any sales within a 2-3 week period, I will usually cancel the listing.  Instead of "re-listing" I will "sell similar."  This way it appears as a new listing.

2) If my sales for a particular item that I have many of are slow, I will run a sale for a 3-4 day period droping the price to pretty much break even after I factor in my shipping, fees etc.  While I normally don't like to work for free this way, sometimes dropping the price will drastically will ignite sells over a short time and over the next 4 days I may sell 5 or 6.  While it is true that I may not have made any profits, however I:

A) reduce inventory 

B)  Now have several sales that might help generate more product visibility...so if I originally had it priced at $30 when it wasn't selling and lowered the price to breakeven at $18, now it might start to sell a little more regularly at $24 now that I have a little bit of a track record. 

I'd love to hear from other sellers who believe eBay throttles on what they do to deal with it.  Again, for those that don't believe in eBay throttling I respect your opinion but I ask that you please not discuss that here.  I would be happy to discuss this issue if you would like to start a new post.  I would like this thread to stay on topic and be a forum for sellers on how to best position our listings to cope with throttling.  It would be quite difficult to add value to this topic if one doesn't believe in eBay throttling to begin with.  So again, I hope my desire to stay on point will be respected.    

[goodluckselling]

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@cb-boards wrote:
The only thing that proved to be hopeless was my belief that the Kool-Aid drinkers here might actually respect a non Kool-Aid drinker's opinion and refrain from posting about a subject they might not happen to agree with.

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Name calling is revealing.

You asked for what you can do about something you can not provide any evidence to, so the only answer is - You can do nothing until you can show some form of throttling.  Not just saying it is happening but show some path that we can see and understand.  Until then the question has no meaning and the answer is nothing.

• Search Engines do not hide listings. 
• Search Engine promote listings. 
• They are programmed to go and find listing to include in a subset based on a users input

Maybe the problem you are having is that buyers are not searching in a way you have your listing setup?

Maybe the answer is you do not have your listings setup for the way buyers of your items are searching for them?

Good Luck Selling!

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

Are your items in the same category as the ones that are selling? Have you tried searching for your items and seeing what category Ebay narrows your search to?

I think a lot of sellers who aren't selling aren't being seen because of Ebay resetting buyers' search terms without them realizing.

[coolections]

OK, I read through the first 15 posts or so. It looks like it has been thoroughly explained to you why there is no such a thing as throttling. No need to change what you are doing except make your items more attractable to buyers. Make sure they are in demand and priced accordingly, and lastly make sure your items are not in an oversaturated market. If that is that case there is not much you can do except remember buyers search newly listed, ending soonest, and lowest price. Make sure your items are continually being in those positions to make a sell.

[coolections]

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@bubbleman2010 wrote:

Prices high compared to what? What are you using as a guide to determine what a items selling price should be?

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@bubbleman2010

What buyers normally are willing to pay on the average for which you are asking. If you want to wait for a sucker to pay more than average it is your prerogative, but you cannot blame Ebay or throttling as an excuse.

[thatsallfolks]

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@coolections wrote:

OK, I read through the first 15 posts or so. It looks like it has been thoroughly explained to you why there is no such a thing as throttling.

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"Throttling" in this thread is being defined as "favorable/unfavorable position in search results, even if the positioning is justified by seller performance/non-performance, price, previous sales of the item, payment of promotional fees, etc."

So under that definition, yes, there is throttling. And as you suggested, use of short-duration listings, in order to increase visibility with buyers who search "newly listed" and "ending soonest" is a good strategy.

[caninekopz]

The OP did not ask for a definition.  They wanted to know how people deal with it.  Maybe you do not believe that throttling occurs, but I do.  I have a list of evidence, but that would not do any good here.  

We are having a conversation about how we work around it.  DONT BELIVE THEN START A NEW ANTI-THROTTLING  THREAD AND WE CAN DEBATE THERE.

I don't get why people have to interject their beliefs or non-beliefs when the OP specifically asked to talk about work arounds.

Again it is unfair to some, benneficial to others.  Who am I to say what is good or bad.  The last month I have been the recipient of the "EBAY GODS" when it comes to throttling and I am taking every advantage.  So not all is NEGATIVE.  But it surely comes in spurts.

LOL Lighten up all and have a great day.

Rich

[sockmonkeydave]

@cb-boards

I read the first page, but I am at work, so can't stay long.

I had a big bag of BNC connectors, they were no cost to me.

The guy who was in the # 1 position hade sold a bunch of them.

These things sell for just a couple of bucks at radio shack.

( sort by lowest price, some were asking 4-5 times the amount )

I listed mine for the cost of postage and ebay fees, 

I was not trying to make money, just wanted to run an experiment.

