eBay

rose-dee · ‎04-18-2014

I'm repeating these comments from another post, because it raises some real concerns to me about eBay's system of weighting listings in searches, search placement, etc. and about the visibility of Canadian sellers' items to Canadian buyers, among others.

As an experiment, I logged onto eBay.ca and did a search in a sub-category in which I sell regularly -- not a huge sub-category, about 300 items that day. Even though I was logged onto eBay.ca, I had to go through eight pages of U.S. seller listings to get to the first of my items. And many of those US sellers do not have the TRS/TRS+ rating I have. A whole lot of US sellers without TRS had items listed before mine.

This means a Canadian buyer logged onto .ca will not find my items unless they specifically check the box "Canada only". No wonder I have such trouble attracting Canadian buyers. EBay is helping Canadian buyers find US sellers first, even those with lower seller standards and higher prices.

I don't think it has anything to do with the new defect rates -- I have 0 defects at the moment, so that doesn't explain the very poor placement.

When I filtered for "Canada Only", I managed to get one of my items on the first page (out of about 30 items). However, two sellers without TRS (both fairly new sellers), had listings above mine. Neither seller had a perfect DSR rating, neither had very many current listings or a significant listing history. In fact, one of them had received only 2 FB so far. Both sellers' listings seemed below standard in terms of pictures, description, pricing and shipping cost.

I'm not usually one to cry about Cassini being the devil that undoes all our work, but what other parameters or seller tests can there possibly be to justify that kind of placement order? It seems not only does a "perfect" record, years of experience in selling, good quality listings, zero defects, and lots of recent listings and sales matter anymore. I almost want to ask why I bother.

I always expect this will be the norm on .com, but not here. Even so, I have to say that on .com, there are a lot of US sellers without TRS/TRS+ whose items show up ahead of mine. This has caused me to rethink the logic of even trying to keep my TRS+. EBay tells us we get a placement boost -- really??

Have any other Cdn. sellers noticed their items getting shuffled far down on .ca searches, especially over the past few weeks?

theundercutter · ‎04-18-2014

Search rankings are determined by many things, I would suggest trying out free shipping, might give you a boost

vintagenorth · ‎04-18-2014

I actually lost my TRS and Bronze Powerseller on this ID a couple of months ago due to low sales end of 2013 and beginning of 2014. I've been just below the $ figure needed since then. No matter, this is my non-store account, TRS was just a bonus and I don't sell a large qty. on this account.

Anyway, the strange thing is that since then I have had much better sales than I did when I was TRS/Powerseller. I'm assuming that ebay is showing my items more frequently although I haven't bothered checking in search for them. Maybe I'm getting a boost so that I can up my sales. The only thing different is that I do have more items listed now, possibly due to the free listings we have been getting lately.

On my store account, everything is going along nicely, getting decent sales.

pjcdn2005 · ‎04-18-2014

Have you tried doing a search without signing in? Search results are not the same for each person so searching your own listings may not always be a true representation.

I did do a search on my id for vintage necktie on ebay ca. I just quickly scanned the results but the first page of 200 showed results of mostly U.S. sellers. I didn't notice any Canadian sellers. When I narrowed the search to Canadian sellers only, I noticed that in the first 200 listings there were quite a few auctions but also that the majority of buy it now listings had best offer listed. In the last month or so, quite a few U.S. sellers have commented that their listings were being relisted with the best offer option even though they did not ask specifically to have it included. I haven't noticed that with any of my listings but perhaps that is ebay's way of pushing best offer listings.

Hmmm...I just did a search for an item that I carry and I didn't notice a lot of best offer listings on the first page. Perhaps that is more common with the clothing listings.

I think that a big part of cassini is based on repeat sales which in a way can turn into a catch 22 situation because the more sales that you have, the more that your listings are being shown. But if you have some gtc listings that have not had any sales for a few months, it's quite likely that cassini will drop you to the bottom of the results which of course can result in less sales. Supposedly, if you have a lot of views with no sales, that isn't a good thing.

