eBay

community_team · ‎05-18-2022

We announced in our most recent Seller Update that we’ve revised some categories and item specifics to help make your listings easier to find on eBay and by external search engines.

Starting today, you’ll see updates to the following categories:

Business & Industrial (Sinks)

Collectibles & Toys

Electronics (Cameras)

Health & Beauty (Covid tests)

Home & Garden

Parts & Accessories (Wheels & Tires)

Sporting Goods (Golf & Cycling)

Watches

During this transition, your listing experience could be temporarily impacted, as well as the visibility of your listings. You may notice some item specifics changing names, listings moved to different categories, or some listings temporarily not appearing in searches.

Any affected listings should return to normal within a week, though some effects to listings’ visibility in searches may continue for up to three weeks.

Once these changes are complete, we recommend checking your listings in the above categories to see if any were affected. Learn more about category changes → please scroll down the page to see the links for the specific category changes.

We understand these updates will take extra time and may cause some frustration, but our goal is to help you increase your listings’ visibility and sales.

Keep an eye on this page over the coming days—we’ll be sharing up-to-date information on affected categories and listings, and answering any questions you have.

wrong66 · ‎05-18-2022

Yes, Chinese (preferably Mandarin) will be the new default language in the future. Perhaps you're part of a Beta test for that transition. Let us know how it goes.

ckimodog · ‎05-18-2022

@momdadsstash

It depends on who's doing the programming and how experienced they are at what they do.

To me it's just more lip service from the Kremlin to keep us in limbo on the outcome when ever that may be. So over it.

completepuzzle · ‎05-18-2022

Purchase History does not have tracking anymore. You have to go to Summary.

Summary does not have shipping costs for watched items.

So, both are hosed.

velvet@ebay · ‎05-18-2022

@partfinds wrote:

Do those changes affect sales as well? Most sellers on boards say they got 0 sales in the past week or so. I am in car parts but not wheels and tires.

Hi @partfinds! We were told that:

No, these changes should not affect sales. We are trying to make for a better buying experience by better aligning categories, and the new soon to be required item specifics should help with visibility of listings too.

Velvet,

velvet@ebay · ‎05-18-2022

@b86fiero wrote:

@community_team wrote:

We announced in our most recent Seller Update that we’ve revised some categories and item specifics to help make your listings easier to find on eBay and by external search engines.

Starting today, you’ll see updates to the following categories:

Business & Industrial (Sinks)

Collectibles & Toys

Electronics (Cameras)

Health & Beauty (Covid tests)

Home & Garden

Parts & Accessories (Wheels & Tires)

Sporting Goods (Golf & Cycling)

Watches

During this transition, your listing experience could be temporarily impacted, as well as the visibility of your listings. You may notice some item specifics changing names, listings moved to different categories, or some listings temporarily not appearing in searches.

Any affected listings should return to normal within a week, though some effects to listings’ visibility in searches may continue for up to three weeks.

Learn more about category changes →

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

Three weeks? Why so long? Affecting search visibility for up to three weeks can be an eternity in online selling.

Hey @b86fiero! They said that updates are prioritized via business impact to the user, so the majority of changes will be supported in the first week. The 3 week estimate is a worst case scenario and not expected to take that long for the vast majority of users.

Velvet,

klhmdg · ‎05-18-2022

I just dont see how worse for sellers with every change will make it better for buyers.

Maybe its just me but every change has made selling on eBay more labor intensive and harder for sellers, with little to no bump in sales.

The new listing tool is horrible. The last big change of categories and item specifics took months for sellers to correct their listing and buyers were lost.

Thank goodness I dont count on this for a living!

klhmdg • Volunteer Community Mentor

partfinds · ‎05-18-2022

velvet@ebay

Wow. So why is that lack of sales for many abrupt in the same time? Spring/summer never and issue with parts. People fix cars at this time. Work shops order parts. Why all over the sudden lack of sales for many at the same time? Can someone look into it?

could that be that the system went awry while changing view counts on accounts?

-----

Edit: A reply to your question can be found here.

velvet@ebay · ‎05-18-2022

@klhmdg wrote:

Will sellers be notified as to which of their listings were changed?

Last time the only way we knew, was to go through and check each and every listing to be sure eBay moved it to the correct category.

It was a complete mess...

Hi @klhmdg! We've been told to have you visit the category changes outlined in the announcement. If you're listing in one of the categories that are changing, then you can see the new ID. Just click the blue button that says, "Preview US Category Changes" in this page.

Velvet,

itsjustasprain · ‎05-18-2022

@completepuzzle wrote:
Purchase History does not have tracking anymore.

Not sure how this is on-topic for this thread but I do not see any changes to Purchase History as far as tracking is concerned. I see tracking numbers for all my purchases unless the seller has either not shipped yet or - in rare cases - shipped but never uploaded tracking. I see a couple cases where that happened but in general the tracking is still showing as usual in the Purchase History.

If you do not see a tracking number and your purchase has not arrived by the latest estimated date then just ping the seller for the number or file the Item Not Received if he does not answer.

dhbookds · ‎05-18-2022

@klhmdg wrote:
Will sellers be notified as to which of their listings were changed?

Last time the only way we knew, was to go through and check each and every listing to be sure eBay moved it to the correct category.

It was a complete mess...

If the categories are changed.......the IS will be changed, though some may be carried over..... presumably there will be notations in Active listings if the Required IS will have to be filled in......