When will eBay explain what they did around March 20th and why it killed sales?

[jlstanton]

Howdy All,

Around March 20th, a lot of our sales just disappeared.  eBay has claimed that nothing happened and everything is fine, despite countless numbers of complaints, etc.  People across all categories sale their sales halve or more literally overnight and despite our best efforts, they did not come back.  

I was selling around $1000 a week prior to March 1st.  I began adding $14,000 in inventory to my store of $41,000, an increase of 34%.  For every $10,000 I have in inventory, I used to have an expected rate of $x, give or take 5-20% a week up or down, but consistent.  Over a 30 day period, I could expect to see very little variance in my numbers, as everything would pretty much settle down to 5-10% above or below my average.  I've been around for 24 years, have 13,000+ sales, a 100% positive feedback, maybe 15 returns due to postal abuse of packages during the 24 years I've been on eBay and am a Top Rated Seller.  I know my inventory and customers and strive to continually buy quality inventory to add to my store.  I know my numbers.  I know when eBay has done something as they have been doing over the past 3 years under this CEO.  And it stinks.

As I began to increase my inventory on March 1st, I got the expected returns coming in.  My sales increased proportionately and everything was great.  Then came March 20th or thereabouts.  Complete crash.  My sales disappeared by 50% overnight and stayed there.  Normally this indicates an unannounced update and things go back to normal after a week or two of killed sales that you'll never get back.  But sales kept going lower and lower.  The two weeks prior to March 20th, I had gone up to $1500 a week in sales.  The week before June 2nd, I was at $350 for the week.  I had lost nearly 80% of my sales.  eBay says that everything is working fine despite the HUGE number of people across the message boards, eBay for business on Facebook, and on YouTube.  

The only thing I've been able to figure out through a lot of experimentation is that eBay seems to be putting a LOT of crap in between the listings of those who promote at the highest rate versus those at the lower, and those who don't promote, well, expect to see your items buried.  I was at the low end of promoted listings as I know that eBay has decided we need to pay MORE to play as they chase extra pennies, forgetting that giving the customer few immediate choices does NOT guarantee sales.  Making it harder to find items does not give the customer a positive experience.  And based on the number of customers eBay has lost since this CEO took over despite covid leading to huge increases for all other platforms, I'd say I know what eBay's problem is.  I can only imagine what the 2nd quarter stock reports are going to look like.  My guess is huge drops in revenue from normal fees collected, with the promoted fees being the only thing that this CEO is good at.  Basically, taking more money from sellers to feed the stockholders who are losing money from bad policy that is killing sales.  Would love for him to explain what happened around March 20th and how it'll lead to a greater eBay, as opposed to higher fees for sellers and worse experiences for customers who continue to leave the platform at 10% a year.  

I have had to open a Mercari account as well as a local booth at an antique mall because apparently, according to some at eBay, I don't know what items to buy and sell.  The problem with eBay is that there are rules that you must follow in order to be successful on eBay, only, they won't share those rules with you which makes playing the game pretty difficult.  

How about you tell us what you did to kill our sales?  How about you tell us what we actually have to do to get our sales back?  I'm down $1500 a month in sales from BEFORE the time I added 34% more inventory to my store.  With that added inventory, I'm down $3000+ from where I should be, which is a huge thing.  It's not because I don't offer free shipping, free returns, or haven't filled out all the suggested item specifics.  My sales were just fine without these prior to March 20th.  It's not the economy that died 50% on the same day nor is it the 'summer slowdown' which started in March.  eBay did something to the algorithm and it would be nice to know what it was and if this is the new eBay.  If it is, then expect to lose more than just 10% of the customer/seller base this year.  

Seriously, pull your head out.  You're killing a once great platform. 

[siamjane8]

If you cant admit that ebay glitches and untested site upgrades affect visibility and sales.......  

[miyasamaco]

Ebay keeps changing for the worst. It's not going to get any better. Despite the delusions of the cheerleaders, there is throttling going on. Heck, the CEO has made it clear wants the "high value" sellers on here. That means only the small percentage of big sellers matter now. Most of the other selling sites are garbage as well, but give other outlets a try. 

[stevemartin60]

Post of the day!  (and successfully launched against just the right poster.)

Kudos!

[stevemartin60]

...good stuff.  I still would propose ELITE CAPTURE as a possibility.

