eBay

mommak74 · ‎04-10-2019

Just realized the new good til cancelled policy on fixed price listings. NO ONE in the thread thinks this is a great idea. Another way for ebay to get more $$ from sellers. I'll just list fewer, find a new online selling site

whallfran · ‎04-10-2019

it totally sucks. just one more way ebay takes power out of the seller's hands. i'd like to hear their explanation on how this is beneficial to anyone but themselves.

and here's a new quirk i just experienced.... because of the automatic relisting, the seller doesn't get a chance to
"clean up" their variations post before relisting. so if you sold out of one of your variations you have to keep track of when EXACTLY that auction gets renewed otherwise you're gunna sell something you don't have and that leads to big trouble!

ebay.... just when you thought they couldn't screw you over any harder

channel_islands_vintage · ‎04-10-2019

Absolutely **bleep** me off when I started relisting a couple of weeks ago! Screwed up my inventory, sale promotion dates, everything.

eBay just screwing the Seller once again.

orangehound · ‎04-11-2019

@whallfran wrote:
i'd like to hear their explanation on how this is beneficial to anyone but themselves.

A new listing on eBay will not show up in Google search results. However, Google will have time to discover and then show an item in search results if it has been listed for a long period of time ... this is what GTC does for you.

There are hoards of shoppers beginning their shopping experience with Google, and now those GTC items will begin to show in Google search results, which will increase the chance that a shopper will come to eBay to explore and buy.

All of our listings are GTC, and have been for years. Though most of our sales come from eBay search, a significant number come through google searching ... so there is a benefit to the seller.

flo_mingo · ‎04-11-2019

I do not want another task added to our online business. I never had to babysit my end dates before. 30 days listings is a simple solution to this problem. ending items early now defeats the strategy that eBay uses to defend GTC. I miss my daily routine of listing and shipping for eBay. I have moved on to .... , I am doing great. Thank you for giving me this shove to expand my business. I have no plan to return to eBAY

pargran3 · ‎04-11-2019

People are going to gripe. Usually before they think.

To think that nobody thinks this is a good idea based on the gripes is probably not very accurate.

Maybe.Maybe not.

Why anyone thinks this is a horrendous huge incredible amount of time required of a seller running Buy it Nows is completely beyond me.

You people do realize that ending today is something you can see. We are talking about minutes...not hours...to police your own listings.

And here is a thought. Ending GTC listings has NO penalty.

Radine

backroomnoir · ‎04-11-2019

Yes... it is terrible.

thevintagesilvershop · ‎04-11-2019

@orangehound wrote:
@whallfran wrote:
i'd like to hear their explanation on how this is beneficial to anyone but themselves.
A new listing on eBay will not show up in Google search results. However, Google will have time to discover and then show an item in search results if it has been listed for a long period of time ... this is what GTC does for you.

There are hoards of shoppers beginning their shopping experience with Google, and now those GTC items will begin to show in Google search results, which will increase the chance that a shopper will come to eBay to explore and buy.

All of our listings are GTC, and have been for years. Though most of our sales come from eBay search, a significant number come through google searching ... so there is a benefit to the seller.

@orangehound

Are you SURE about the ebay GTC items showing up on Google search? My items have been GTC forever. I’ve done several tests on several different items searching on Google and NONE of my items show up. I have those same items cross listed in etsy and Ruby Lane and they show up on Google search under both of those venues but NEVER Ebay.

mlkav · ‎04-11-2019

I want to be able to control how long my fixed price listings are up for. Everyone knows that the first 24 hours and last 24 hours of a listing get the most views. This means that 28 days of the 'sale' has less views. This has already hurt my sales. I will end up having to end my listings and relist them in order to get at least the first 24 hour views as much as possible. There is no way eBay can convince me that this nonsense is supposed to be better for the sellers. 😞

mlkav · ‎04-11-2019

The fact that it will show up in Google searches if it is listed for longer periods of time might be helpful to those sellers that sell listings that include high volumes of items ie: more than 10 same items. It is not helpful to those of us who sell most of our items within a short time after listing it. Again, we all know that the most views occur in the first and last 24 hours of a listing as the customer has the choice of looking at 'newly listed' and 'ending soonest' depending on what they have in mind. I, myself, use both of those frequently. This means that for 28 days of a fixed price GTC listing there is far less people looking at the item. I am already experiencing a drop in sales from this change. If it continues I will be forced to stop selling on eBay as it won't be worth my time anymore. I have been selling on eBay since 2003. They have made some terrible decisions impacting sellers in the past but this one takes the cake.

orangehound · ‎04-12-2019

@thevintagesilvershop wrote:

Are you SURE about the ebay GTC items showing up on Google search? My items have been GTC forever. I’ve done several tests on several different items searching on Google and NONE of my items show up. I have those same items cross listed in etsy and Ruby Lane and they show up on Google search under both of those venues but NEVER Ebay.

@thevintagesilvershop

There are many factors that will determine if an item shows up on Google search, and one of those factors is whether or not Google has discovered and indexed a page on the internet. Specifically, a new page (listing) on eBay could take weeks before the Google spiders find it and start indexing it into the Google search results.

So, perhaps the more accurate view of Google search would be this:

A new listing on eBay will not show up in Google search for weeks.
The longer a listing is active on eBay, the more likely it is that the listing will be discovered by Google spiders and included in the Google search results.
Even if Google has discovered your listing, whether or not it shows up in a search is dependent on many factors including search terms used, competing pages that might rank higher, etc.

And, just to be clear, Google "search" is not the same as Google "shopping". Google search results are based on the Google search algorithm ... Google shopping results only appear if paid for (and none of us have the authority to pay for eBay listings to appear in Google shopping).

orangehound · ‎04-12-2019

@mlkav wrote:
The fact that it will show up in Google searches if it is listed for longer periods of time might be helpful to those sellers that sell listings that include high volumes of items ie: more than 10 same items. It is not helpful to those of us who sell most of our items within a short time after listing it.

That's true ... and, if one is selling items that tend to sell quickly, then GTC would not apply to them because their item will sell before the end of 30 days.

Again, we all know that the most views occur in the first and last 24 hours of a listing as the customer has the choice of looking at 'newly listed' and 'ending soonest' depending on what they have in mind. I, myself, use both of those frequently. This means that for 28 days of a fixed price GTC listing there is far less people looking at the item.

This is also true. eBay gives higher exposure whenever a listing is new, or when it renews ... eBay also gives higher exposure when the listing is about to end (or come close to its renewal date). As you suggest, I think this increased exposure is about 2-days, but I'm not exactly sure of that.

luckythewinner · ‎04-12-2019

@orangehound wrote:
@whallfran wrote:
i'd like to hear their explanation on how this is beneficial to anyone but themselves.
A new listing on eBay will not show up in Google search results. However, Google will have time to discover and then show an item in search results if it has been listed for a long period of time ... this is what GTC does for you.

I don't think the question was whether GTC itself is beneficial. Before this recvent change, GTC was already available as an option to any seller who chose to take advantage of it.

Rather, I think the question was whether the change that forced GTC for all fixed price listing was beneficial.

From my perspective, the change took away an option that many sellers preferred, and did not provide any benefit that was not already available.

I see nothing beneficial about the change.In order to take advantage of a 100 free insertions special, I now have to do extra work to end my listings before they renew and I get changed $35. And those free insertions are less effective, because I have to end them manually before they would have ended naturally - so I lose that very real "ending soonest" bump that I often see just before my listings end.