eBay

rose-dee · ‎12-28-2015

Well, it was inevitable.

Today I received a lump of coal in my Messages inbox from eBay that I suppose they were too busy to send me before Christmas. Not that I wasn't expecting it, but after such a long time of maintaining US TRS (since pretty much the beginning of the programme), I'm now on thin ice, on probation as it were:

"To be eligible for Top Rated Seller benefits in the US program, sellers normally have to meet certain sales and volume goals. We also know that things come up, and because your sales history on eBay makes you one of our most valued sellers, we're going to give you some extra time - until February 20, 2016 - to meet these goals."

This is not a problem of low dollar volume, nor defects, but of low transaction volume. While I realize that as long as I still maintain Global TRS, I will continue to get the 20% fee discount, I'm concerned the loss of US TRS may affect my visibility on .com. I don't know for certain what the effect will be, but it's not happy news.

After having done everything eBay expects of a good seller, and listing more items, with more variety, at lower prices, it seems nothing makes a significant difference anymore.

Happy New Year from eBay...

dutchman48 · ‎12-28-2015

Correct me if I am wrong but I don't believe TRS status does anything for you in the US. You have to have TRS+ and the badge to make any difference in visibility.

The majority of Canadians will never make TRS+ due to tracking requirements.

Personally, I would not worry about it at all.

thebarterersdog · ‎12-28-2015

It does suck that they put sellers in a no win situation and then punish them when the inevitable happens. I've received the same news but mine was my power seller status. C'est la vie. When eBay does not provide an out of stock option for sellers, the only way to fix a cancelled order of an item that went out of stock is an immediate refund with an explanation. As we have a store on eBay and a physical one here, we try to balance things to accommodate both, but on occasion, stock is purchased here and there, sometimes at the same time. It's a shame that eBay conducts itself like this. Other sites have an OUT OF STOCK option that tells buyers ahead of time, avoiding paying for something we don't have at the moment but still carry and will have shortly. As soon as that payment is made here in eBay and immediately refunded with an explanation, the seller is penalized. Sad... but I'm beginning to understand why so many of the long time sellers are leaving. I've lost eleven from here that also bought from me who were also sellers. We've reduced our store, closed it once and the next will probably be closing it permanently if this continues. Then our names will be added to the long list of original sellers who were here when eBay was so much better. 😞

Hang in there Rose-dee, would hate to see you go too. 🙂

Janet and Paul

pjcdn2005 · ‎12-28-2015

It has been said that TRS by itself does give us a little more visibility on .com but I suspect that the difference is minimal. There are so many factors that affect placement, I doubt that one factor by itself matters all that much.

pjcdn2005 · ‎12-28-2015

Your powerseller status shouldn't have anything to do with your out of stock problem?

A buyer who purchases an item and then told that it isn't available does not make for a happy buyer and apparently it happens too often here which is why ebay does focus on it. A buyer make do a lot of research and take a lot of time to decide on a purchase and after they finally purchase it they don't want to be told that it is unavailable. Of course we all make mistakes but that is one mistake that ebay has a low tolerance for.

Most of your items are one of a kind items so I don't see an out of stock option would help you in any way. However, ebay does have an out of stock option available under site preferences.

mrdutch1001 · ‎12-28-2015

received same email & to be blunt, I could care less about TRS+ as I have never had that & I rarely list on .com anyway.

As long as I am doing what is necessary to maintain the basic Global TRS to receive the discount, I am good with that.

jersey..authentix · ‎12-28-2015

I am at a point where I don't care about TSRs or do I get power seller status or not. I just do the best I can. Treat my customers the best I can. What ebay gives me or takes away is not important to me . I'm here to sell and make money, and until I cant do that anymore, I'm just going to keep doing what i'm doing.

Ebay can drive you batty.

ricarmic · ‎12-28-2015

Hi Rose!

I have been non-TRS on the .COM side since they changed to 1 day handling time (I have always had 2 day handling time), which if I recall was before the trackable shipping stuff, but anyway "forever".... (remember that I only sell on .COM)

I don't think that has diminished my visibility on the US side, when I do my experiments to see how high my stuff comes up, I am where I would expect to be in the ranking, usually fairly high in the categories that I expect to be.

During those same experiments, it looks to me like bad sellers (they are non-TRS) still manage to show up high, usually it is because they have high volumes or turnover stuff (ie high quantity count, lots of them selling, usually for small amounts - $2 to $5 per "lot") despite low DSRs, feedback etc. Some of them are even bold enough to use a conglomeration of mine and other sellers pictures to show all the material they have!

I agree with Jersey, I'm doing my best on eBay, will continue to invest the time in eBay while it provides the returns, like Cumos likes to advise, I will evolve as I need to here and elsewhere as the market evolves.