[jasoheat_0]

i would completely agree ... funny thing i read somewhere it was these internet companies were the next big tobacco ( and we all remember how that turned out ) , how can any company justify losings 25 % of it customers in 5 years, GMV is down to where it was in 2013 , ebay is laying off , market share is down 40 % ( and the fact that this CEO is still employed ) these cheerleaders need to think , as far as PL from my experience it has always been inflated , doesnt anyone remember when ebay changed the minimum to 2% yet almost 90 % of items have suggested rates of 5-9%, this current throttling or what ever they did is nothing more than to force sellers into ad rates and higher ad rates , as this CEO and management are complete failures , the numbers do not lie  , ebay has a huge issue and its trust , not with buyers or sellers but its EBAY itself , thats my opinion 

[nuclearomen]

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@jasoheat_0 wrote:

i would completely agree ... funny thing i read somewhere it was these internet companies were the next big tobacco ( and we all remember how that turned out ) , how can any company justify losings 25 % of it customers in 5 years, GMV is down to where it was in 2013 , ebay is laying off , market share is down 40 % ( and the fact that this CEO is still employed ) these cheerleaders need to think , as far as PL from my experience it has always been inflated , doesnt anyone remember when ebay changed the minimum to 2% yet almost 90 % of items have suggested rates of 5-9%, this current throttling or what ever they did is nothing more than to force sellers into ad rates and higher ad rates , as this CEO and management are complete failures , the numbers do not lie  , ebay has a huge issue and its trust , not with buyers or sellers but its EBAY itself , thats my opinion 

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@jasoheat_0 the 25% lose is just numbers loosely flung, the truth is no one knows if such figures are correct being a marketplace where sellers and buyers come and go all the time, but they have taken loss to their selling base just as loss from their seller base, who knows what the actual percentage would be. 

Remember? I can do better then that flash back, it was only this past year they raised min election to 2%. I remember when suggested rates were 1-3% back when they started PL. But no one expected that to last really, everyone knew as PLs were more used the game would change. The issue beyond inflated suggested rates is more due to the mess of PLs that they created by introducing too many PL methods and then expecting people to continue to elect their inflated rates while their sales tank in the process. That is the real issue, I think if sales stayed consistent enough or even shown growth with the use of PLs as they once did a lot of sellers wouldn't have the issue of inflated rates to them. But the fact sales stay the same and/or get worse the more you elect shows there are serious issues in the infrastructure of this companies use of them. The are suppose to make the company more capital but the evidence is showing they are actually losing capital in the longer run because sellers are experiencing less sales in general and that is partly why their suggested rates inflated, that along with many electing those rates or higher only gives them confidence to keep inflating them. This CEO may have been good choice at the start but he's proven to be more of a thorn to the company then an asset. 

[jlstanton]

Absolutely brilliant response.  

Not sure why people think that those of us who have been around for 24 years and understand our businesses are simply making things up or that what we have been selling has become unpopular from one day to literally the next day.  That kind of logic is idiotic.  

Right now, my sales are at around $730 a week whereas they were $1400 a week before.  If I have a 'good' day of say $150, I KNOW that the next two days will be around $150 to $160 total and it plays out that way over and over and over again.  My views will go down just enough to get that $110 average per day over 7 days.  Math doesn't work that way.  It's as though no matter what I do, I can't overcome a certain number per week any longer.  Because of this, I got a Mercari account and a booth at the local antique mall and have started to give eBay maybe 3-4 hours a day.  Maintaining my 4400 items isn't that hard because it means I only have to post 1-3 a day to replace the items.  Thank god the booth is exploding, as I can put the records and books there that I would have been putting on eBay as, the booth actually has upward potential whereas eBay is garbage now.  

Customer searches are getting worse and worse, with the algorithm shoving listings down to the bottom if they are promoted at the lower rates or not at all.  Maybe if eBay went back to their old search engine that, I don't know, actually showed the items a customer searched for, they wouldn't need gimmicks like promoted fees to make money.  I can only imagine how bad the 2nd quarter numbers are going to be, yet they won't fire this CEO who has shown he is one of the most incompetent CEOs running a billion dollar platform.  

One thing I've been having to do to get views is take down all 4400 listings every three days and sell similar.  If I don't do this, I get crushed now, despite promoting at 2.1%.  Will I promote for more?  I've thought about it, but why should I pay extra for what eBay is supposed to do for the other fee, which is to actually show my damned item.  When the only thing customer service can suggest to get my sales up is to promote at the suggested promotional rate, then that's them saying that the reason my sales are down is because I don't.  So, eBay, you're telling me that you're not clocking my numbers BUT, the suggestion you have for getting my sales back to normal IS to pay you high promotional rates?  Now, what happens if I do?  OH, YOU ACTUALLY PUT MY ITEMS HIGH UP LIKE YOU USED TO BEFORE MARCH 25TH AND THEY'LL SELL?  Again, for my items to be seen like they were before, I have to pay you extortion money and if I don't, you'll keep putting my items at the bottom?  Sounds like clocking and extortion to me.

Anyway, I wonder if I got shirts made with the slogan you quoted above if I could sell them on eBay, attributing the quote to an anonymous eBay seller.  It's vague enough that it might get through.

[jlstanton]

I opened a booth at the local antique mall a month ago.  It's $280 for 140 square feet a month and that covers insurance, rent, person behind the counter, and all expenses.  Most antique booths have a percentage of sales on top of the rent, but not where I'm at in Idaho.  I sell records and books and can get comfortably 1200 LPs, 3000 45rpms, 1000 cds, 500 cassettes, 800 dvds, 800 video games, and 1000 books in the booth.  I'm going to get the booth next to me when the guy leaves for health issues.  At the current size, I have as much value ($50,000+) in the booth as I do in my eBay store, only it took me a month to stock it versus what would take months to do on eBay.  

