What if ebay just STOPPPPPPPED all the manipulations of the listings?

[bohomodernstyle]

THe basic description of a sale is you sell an item for what you are willing to sell it for and what a willing buyer will buy it for, PERIOD. Not what only buyers in Florida, or buyers in Illinois will buy....but ANY buyer. This is NOT free trade, but deceptive marketing. I wouldn't be surprised if some sellers file suit. The grouping situation is also deceptive. If I have a great description on my item, and great photos, and provide great service, but I charge more - why should Amazon "pick" s cheaper alternative? Not all of us can buy in bulk so we can sell at the cheapest price. We sell one or two of an item and make a few dollars. It is not in the interest of the buyer OR the seller to have items "grouped" similarly. You take out any willing buyer/willing seller option. You guys need to stop trying to get promotions and "justifying your jobs" by thinking up dumb ways to mess with a good basic system. Work on your customer service and quit manipulating our view. The reason we are here is because you are NOT Amazon. Stop trying to copy them. Looking for other platforms to sell on because you are ruining this for all but the big guys.

[yuzuha]

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@richardwillardcollectionwrote:
Then? That's a good question, I suppose then the person with the lowest price with free shipping would get all the sales.

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It baffles me that people are surprised by this.  If you're selling the same thing as three dozen other sellers, why do you expect that people will choose yours over the one that costs $10 less?  All other things being equal, most people are going to go for the option with the lowest price.

[richardwillardcollection]

true, and it seems no matter what their feedback says, if it's 10 dollars cheaper, it will sell, ebay buyer protection is so good, a person does not worry.

[ted_200]

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@jason_incognitowrote:

part of me feels that a minimum sell through rate might be the answer.

I have many items that are the only, or one of a very few, of that item. eBay needs those to maintain diversity and a reputation of having everything. What they don't need are 3000 sellers selling scratched up copies of Harry Potter movies.

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They could always tie the FVF rate to sell through rate.  STR over 80% = 4%, STR over 20% = 8%, STR under 5% = 12%, etc.  Of course that would expose everyone to chicanery from eBay with visibility to maximize their fees...

I have never understood the "flood the site with 100,000 listings, sell 0.1%, and pay almost nothing" / "put up 20 listings that all sell, and pay a small fortune" price scheme.  They basically reward people for clogging up Search and listing with really high prices.

[ted_200]

Some days I sort by lowest price+shipping but some days I sort by ending soonest.  Other times I go for BIN with best offer, other times auctions.  It just depends.

The problem is that no matter what you use for search sort, Cassini returns listings based on a relevancy algorithm.  Lowest price and Free Shipping are part of its "relevancy". 

If eBay is determined to serve results using a Buy Box page, your listing might well be totally irrelevant to Cassini if it's not attached to an eBay Product Page.

[ted_200]

Yep.  Yesterday, I searched my own listings because I wanted to know how many of my listings were "(pin,brooch)", 5 listings were excluded! with the ebay statement  ~"We've excluded some listings in order to show you the most relevant results".  I've got fewer than 100 listings!!!

This is the fundamental problem, but if you start criticizing Search, someone is going to show up and tell us how swell it works, and there's something wrong with how we're using it...

[babja]

WOW!  I just did a search for vintage cotton nightgowns and out of 200 Sold listings on the first page, were 40 (20%) New Dresses from China.  How did these show up in my search?  If search is based on my keywords in the title, how did 20% end up on keyword "nightgown"?  I think I have been pretty tolerant of Ebay as both a seller and a buyer but I can't find anything anymore as a buyer and I can't sell anything if keywords in titles are useless and said searches are inundated with China junk that are not relevant to the initial search.

[timemachine777]

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@tunicaslotwrote:

I agree to a point with what you are saying but you can't blame Ebay alone for the way things are. Between automation - world wide competition to keep prices the lowest you can and often times - a lack of interest in many items due to a change in buyers' interests and shopping habits - I think these have contributed to lack of sales and low profuts for many sellers across all venues.

We'll use your example of books. My whole family reads - we're avid readers - but I use a kindle app and download books from Amazon that are free - I seldom pay for a book and if I do it's 99 cents to $1.99. I get books at garage sales for my husband - 25 cents or less. Now the son is the stickler - only reads certain authors, usually a series and it kills me to spend $25 on the newest series release to give him as a gift and which will be read in 3 hrs if that. With consumers like me - publishers would go broke. We've seen books stores closing for the last 5 yrs around here. I feel bad for any book seller trying to survive - no matter what venue they use.

Now maybe Ebay garnered a deal with the epackets - but from the amt of overseas sellers I see occupying other venues as well as Ebay - I think the deal was made

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We only had 3 that went under. Mr paperback, Walden Books, and Borders. All the small stores that I know of are doing really well, and we have Barnes and Noble, and Books a Million for our large stores. Both are always real busy. 

