Can't view past sales for item. TERRIBLE idea.

[dhslk]

Hello. The ability to look at the sold history on an item disappeared for a few days several weeks ago, which I was very concerned about. However, what I had assumed was a glitch ended a few days later and I thought nothing of it until noticing it again a few days ago. After reading forums, etc., it turns out that it was a deliberate change a few weeks back and I think that it is affecting my items, many of which are fairly expensive ($200-$500) long tail items.

I  had many extremely lowball offers since the change, as well as a drop in sales. Most of my items have many past sales and buyers were able to see that my price (and that of my few competitors with the same item) was the 'going rate' and that many other satisfied buyers had purchased the item at that price.

Now, there is no way for buyers to see past prices. I can't fathom ebay's motive for this move. Buyers need the reassurance of seeing the sales history of the item they are about to buy, especially at higher price points, and for items whose value has risen over time.

Transparency builds trust, does it not? ebay is just making it more 'buyer beware' here. The only group that I can see this being a good move for is those who run false sales and trick buyers into thinking they are getting a deal---I want my potential buyers to see what my items actually have been selling for so that they are reassured about the asking price and so that they don't waste my time with ridiculous offers.

I am going to contact ebay, but we all know how futile that will prove to be. Has anyone gotten any rationale from ebay for this move?

[recped]

My first question would be, why do you want BUYERS to see previous sold prices? To my mind all this meant was that buyers could see that you raised your price and they will want the same deal.

Have you ever seen a retailer that made their older (most likely lower) selling prices publicly available?

In any event, buyers can get the same information by seaching Sold Items, Terapeak or looking at seller feedback.

[dhslk]

I WANT my buyers to see sold history. That was the whole point of my post. I am usually selling HTF items. I want the buyer to be reassured that my price is the price that these items are selling for now (that I haven't just arbitrarily jacked up a price to 'trick' someone into paying too much). I have no problem with them seeing that the price has gone up over time. Often, when I start selling an item, it is just a commodity, but it morphs into an extremely hard to find item over time. The item wouldn't even exist to be purchased any more if the price hadn't risen with its increasing rarity.

Again, buyers need reassurance about the current price. It's like looking at real estate. It doesn't matter what prices were years ago, it matters what the current market prices are and you need to be able to research that quickly, not jump through hoops that most buyers don't even know about.

[dhslk]

...and retailers sell off old inventory. I buy it and stockpile it for those who want it when it is no longer available elsewhere.

[rocketscollectibles]

I got very annoyed by this change too and i don't understand why they did that. It was a tool i was using a lot both as seller and as buyer. Now i can't see which price i sold past items and how my price changes affected the selling pace of the item. You're totally in the dark, or you would need to dig into your orders to have this datas... I used to look at competitors sales history too. It was just a great tool for pricing our items. It's not logical they removed that basic feature. Making sellers work more in their researchs. 

My first question would be, why do you want BUYERS to see previous sold prices? To my mind all this meant was that buyers could see that you raised your price and they will want the same deal.

Indeed if you can see the prices sold previously, you'll adapt your offers to it. It's not a negative aspect. It's just useful information and a gain of time for everyone. 

Have you ever seen a retailer that made their older (most likely lower) selling prices publicly available?

Retailers do not increase their prices and do not accept offers. You can find previous circulars prices too. Not a good comparison you did there.

[electronicifycanada]

I actually always kinda hated it and I'm one of the sellers that has 100's sold on some listings. I don't want you to know how much of what I'm selling. Other sellers just follow me and once they see I have a new listing that sells decent without other Canadian sellers, they just copy it and it then turns into a race to the lowest prices. Not much fun. 

Amazon doesn't show any of that data to anyone but the seller. You only get a item rank and they won't say how that works.

[pjcdn2005]

I've never used it as a buyer but I often use it as a seller to see if the other sellers item is selling well at the current price or if the number sold was from months ago. 

I've never thought of it affecting a sellers sales and haven't noticed a difference so far.

[brettjet38]

That is one of the reasons it has been deactivated, now copy-cats and competitors actually have to learn the market...

...I have never used it as a Seller to list similar items.

Good riddance to it!

[rocketscollectibles]

That is one of the reasons it has been deactivated, now copy-cats and competitors actually have to learn the market...

There's still the sold listings filter in searchs. It's the same thing. Unless they remove sold listings they are not coherent. And removing sold listings would create an absolute chaos, everyone use that to price. ebay just making people waste their time, sellers must dig more and buyers are in the dark to send offers. There's no positive. A seller who want to copy cat just need to price match, he don't need sold history.

At very minimal they should allow sellers to see their own sold history. This is very useful data that we don't have access to anymore for no reason. I want to see when was my last sold and how my prices change affected my selling pace. Does not make any sense to not see our own datas.

[msau4301]

I think this must be for sellers who have an inventory of several (many!?) of the exact same item? (Curious is that what this means?) I have never had or used it as my items are used/vintage and at most I can use "sell similar" since there's always some differences. We can still used advanced search to find something or look at our orders but maybe you large volume sellers had something linked to inventory?.

I don't know but this might be similar to a question a seller had here recently where she could no longer use sell similar on older items (from year ago and more) like she used to be able to.

I'm not sure what the time frame is since we've had the new listing tool (time flies when you're having fun) I'm guessing maybe a year? but maybe something is happening where anything created BEFORE the tool will disappear? Just guessing since as I said in my case I either look at my Order history or advanced search of an item.

[pjcdn2005]

@rocketscollectibles 

You can still look at the sales history on your own item.  Go to that listing and on the top left of the page click on 'review purchase history'.

[regs43]

I used to use it a lot as a seller to see what others were pricing items at so I could be in that market range. It was info you could find on multiple quantity listings but no longer can as the sold history is no longer clickable. In the sports category, alot of people use auction (generally a bad idea starting at 99cents) when product first comes out for a race to the bottom idea, so that gives false results for sold history. The drop down menus was a bit more of a stable price range for what an items worth, and then of course sifting through all the BIN's that have sold at a various range.

Its a bit irritating, but I dont think sold info as a whole will go away as they would have to get rid of tera peak etc. They have tried to limit people from seeing Best offer price accepted but there is sites where you can find that info

[dhslk]

From ebay US Seller Central: "...On the other hand..... I use it as a buyer ALL the time to see it the sales history has been consistent and that the current price is actually what others have been paying. IN OTHER WORD....... it's a confidence building tool and as we all know...... the #1 thing we all need to do is build confidence in the buyer if we wish to make sales. it's not always about the lowest price."

My point EXACTLY.  My sales have plummetted since the change. I am now starting to wonder if the change also had some technical unintended consequences (links to Google broken? listings with multiple sales being downgraded in search?...?) Or maybe it is solely because of the lack of transparency on recent sales prices.