If I sell around $1100-$1200 in the booth (on pace to do that this first month with no real advertising), the rent would equal fees that I'd see on eBay for the same items selling there.  BUT, after that, it's like having $0 in fees on ebay other than cost of item.  My sales are steadily progressing and people are joining my Facebook Group that I sell out of as well.  eBay doesn't seem to understand or care that the best sellers (I owned a store that I built from the ground up when I was 19) have options and that eBay will be losing them in waves OR losing a lot of what used to go up on eBay simply due to eBay's incompetence.  This past month, 80% of my sourcing headed to other sources than eBay, where almost 100% would have gone to before.  

So, how do I use eBay now?  For every order I get on eBay, I send literature directing the buyer to other ways of buying from me other than eBay.  So, I use eBay to get customers and then move them away from that platform to others.  I mean, if eBay isn't going to protect me, why should I just continue to post all my stuff there and hope they'll show it instead of something that has nothing to do with the search.  This CEO can't get fired fast enough for me.

[jlstanton]

Brilliant.  Would be nice if a huge stockholder read your comments or this thread and actually woke up and put the pressure on this CEO or got him fired.  Nothing will change until he's gone.  He's not very bright.

[jlstanton]

So, my sales of 24 years drop 50% and never recover, literally overnight after an update, when these types of problems happen.  My listings start getting shoved to the bottom of searches.  eBay reps suggest that I promote (pay more) at the suggested rate to get my sales.......BACK TO NORMAL.  Now, why would paying more money to get my sales back to normal NOT be throttling?  Also, eBay cannot explain (will not) why I lost 50% of my sales one day that have never recovered.  If you believe that's normal, but that my paying more money to eBay to get placement where it was before March 25th, how do you explain that as not being throttling???

Can you explain why you think this isn't throttling other than saying you just don't believe it?

[jlstanton]

BTW, it's 3 months of 50% downturn, not a day.  Never happened before for months.  

[siamjane8]

     I know the word throttling gets thrown around and irritates the cheerleaders but i think that is because they assume we mean a human is sitting there deciding to not show a certain listing at a certain time or is preventing listings from being viewed.

     Any form of search manipulation that prevents the best organic results from being shown is a form of throttling-  I do not think this is being done on an account by account level as punishment or sales control- it is a result of bad programming and bad AI and the injection of promoted listings, and cookies on computers and trying to control who sees what at any particular time.

     If ebay makes the conscious decision to tell algorithm programmers to remove accurate organic results and put in promoted listings instead- that is throttling- then to tell sellers to promote at a fee to "really" show up is just plain extortion, not "advertising" as they claim.

[nuclearomen]

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@siamjane8 wrote:

     I know the word throttling gets thrown around and irritates the cheerleaders but i think that is because they assume we mean a human is sitting there deciding to not show a certain listing at a certain time or is preventing listings from being viewed.

     Any form of search manipulation that prevents the best organic results from being shown is a form of throttling-  I do not think this is being done on an account by account level as punishment or sales control- it is a result of bad programming and bad AI and the injection of promoted listings, and cookies on computers and trying to control who sees what at any particular time.

     If ebay makes the conscious decision to tell algorithm programmers to remove accurate organic results and put in promoted listings instead- that is throttling- then to tell sellers to promote at a fee to "really" show up is just plain extortion, not "advertising" as they claim.

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I think anyone who recognizes others as "cheerleaders" on these boards are partially blind to the issues that actually occur and are more willing to dismiss facts and label people then to face facts and what can be the bitter truth at times.  As such, anyone who believes there are actual people sitting behind a computer controlling anything on this site such as sales is likely not very up on technology to begin with...this isn't 1980. 
The statement of programming, AI, and PLs is the more accurate direction to look at. That combined with management, poor site development and visibility manipulation. If you look at sales past few years since they introduced PLs and how views and sales have deteriorated since that came into play more and more each quarter with changes they make to PLs all the time it's easy to see. Just as the recent update where they put PLD into PLS and they literally advertise to increase elections to their suggested to "increase visibility and potential sales" doesn't make it clear their greed then idk what would. FVF + PL fee + Transaction fee + fee on shipping cost = minimal of 21% in fees - that is a marketplace high and they are getting way more from many sellers who gave in to their suggested rates and/or electing higher then them. 

[siamjane8]

@nuclearomen i know what you mean..... it seams so obvious how literally every step ebay makes in the PL direction just makes the sales plummet more and more and move profit from seller to ebay-  i  guess shareholders cant be bothered to even see the damage that it is doing to the platform and its users.  everyone wants to make a quick buck without any effort- its like hard work and taking pride in a job well done is frowned upon anymore

    If ebay put half as much effort into genuinely improving the platform for sellers and buyers as they do into schemes to increase fees and ad revenue- we would start to see a turnaround pretty quickly

i think.

[nilis13]

Exactly, 💯 truth