I know that some here are big fans of gtc but I find that it works best with multiple item listings that sell fairly regularly. Otherwise, I find that it is best to use sell similar. If I have used ss for 3 or 4 times and the item still hasn't sold, I will sometimes redo my listings. I really think that cassini prefers fresh listings and/or listings that are continually being sold.

There seems to be so many factors now that affect our search standings and I'm just guessing at some of them but it can't hurt to try doing things a different way on some items just to see if it helps.

rose-dee · ‎04-18-2014

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
Have you tried doing a search without signing in? Search results are not the same for each person so searching your own listings may not always be a true representation.

But if you have some gtc listings that have not had any sales for a few months, it's quite likely that cassini will drop you to the bottom of the results which of course can result in less sales.

Yes, I've tried both with and without signing in - very similar results. I can't for the life of me understand why so many seemingly mediocre listings from seemingly mediocre sellers (whether on .com or .ca) are boosted up to the very top. What I'm seeing in searches, particularly recently, doesn't correlate with what eBay keeps telling us sellers about performance helping in placement.

I use Best Offer on a lot of my listings, but it doesn't seem to make a significant difference either. I also have a lot of GTC (multiple quantity listings) that have done very well in terms of sales over the past month, yet do quite poorly in search placement (unless I filter for "Canada Only", which of course reduces the overall number of listings shown anyway).

I try not to stick to the same old listing habits either. I'll use "Sell Similar" many times rather than simply relisting, or do as you do and revamp a listing completely before putting it up again.

Still, my main complaint is that all other things being more or less equal in terms of price, quality and type of item, there seems no logical reason for hoards of sellers with a lower performance standard to have listings shown above sellers with top ratings.

I would almost go so far to say that the results of the experimental searches I did only made sense if you looked at them as random placement. I could probably do just as well by shaking up a kaleidoscope.

With the new, more stringent TRS+ standards, I see little reason to bother trying to keep that designation now. I thought it had some value (if you believe eBay) in terms of placement, visibility, etc., but if it does, I've never personally been able to see it.

pjcdn2005 · ‎04-18-2014

I would almost go so far to say that the results of the experimental searches I did only made sense if you looked at them as random placement. I could probably do just as well by shaking up a kaleidoscope.

It is not supposed to be random although who knows how well their search system is working at the moment. But according to info that I've read about cassini, it is based on a number of factors..not just any one factor. Supposedly the number of defects will be a factor in the future. Unfortunately, we will have no idea of how much weight different factors such as TRS, defects, number of sales, etc etc will each have in search.

This article has some interesting points.

http://www.examiner.com/article/top-5-ways-to-rank-higher-cassini-search-on-ebay

treasure.hunter.d · ‎04-18-2014

@rose-dee wrote:

Have any other Cdn. sellers noticed their items getting shuffled far down on .ca searches, especially over the past few weeks?

Yes. Any of my listings where there are a significant amount of items in the category are now buried underneath literally thousands of listings in some cases.

As mentioned in that other thread I called Ebay to find out what the bananas was going on and all I got was a bunch of doublespeak from a guy that should be a politician as he spoke tons and said nothing and every time I backed him into a corner verbally he contradicted himself and then claimed he didn't say what he did or just evaded my questions.

Something is definitely up and not in any way that could be considered good. I thought that it might be that I am only a small seller but now you bring to light that it may be a CDN thing and I hadn't considered that.

Whatever it is it does not bode well for us!

Ebay needs to step up and tell the truth about this as people are paying for listings that they will likely never see any return on investment for and that is just plain dishonest. All the while Ebay still claims that anyone, big or small, can sell their goods and make money.

I put it to you that Ebay is now running a scam on sellers and robbing fees from us.

I have seen my views tank and sales tank over the past several weeks. there is absolutely no reason for that to happen on its own.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!

rose-dee · ‎04-19-2014

Interesting... but I do wonder from what source the author of that piece was drawing her information. My understanding was that the 'father' of Cassini left eBay before the search engine was fully implemented, and that it may in fact never have been fully rolled out.