I don't read books on tablets. I prefer holding my books, and I like being able to jump around in a book if I need too. Quickly. I also like to read at night, and the last thing I want is a light in my face.

[timemachine777]

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@babjawrote:

WOW!  I just did a search for vintage cotton nightgowns and out of 200 Sold listings on the first page, were 40 (20%) New Dresses from China.  How did these show up in my search?  If search is based on my keywords in the title, how did 20% end up on keyword "nightgown"?  I think I have been pretty tolerant of Ebay as both a seller and a buyer but I can't find anything anymore as a buyer and I can't sell anything if keywords in titles are useless and said searches are inundated with China junk that are not relevant to the initial search.

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Search is no longer based on just keywords. eBay has been moving over to Structured data so it also factors in all the data that they collect on you as you surf the web and search on other sites also, and click on stuff. eBay is trying to develop AI that can predict what you want to see, and don't want to see. 

[timemachine777]

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@yuzuhawrote:

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@richardwillardcollectionwrote:
Then? That's a good question, I suppose then the person with the lowest price with free shipping would get all the sales.

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It baffles me that people are surprised by this.  If you're selling the same thing as three dozen other sellers, why do you expect that people will choose yours over the one that costs $10 less?  All other things being equal, most people are going to go for the option with the lowest price.

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If the searcher actually sees the one with the lowest price. eBay states in its UA that it doesn't show all listings regardless of the sort order that the buyer chooses. When they updated the UA just recently, they left that statement alone.

[coolections]

@timemachine777

Books are a dime a dozen and easily found anywhere you look. That is one reason why you are not selling anything.  You are not only competing against others sellers here and other sites such as Amazon, but you are also competing with over 6 million garage sellers daily. The only way to get consistent sales and no longer blame Ebay for your problems and convince yourself Ebay hides them would be to list the commons for 99 cents each or donate them to Salvation Army. The rarer ones you would have to lower your price to bear the market demand. Without change you will have to just get use to continue to complain.

[timemachine777]

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@coolectionswrote:

@timemachine777

Books are a dime a dozen and easily found anywhere you look. That is one reason why you are not selling anything.  You are not only competing against others sellers here and other sites such as Amazon, but you are also competing with over 6 million garage sellers daily. The only way to get consistent sales and no longer blame Ebay for your problems and convince yourself Ebay hides them would be to list the commons for 99 cents each or donate them to Salvation Army. The rarer ones you would have to lower your price to bear the market demand. Without change you will have to just get use to continue to complain.

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You know nothing about me nor what I sell. You can have opinions about my stuff all you want. Fact is that I  do know what to sell and for what. I recently sold a book on eBay for 3 grand, and I just sold one the other day on eBay for 155.00. BTW...that one was just a damaged 20 year old book. 

[timzbiz]

Your sales would double, maybe triple. This would happen just by getting rid of best match and going back to ending soonest as default.

[ladyjaynefinds4nn0]

I came back to ebay after an absence, I posted, like other's looked for my items, put in keywords nope didn't show up.  When searching for an item buyers will be lucky to stay on the first couple of pages after that attention span has gone onto something else.  I am surprised at all the cheap china goods, how ebay has changed not unlike some of the other platforms.  But what bother's me is my items are listed, for the first hour as newly listed they get looked at and then.... they go into the abyiss will I stay not sure about that.  All the fees are taking any profit after re-listing, I will have to re-evaluate what I sell as 25% or less of a success rate are not good enough numbers for me.  I don't just want to be seen at the beginning or the auction or end.  

[richardwillardcollection]

try a search for any wigit...."from Pakistan" or "from Canada" or "from united kingdom" and you will get that...then try it "from united states" this works pretty good for me.

[tunicaslot]

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You know nothing about me nor what I sell. You can have opinions about my stuff all you want. Fact is that I  do know what to sell and for what. I recently sold a book on eBay for 3 grand, and I just sold one the other day on eBay for 155.00. BTW...that one was just a damaged 20 year old book. 

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Congrats on those sales - so Ebay is working for you then!  Again - sales depend on how desirable an item is and whether your item is listed when that seller is looking for it.

I too sometimes like a real book in my hands - but as I said - garage sales or bag sales at the library each year and I can get those books for next to nothing. Last summer I came across a box of boxes in the syfy genre which my husband and son would like. The seller worked for the publishing company and had 4 different compleat sets - I was trying to see how many there were per set and if it was worth it - he came over and said - take the box for a $1 - I gave him $5 because I'm not about to take advantage of people and there were at least 80 books and the family was thrilled! After they are read - I'll be able to sell them here and make much more than my initial investment because complete series seem to be better sellers than piecemeal.