ebay's Ranking Algorithms Are A Joke!

[gamersbaystore]

As part of ebay Open 2022, director of product management & search, Pravesh Katyal, explains how ebay is further punishing sellers ability to rank based on aspects that remain completely outside of their control.

Katyal explains the more SNAD and INR claims you receive, the lower you will rank.

Too bad sellers have no control over the garbage estimated delivery dates ebay gives to buyers. ebay ignores sellers shipping policies, including handling times, and ebay is the one who decides what the estimates are.

What Katyal is saying is the more buyers who lie about the reasons for their returns, and open cases for INR's as a result of ebay's incompetence, the lower sellers will rank as a result.

I have been hammered with constant item not received claims this entire year! All orders were shipped within my stated handling time, all were received by buyers.

How are we supposed to avoid INR's when we haven't an ounce of control over what the delivery estimates are?

And let's face it, buyers are rarely ever honest about the reasons for their returns.

So this explains why my store has been trashed in search this year and I'm getting practically zero traffic. All those INR's have destroyed my business, and at no fault of my own. I've tried extending my handling times, ebay just ignores it.

Remember sellers, ebay says its your fault ebay lied to your buyers with junk delivery estimates.

Here's the video where Katyal explains how ebay is further trashing its sellers:

Fundamental Training Session: How to Make Search and Promoted Listings Work for You 

[skeletonstore]

This is rather interesting to me , thank you for posting.  Miraculously despite very lazy postal carriers I have not had any late shipments.  However that snippet is telling to me.  When you click on research prices,  it tells you how much the item should sell for based upon your title.  If you are selling something unique it's going to base it upon a close proximate. That's pretty vague.  I've never been a fan or have trusted editing listings and believing that will change things.  I still believe you have to delete listings and sell similar and do the changes then.  I can try it both ways but it's a real problem for me.  Basically ebay wants us to give stuff away for free. Ironically I tried to hijack a popular item because of it's outrageous price gouging rate.  In a lot not some instances it's selling for 100% over retail.  Clowns are literally going to home depot and buying the things up for $300 and selling them for $600 on the site.  It's also encouraging a 5 finger sale market as people steal the 12 foot skeletons off people's properties.  As I've had over 30 years dealing with home haunting,  I warned some people today these things are not UV resistant and will fall to pieces in short order.  The problem I see is I either have to find a comparable item in the category i'm selling or a new category or ebay won't rank me.  What's a good photo though?  Did they say anything about that?  Just a white background?   

[lakefor94]

Good post. I went ahead and watched the Training Session. We knew a year or so ago that accurate and complete item specifics were going to be a major player. Same with titles.  One would suppose this has been the case all along over the years.

I sell 300 to 400 items a year at this time. I have not had an INR case since the winter of 2020 and only had one at that time. No buyers even asking where their shipments are.

I sell more than that on Amazon. Only a couple INR's over there, none in the last year.

I ship same day or next day at the latest. I get more INAD'S than INR'S. 

What is the scoop with all your INR's?  You seem to blame eBay for their delivery estimates. What is your actual average handling time? Just curious....

[katzrul15]

@gamersbaystore 

We do not have issues with INRs (knock on something that continues this good cycle of luck) - We have had Buyers who "lied" and committed FRAUD and stated the item(s) were not as described (the lego sets were new/factory sealed, highly collectible and retired) and a couple of buyers who shipped back empty boxes or not our items at all and e-Bay still forced us to refund 50% and then they made the buyers whole from there.

I have longed suspected what you outline - especially for SNADs and Chargebacks (cannot control either really) and have wondered if we were lowered in "rank/search" because as a TRS we can deduct the 50% (up to) for the Fraud and e-Bay has been forced to refund the delta.

Thank you for posting this - I am not surprised by this at all - have been living it/experiencing it since March of this year.  

[rumby_mimi · Accepted solution]

Ditto OP.

Did Katyal ever run a real life business ?
Did Katyal ever really run an eBay business as a seller or on AMAOZN ?
I guess not, otherwaise he won't live on a paycheck life.

I wonder why eBay cannot get some real eBay sellers to be their whatever managers?
Instead, getting these non-experienced inept guys to brag about their buyer is always right fantasy?
Buyers are rarely ever honest about the reasons for their returns. They most of the time claiming "item not as described" because they ordered wrong items.
This should not be used as a measurement to shove sellers ranking.

And look at eBay's recent listings tool modification, that is purely done by kindergarten level programmers. probably the only book they ever read is "programming for dummy"!
eBay is severely lack of talents.

Why keep punishing sellers on every aspect? What kind of mentality is this ?
If we gonna talk about system abusing, Scams, Buyers are the majority, not the minor.

And also, I am an US based seller, I want to get paid by US$, not any other kind of purple nor red money.
If buyers want to buy my stuff and paying with any foreign currency, buyers should pay for the exchange processing fee, not we sellers.

Why keep helping those China sellers to sabotage our market, plundering our resources ?

Gee .... lots of whys? mentality issue it is.

[mybigsale]

Not to mention pushing these "high ranking" organic listings behind the sponsored ads and then when your listing is clicked, possibly surround your listing with another approximately 50 or more sponsored ads to choose from (on your listing page).

[gamersbaystore]

Yep, the people who run this platform are totally ignorant and completely detached from reality. Failed leadership on every angle.

This platform would absolutely be better off if sellers had a seat at the table. They need to, otherwise this platform will fail.

The irony of this Katyal stating he plans to punish sellers for things they haven't any control of (returns, lying buyers, delivery estimates).