I was now #1 in a cost search.

I think it has more to do with how a buyer filters the search.

[stonevintage]

1st problem is competition. 2nd problem is Mega sellers w/increased buying power vs small seller. 3rd problem is promotional program. 4th problem - shipping cost increases.

I am convinced at this point, that following "best listing" practices to the letter will only keep you from falling to the very bottom 10% of visibility at best.  Nothing we can do about any of the above issues except discontinue items that are not selling at the rate we need them to OR  - ebay has left one door open and that's promotional. You pay for placement and IMO they've closed all the work arounds to force (eventually all) into "paying for placement". 

This topic came up about a year ago.  If I recall, it was regarding promotional fees re:  Ebay and Google. The one area you might explore is how these site providers award highest placement to the highest bidder.  It is my understanding that it is indeed a bid situation.  We know that increased competition is killer with small sellers. We know that the mega sellers run (in most cases) razor thin profit margins because of their highly competative field. But what about the small seller with more unique items (as many of us are)?

If I ever get time to start listing again, the promotional fee program is something I will persue.  In theory, if I have a fairly unique item - my competition will be a fraction of what it is for the more common items. This reduces the amount of "bidders" I will have to beat to get high placement. There was an example given of this but I'm not sure where I saw it (Google or Ebay) that some sellers are "winning" high bid for promotional placement for as little as 2 cents - because no one else with same items are using the promotional fee tool.

I may be wrong and anyone who attempts this would have to be realistic about throwing additional money to a promo program and watch their numbers closely - but wouldn't it make sense to explore this one small area to see if it works for you?  When I see some of the poor quality items selling for top dollar from small sellers with less then stellar sales or ratings - while others sit, this is the only logical avenue that can be giving them the placement edge. 

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

I and many other buyers have discussed intentionally skipping over promoted listings. They're like spam and very annoying. Who wants to see the same item over and over again in their search?

Many buyers and sellers are opposed to the way the promoted listings program works so I would consider it carefully.

[dr.clockenstien]

Thank you Caninekopz!

I'm in 100% agreement.

Glad to see someone else noticed, thank you for also pointing that out.

[stonevintage]

I agree, however it appears the promotional program is here to stay.  So, it must be working for some. I am not in favor of it for the reasons you mentioned.  I was also not in favor of the increased competition, shipping fees etc.

It also appears that Ebay listening to small sellers is a thing of the past. They've turned it over to their computer AI to make placement decisions.    For these reasons (and I have gone thru the "7 stages of Grief") over this.... I have come to the point of acceptance or walk away (which is what I did). 

[mcdougle4248]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts from a buyers perspective.  It does make me stop and think about using promoted listings...I never thought that it would annoy buyers and that surely is not something that I would want to do.

[andow_6171]

I agree with some of the others, we can't all always come first.

Unless you are selling something extremely unique, you're going to get bumped down in search results eventually.

This is caused by many factors including but not limited to your account performance, new sellers and new listings in your categories, how buyers actually search for the item and the keywords you have used.

It's also in part to eBay rotating listings.
Think of it like buying items for a freezer. When you restock your freezer you pull all the old stuff to the front and put the new stuff in the back. Only eBay does this and reverse putting all the new stuff to the front and the old stuff to the back.

The best ways to combat this are constantly adding new items, ending listings that aren't performing well and completely redoing them including the photos, and using sell similar not relist.

Another thing I've noticed is that item titles aren't searched like a sentence, but rather each part of that title can be search.
So rather than writing out a full sentence about what I'm selling for my title I use the biggest keywords for that category and the item.

[stonevintage]

Lol, yea - you can't annoy them if you're not seen.

[blu_surfwear]

The OP did not ask for a definition.  They wanted to know how people deal with it.  Maybe you do not believe that throttling occurs, but I do.  I have a list of evidence, but that would not do any good here.  

We are having a conversation about how we work around it.  DONT BELIVE THEN START A NEW ANTI-THROTTLING  THREAD AND WE CAN DEBATE THERE.

Right on Canine!   If they don't believe it then discuss it somewhere else but please don't attack those of us who know its real.  Some of us are just trying to share info and ideas on how to stop something we are convinced is preventing us from making more money and this is how some make all of there money!

I get it, some dont believe its real.  Fine. No problem.  They were asked nicely to discuss it on another thread.  Why do they insist on attacking the MANY of us who do?  No doubt there are others reading these posts who know its real but are to scared to post in fear of being attacked.   The attackers probably also stand outside Walmart at Xmas telling the kids going in that theres no such thing as Santa.