I also wonder how she had access to such specifics, when even eBay won't reveal exactly what makes for excellent placement. Much of what is in this article is probably common sense experience that can be gleaned from reading the seller boards, some from eBay's best practices.

Unless the author was involved with the development of the programme, I can't see how she could make an unequivocal statement such as: "Cassini looks at the relationship between how many times your listing has been seen and the number of sales you generate. It is no longer a good thing to have lots of views without purchases." How would anyone outside eBay know this as a certainty, or is this just conjecture? Maybe I'll email her and ask. Most ex-employees are bound by non-disclosure agreements that last several years, so if she did have insider information, it's far too soon to be at liberty to be openly discussing the workings of a proprietary programme.

The advice to avoid over-exposure on Twitter, Facebook, etc. seems to run counter to eBay's encouragement of such cross-connection (through its use of icon links on listing pages and profile pages).

Lastly, the comment that "a long description turns off buyers and Cassini doesn't like it" is a blanket statement that, if truly accurate, could only come from someone who has intimate knowledge of the programme's parameters. As I said, it was announced some time ago that the designer left eBay before the feature was fully implemented. I'd really like to know where this author obtained her information before taking this advice too seriously.

All that said, in general most of this advice is common sense if you have any experience at all on eBay, but I'd take some of the unilateral statements with a grain of salt. I pretty much follow the general principles in almost all my listings anyway.

It still doesn't explain why sellers who seem to have barely a passing grade in all of these areas get placed higher in searches. Is it mere novelty that becomes the deciding factor in searches? If so, we're all in trouble. Who really knows anymore?

And it certainly doesn't explain the dozens and dozens of US seller listings that come up far ahead of Canadians on eBay.ca. I just don't know what to think anymore.

pjcdn2005 · ‎04-19-2014

There are a number of articles on the net about Cassini and some have similar suggestions. I have no idea where they got the information, I imagine that at least some of it is conjecture but I doubt there is harm in trying some of the ideas on a few listings. Some of that same information is used by other sellers and they seem happy with the results. The fact is that for some sellers, search does not seem to be working the same as it did before. All we can really do is try different things to make a difference.

It still doesn't explain why sellers who seem to have barely a passing grade in all of these areas get placed higher in searches.

Have you noticed how in some areas, the Chinese sellers get placed first? I suspect that this is because their rate of volume of sales vs views is good and that factor is now heavily weighted in search.

I pretty much follow the general principles in almost all my listings anyway.

Well..there are a few things that I would change but then its always easier to make judgements about the way others do things. 🙂

And it certainly doesn't explain the dozens and dozens of US seller listings that come up far ahead of Canadians on eBay.ca. I just don't know what to think anymore.

It seems that the seller's location may not matter when it comes to search. Or if it does...that part of search might not be working properly. Apparently, there are or were a lot of bugs in cassini or whatever they are now using.

My point is that something has changed. We can complain about it or we can try to figure out how to change things so that we benefit with the 'new' way that ebay is doing things.

rose-dee · ‎04-19-2014

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

Have you noticed how in some areas, the Chinese sellers get placed first? I suspect that this is because their rate of volume of sales vs views is good and that factor is now heavily weighted in search.

You may be right, but how does anyone really know for certain which aspect is weighted most heavily? It could also be that sellers with high volumes who can offer free shipping across the board (like Chinese sellers whose shipping is subsidized by their government) are capable of absorbing a lot more in terms of low DSRs and poor FB and still get outstanding placement.

Nonetheless, with the new defect system, we may find some shake-ups for a while in placements and searches.

rose-dee · ‎04-19-2014

At any rate, I think we're getting away from the original topic.

My point in posting this thread originally was that I see no reason why, if a buyer logs onto eBay.ca, Canadian sellers with top performance ratings overall (and all other factors being more or less equal) should get shunted to the invisible 8th or 10th page after dozens of US seller listings, especially when those US sellers clearly have poorer overall performance and fewer recent sales.

It's just very discouraging, and it's a relatively recent development, at least as far as my listings are concerned.