Its all done out of pure greed. The higher your rate of SNADS, the higher the final value fees you're forced to pay. Its a total fraud and ebay knows it.

[katzrul15]

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@gamersbaystore wrote:

Yep, the people who run this platform are totally ignorant and completely detached from reality. Failed leadership on every angle.

This platform would absolutely be better off if sellers had a seat at the table. They need to, otherwise this platform will fail.

The irony of this Katyal stating he plans to punish sellers for things they haven't any control of (returns, lying buyers, delivery estimates).

Its all done out of pure greed. The higher your rate of SNADS, the higher the final value fees you're forced to pay. Its a total fraud and ebay knows it.

---

If true, that is really, really sad.  Especially with all the fraud on this site.

[simply-the-best-for-you]

I had to end this session earlier than expected & haven't had a chance to go back & watch it yet.  Did he say these things are new?  B/C #1 & #3 have been the case for years!  I run into issues with #1 all the time, since my prices are rarely within their suggested range.  #3 is not a problem for me, I get virtually no SNADs & only a couple of INR's a year & they aren't real.  But these are not new, I'm not positive about #2, but I don't think that's new either, given the push for square photos, white background. 

[gamersbaystore]

Exactly! My rank has been down the tubes as well, and I suspect it has something to do with all those INR's I had. My traffic died off in March as well and never came back, its only gotten far worse since.

Its disgraceful how ebay punishes sellers for getting ripped off and harassed by freeloading buyers. A seller gets robbed, then told they're being punished for it with a hit to their metrics, its ate up.

Get enough of those INR's and SNADS, then you're stuck paying inflated fees. The policies are designed to ensure everyone fails miserably and ebay makes more money.

[gamersbaystore]

I would welcome changes to ranking in terms of overall quality of a listing. But ebay rarely practices what they preach. Many of the highest ranking listings today have no description at all, don't use item specifics at all, and use low quality stock photos.

As for the INR's, my handling time is set to 3 days in all my listings. I ship most orders the same day, they never arrive on time. My media related items all ship with media mail, the estimates are always wrong, orders constantly late, then INR's follow.

It doesn't matter what I set my handling time as either, ebay appears to just ignore it.

Even the estimates ebay gives buyers for my first class shipments are often wrong.

[earthdreamer]

@gamersbaystore 

“I've tried extending my handling times, ebay just ignores it.”

This is the part that really worries me.

I know eBay is only supposed to count business days,  but going by their inconsistent expected delivery times, I just don’t trust them to take into consideration my full 3 day handling time.

As it happens, most of my buyers pay for their items on a Friday night or Saturday, and as I am unable to get to the PO until Monday, my stress levels really go up over the weekend when I have parcels waiting to go.

I have discovered that eBay calculates the expected delivery time from the moment you print out their postage label, and this is supposed to be adjusted automatically once the parcel is first scanned at the PO. 

However, the buyer has already been notified that a label has been created and has been given the expected delivery date, so this may be the date the buyer expects the item, rather than checking the adjusted tracking information. 

Anyway, I now wait as long as possible before printing the label,  but still keeping well within my handling time and mindful of the buyer’s likely impatience to see some action. 

[lakefor94]

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@gamersbaystore wrote:

I would welcome changes to ranking in terms of overall quality of a listing. But ebay rarely practices what they preach. Many of the highest ranking listings today have no description at all, don't use item specifics at all, and use low quality stock photos.

As for the INR's, my handling time is set to 3 days in all my listings. I ship most orders the same day, they never arrive on time. My media related items all ship with media mail, the estimates are always wrong, orders constantly late, then INR's follow.

It doesn't matter what I set my handling time as either, ebay appears to just ignore it.

Even the estimates ebay gives buyers for my first class shipments are often wrong.

---

Ahhhh, Media Mail. My bad, did not cross my mind since I don't sell media but we all know it is the worst. Yes, that would be a bite in the shorts.

The only thing I do that might help is I send nearly every buyer a message.

"Thank you for your purchase. I will get this order shipped and headed your way Thursday. Best Regards,    ----   Seller"

Perhaps yours could be with a short caveat about media mail being slower at times. I get some "thank you" messages back from buyers for that communication. I rarely ever hear from a buyer again. It sort of establishes a rapport with the buyer right off the bat. If there is an issue, they know they can contact me. Make it a cut and paste where you just change the ship day. 

IDK man, that is a tough one to deal with. Those INR metric hits have to stink. I feel ya. I have been keeping a close eye on the service metrics ever since they announced it in the fall a couple or three years ago. Having a rapport with the buyers has allowed me to cut out some of those service metric hits because some buyers contact me first before filing a case for whatever the reason might be and I head it off at the pass, so to speak. 

[vintage_sterling_spoon_rings]

Early on I had problems getting mail carriers to always scan my packages when they picked them up.

This was easily corrected in two simple steps.

1) 

2) A $20 "thank you" to the mailman over the Christmas holidays.

[lonebuck-books]

What is really frustrating is that eBay bases the estimated delivery time on your delivery history (or it sure looks that way).  What that means is if you have done a good job and had some luck with the postal service/UPS and your items are delivered faster then estimated, eBay shortens your delivery estimate.  In essence, they punish you for having a fast shipping history.  I have my shipping set to "economy shipping" parcel post for most items over a pound however I usually ship priority because it is cheaper.  Because I do this, I get punished by insane 2 day delivery estimates from coast to coast when the buyer selects parcel post.  So those times when I actually need to use parcel post, the buyer is upset because they didn't get it as fast as eBay estimated they would.