Why so many bots "watching" items?

[beautifulbeauty2012]

You`d think that real people interested in your items and they watch it. Just when you go to send an offer, you realize that there is no human watching your item (you can`t send an offer to all or some), but eBay`s bots make an impression that there is interest. And eBay is not hiding that they use bots. Why to mislead this way?

[eburtonlab]

@beautifulbeauty2012 

According to eBay:

"Eligibility is determined by a number of factors, including age of listing, listing format, and rules that manage the number of offers buyers receive. We may expand eligibility criteria over time."

It sounds like you will not be able to send offers to some watchers if they have received a certain number of offers already.

See here:

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/seller-updates/2019-early/index.html#m22_tb_a1_4

[yuzuha]

You do realize that buyers can opt not to receive offers from sellers, right?

Think about it-- if you're watching some things because you have a similar item to sell and want to see how much these other ones will go for, you don't want to be spammed with offers to buy the item because you were never looking to buy it in the first place.  People don't always watch things because they want to buy them.

[tronganhmat_46]

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@beautifulbeauty2012 wrote:

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@turquoisetulips wrote:

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If that's correct ,,  then possibly to keep sellers full of false hope and   from moving on ? Don't know ,, but it would explain the numerous watchers for weeks  on items that never sell. Tulips 

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And I personally relist those items with watchers first, but if those are not people...

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[bigdeals.etc]

I have nothing to comment about the actual topic.

But it just reminds me of when I used to be in online dating. I'd see a person on there who is SMOKING HOT (great profile) and see that she viewed my profile. Then I'd initiate with a message to her and I never get a response. That means she is a bot trying to keep me subscribed... because there's no way a smoking hot girl wouldn't be into yours truly.

[luckythewinner]

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When I initially was sending offers and the system was giving me an error that an offer could not be sent,

A buyer has a setting that will prevent offers from being sent. 

eBay also has rules that prevent a buyer from recieving too many unsolicited offers. 

The fact that a buyer does not get an offer does not mean he is not a "real person"

I brought this subject to eBay rep...No surprise, yes, bots are watching.

Are you sure the eBat rep was talking about watchers, and not views? eBay has freely admitted for a decade at least that some views are cause by bots. 

If there are multiple watchers, you can check how many offers actually was sent. Today sent two with three watchers, and both had only two real people out of three watchers.

Again, "real people" can block you from sending them offers.  The facvt that an offer was not sent does not determine whether a person is real. 

If eBay bots watch items, I feel left out. I sell obsure music memorabilia, so if I list 500 items I am lucky to have 30 with any watchers at all, and only a handful will have multiple watchers. 

[this*old*attic]

That’s because one person is opted out of messages.

[this*old*attic]

...... or the get the “ending soon” reminder and changed their minds, so take it off watch - I did that before I figured out how to opt out. 

[joesoucie22012]

No. That's not it. When you take an item off your watch list it is removed from sellers watchers. 

[this*old*attic]

I’m confused what you’re saying?

When someone drops a watch, they disappear from the seller’s numbers.

When they opt out of notices, they remain visible but offers can’t be sent.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

General comment

This seems like a very shaky foundation for a series of assumptions. I believe if eBay were artificially raising the raising the number of watchers that would be fraud.

i have opted out of offers because of the potential of five offers from every seller I have on my watchlist. My list is usually over 200 items.

I think there is a lot of future based assumptions thanks to our sense of insecurity and the movies. I doubt this topic would be talked about if not for the sexy name “bots”. 

[scottish_kat]

Wait, what? You opt OUT to get offers? Did you get this the wrong way round? I've never opted into anything and I get offers all day.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

I think the default is opted in. I opted out and never get offers. I’m unclear on what the OP is saying.

Regardless I’m still watching and will be included in the sellers watch count for the listing. Watching and offers are mutually exclusive. You can do either one, both or neither.

[jocli76]

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@beautifulbeauty2012 wrote:

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@mr_lincoln wrote:

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@mr_lincoln wrote:

@beautifulbeauty2012   I think I read somewhere that the early Views on items are eBay checking the listing (like maybe 1 & 2)  ... for GTC however the Views and Watchers just keep accumulating each time the item Relists ...

Do you know for sure that some "Watchers" are eBay Bots and not other members?

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Well, I learned something new today ... or at least had some suspicions confirmed, thank you ... how rude, deceitful, underhanded, misleading, manipulative ... so it sounds like the Views and Watch counters are useless ... I've never sent offers to Watchers ... I wonder if the Bots have any money ...

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Try to send some offer, see if you are "lucky" with bots. When I initially was sending offers and the system was giving me an error that an offer could not be sent, I took it as a glitch, and after few attempts gave up. Then I was reading on the board about it, then brought this subject to eBay rep...No surprise, yes, bots are watching.

If there are multiple watchers, you can check how many offers actually was sent. Today sent two with three watchers, and both had only two real people out of three watchers. 

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There are people selling "ebay watchers" on the internet, in fact, even on ebay.  Maybe they are all bogus accounts that the seller of watchers creates and sells, so the error message that an offer could not be sent could be due to that.

just speculating.

[sin-n-dex]

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@bigdeals.etc wrote:

I have nothing to comment about the actual topic.

But it just reminds me of when I used to be in online dating. I'd see a person on there who is SMOKING HOT (great profile) and see that she viewed my profile. Then I'd initiate with a message to her and I never get a response. That means she is a bot trying to keep me subscribed... because there's no way a smoking hot girl wouldn't be into yours truly.

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I have a friend who told two similar stories..

On one website, he got a lot of people "interested in his profile" and when he went to view the profile there was no substance, just some demographics and they all said "message me to find out more", whereas the real profiles had women discussing their hobbies and interests and such.

The second was when he told me about a friend of his in the US who got on an international dating service (where you pay to read letters as well as send them) and 50 women a day were writing to him wanting to be his new girlfriend. He asked my friend how he narrows this down to women he's interested in meeting, and my friend told him none of them want to meet you, none of them want to marry you, they just like making $5 every time you read one of their messages.

Cheers, C.

[sin-n-dex]

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@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote:

i have opted out of offers because of the potential of five offers from every seller I have on my watchlist. My list is usually over 200 items.

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Not five offers from every potential seller... When they add you to their watch list, you get ONE opportunity to make an offer. (I'm actively using the feature as it's increasing my sales and I've been paying attention on coins that keep coming up to make sure I'm not sending multiple offers to the same person).

What you're thinking of is the best offer feature where a buyer gets five chances to make an offer before they no longer can.

C.