As a note, if one assumes losing TRS has marginal affect on visibility, the $ amount isn't a show stopper. I reviewed my last few months and if I had lost my 20% TRS discount, the actual impact on my costs would have increased my ebay selling costs only 1%, so worrying too much about losing the $$ amount of the discount is a waste.... (for the mathematicians in the crowd: my ebay selling costs include the anchor store subscription, the fact that I sell in 2 categories each time which adds 5c a month for each item, the currency conversion costs, and the normal selling fees). It is worth mentioning that the grand total of the selling costs would be 16-17% of sales, which is still better than the olden "before the internet" days.... in my world at least.

As another note, Rose, since you've also been around "forever", I would make the assumption that you have a decent following of repeat customers? My repeat customer base is around half of my sales, theoretically these folks aren't affected much by our visibility?

thebarterersdog · ‎12-29-2015

Oh I agree completely with you PJ but unfortunately, unlike other sites that have an out of stock option to display on something they always sell in their stores, there is no other way to inform a buyer of this situation. When I sell costumes, I have a larger stock because of my past profession. I only sell them during a certain period of time. I have never seen on anyone's items an out of stock option that allows the buyer to see the item but also the out of stock sign??

Janet and Paul

pjcdn2005 · ‎12-29-2015

You may not have seen it but as I said, eBay does have an out of stock option under site preferences.

Sell Your Item form and listings

Hidesell your Item form and listings preferences


Show product ratings on your listings, if available.	No	Edit your product rating preference
Show the exact quantity of items in your listing, if the quantity exceeds 10.	No	Edit quantity display preference
Use the out-of-stock-option	Yes
When the quantity of your Good 'Til Cancelled listing reaches zero, your listing remains active (meaning it renews and we charge you the selling fees every 30 days). The listing is also hidden from search until you increase the quantity.Learn more

treasure.hunter.d · ‎12-30-2015

@dutchman48 wrote:
Correct me if I am wrong but I don't believe TRS status does anything for you in the US. You have to have TRS+ and the badge to make any difference in visibility.

The majority of Canadians will never make TRS+ due to tracking requirements.

Personally, I would not worry about it at all.

I have TRS+ on .com and I am fully expecting to get the same mail that Rose has received based on being in the exact same boat. Nothing I have done has increased my transaction volume from the dismal place it has catastrophically slumped to.

That being said, if the TRS+ is helping any in search I can't see it as in many cases I'm still being buried by the Chinese fraudsters and their keyword seeded knock-off listings THAT EBAY ABSOLUTELY REFUSES TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT!

rose-dee · ‎12-30-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
You may not have seen it but as I said, eBay does have an out of stock option under site preferences.

Use the out-of-stock-option Yes
When the quantity of your Good 'Til Cancelled listing reaches zero, your listing remains active (meaning it renews and we charge you the selling fees every 30 days). The listing is also hidden from search until you increase the quantity.Learn more

Hi 'pj' -- as you probably know, I list a lot of multiples (my antique sewing patterns). I considered using this feature when it was first announced, but what I really wanted (and I think what 'thebarterersdog' may have been getting at) was that the listing continue to be shown in search, and in my store, but with a banner showing "OUT OF STOCK", or perhaps "TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK".

If I understood the description of eBay's feature properly, the listing is hidden once the quantity reaches zero, so it seems to me that the only benefit is that the listing itself won't completely disappear (i.e. can be resurrected and used again, although I'm not sure how long eBay archives these listings). At any rate, I saw no advantage in being charged for a listing that was out of stock if the listing was going to be hidden, since I have all my "master" listings saved on Auctiva anyway.

This feature of eBay's just seemed to be another fee grab for the unwary, and virtually useless if you wanted an interested buyer to come back when your item was restocked. So I decided not to bother with it.

Thank you everybody for commiserating with my US TRS email message. I'm not upset really, since I'll have no trouble keeping the Global TRS discount, but it just seemed another sad milestone in my journey on eBay. Actually, it was a reminder of what I knew to be the case -- that transaction volumes have plummeted for me in 2015.

To respond to 'ricarmic', I do have some repeat customers, but not as many as you might think after all these years. It seems a lot of the old-style eBay buyers have gone (or are shopping elsewhere), as most of my sales now are to buyers with fairly new IDs.

In any event, Happy New Year to all!

pjcdn2005 · ‎12-30-2015

I obviously didn't register what I copied and pasted because I missed that the listings would be invisible. But I think that the main purpose of that function is so that the sales history of that item doesn't get lost for search purposes. Sales history does play a part in best match...imo it places a much larger part than TRS. The more of an item one sells, the more often it is shown as higher in search. If the item ends and then you relist it a month or two later, the previous sales won't benefit you in search at all...or at least not as much. I don't know if using 'relist' rather than sell similar helps to keep the sales history active from a search point of view. I suspect that it may help but not as much had the listing not ended.

I understand what you are saying about a buyer being able to see your listing so that they know it may be in stock sometime in the future but I suspect that some sellers would use it even if they weren't going to get that item back in stock. They might hope that if I click on that listing, see it is out of stock...I'll click on their other listings to see what else they have. That could result in clogging up search even more.