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 

[mr_lincoln]

---

@glasser wrote:

Big disconnect here. On one hand they are saying here is how to improve your search results. OTOH, they are saying no worries you can now buy the top 4 slots and there will be more and highlighted PL in search results. They didn't indicate how hard they enforce integrity of PL to what is actually being sold.  Amazon is littered with irrelevant results because they don't enforce that. Because eBay has a financial stake in pay per click relevance to results may not be top of the list.

---

@glasser   While I understand the sentiment  "technically" Sellers don't buy into the top four spots ... they compete for those spots with prepaid PL Advanced Ad fees ... and of course there is no guarantee that what they decide to spend upfront to advertise and compete for those spots will work ... 

I do think that feature helped to negatively impact Search in general since their algorithms had to be re-written to give precedence to Sellers using the PL Advanced function ... 

Mr. L

Mr. L

[glasser]

@mr_lincoln I get what you are saying. However, eBay is hoping that people will pay even more to get into those or the other PL slots. Of course, that will skew toward larger sellers who can absorb costs over a greater number of items. I assume in some highly competitive categories like sneakers, watches, cell phones as examples those pay per clicks will get very pricey. Therefore, excluding even more sellers from the program. This will be a slippery slope for eBay as they become dependent on ad sales for expanding revenue. 

[mr_lincoln]

---

@glasser wrote:

@mr_lincoln I get what you are saying. However, eBay is hoping that people will pay even more to get into those or the other PL slots. Of course, that will skew toward larger sellers who can absorb costs over a greater number of items. I assume in some highly competitive categories like sneakers, watches, cell phones as examples those pay per clicks will get very pricey. Therefore, excluding even more sellers from the program. This will be a slippery slope for eBay as they become dependent on ad sales for expanding revenue. 

---

@glasser   I think you are spot on with "certain" categories being the real battlefield for the PL Advanced feature but I suspect they are not writing numerous algorithms for their search engines ... or maybe they are ... in either event the algorithms were not and I suspect still are not performing well enough for every Sellers to get a fair shake at having their items found and returned high in search.

I am pretty sure that in the cats I sell in few Sellers use the PL Advanced feature.  

Mr. L

[cellguy215]

If I put a 10 day handling time on an item and a customer in the same zip code sees my item today, they will see "estimated delivery Oct 18-Oct 20".  If they purchase the item today they will see on the order details page "estimated delivery Oct 18-Oct 20". If I print a label and drop it off at the post office today, eBay will CHANGE THE ESTIMATED DELIVERY DATE TO OCT 4-6. Now due to whatever problem with USPS, if the item is delayed on october 7 buyer can open "item not received" case even though the original estimated delivery date was oct 18 - oct 20.

eBay changing the estimated delivery date after the order was placed is not helpful to anyone. It makes te seller look bad and it dissappoints the buyer but eBay assumes USPS is perfect and then seller gets blamed for delays which they are trying to compensate for but can't because of eBay "helping". 

Sellers are putting handling time on items not because it takes 5 days to handle the order. We do it so we can meet customers expectations in the event of USPS delays.  

[eunster1313]

---

@mr_lincoln wrote:

@eunster1313 

Spiced Goose!!!  Sounds good to be honest.  Last year I did the Turkey for Thanksgiving on the low and slow cooking method ... overnight at 250 F ... the meat literally fell off the bone and was more tender than shorter higher temp methods.

I could see doing that with a goose too ...

Mr. L

---

Personally I'm a big fan of the low and slow.
You got my mouth watering now.

[earthdreamer]

I checked and I have monday thru friday set as working days. I've tried playing around with these settings, it doesn't seem to make any difference.

I have only one day marked as a working day, which is the minimum allowed.

Theoretically, this should make a difference to delivery estimates, as there is only one day a week I can post items within 24 hours of the sale, as opposed to your 5 days. 

[gamersbaystore]

I already offer first class for media items at checkout, buyers refuse to pay for it. That's why all my movies, music CD's, and books ship with media mail by default. These cheapskates wont pay for first class.

If I defaulted all my media items to first class, they will stop buying altogether.

Shipping rates have gone thru the roof too! I was already forced to raise both my media mail and first-class rates this year. I raised media mail from $2.95 to $3.50, and first-class from $3.50 to $3.95.

The result was ebay dropping my rank in search results to practically nothing, and buyers refusing to buy because they dont want to pay $3.50 shipping for a movie.

I already lose money on every first-class order I get. I charge $3.95, yet its often closer to $5 to ship a game or comic book now.

[fab_finds4u]

@gamersbaystore  did you see your post was mentioned in ecommercebytes yesterday?

[gamersbaystore]

Exactly! I use extended handling times to help mitigate ebay's horrible delivery estimates, and any possible delays with USPS. Its exactly for the reasons you stated, I do it so I can meet customers expectations. I still ship all my orders within 24 hours on average, but I don't want angry buyers.

I'd rather buyers had accurate estimated delivery dates that are realistic.Its better to have happy buyers and no INR's in my opinion. But because these issues do not personally affect ebay, they don't care.

ebay doesn't seem to care about the fact their estimates are never right and buyers are constantly angered over late deliveries.

[gamersbaystore]

I've tried setting my working days to 1 day a week, it made no difference at all. ebay still tells all my buyers they will receive their orders overnight. The shipping policies are totally ignored by ebay now.

[gamersbaystore]

I did see the article, and I'm grateful for Ina helping to clarify my points and the fact ebay's statements regarding these issues were conflicting at best. 

The article notes the statements made by eBay’s Director of Product Management, Pravesh Katyal, quote "Seems to be somewhat at odds with what the moderator stated: unless a significant portion of buyers complain that they don’t get the item on time, we don’t hold it against the seller.”

Yet Pravesh stated quote, "The customer service that you provide gets reflected in your history. So ANY escalations like item not received, items not accurately described, or any of the former bad buyer experiences impact your ranking in a negative way,”

At times, sellers are hit with INR's galore as a direct result of ebay's junk estimated delivery dates, and the fact this platform refuses to honor its sellers shipping policies.

If the statements of either the rep or Pravesh are true, sellers stand to be punished unjustly for situations they clearly have no control over.

Pravesh makes it perfectly clear he intends to punish sellers for receiving too many Not As Described claims. Too bad such claims are subjective at best, and often the result of lying buyers. So ebay is essentially punishing sellers if too many buyers lie about the reasons for their returns.

Its all done out of pure greed too. Sellers get enough SNADS and ebay's response is to charge them inflated fees.

I know I put myself in the cross hairs of ebay by making these complaints, but as long as this platform continues to inflict pain and misery on its sellers, they can expect a response from people like myself.

[vintage_sterling_spoon_rings]

A little late in the discussion but...

When relisting items that either didn't sell or I had multiples of the same item I use "Sell Similar" instead of "Relist" but a month ago (in a fit of lazy) I chose the "Relist" option.

As soon as I did my items fell off the front page in a "Best Match" search. After looking into the difference between the two I went back to "Sell Similar" and right away the items were back on the front page.