they started us in USA in late Jan. The affect on us has been devastating 70%
south with higher priced one of a kind items suffering most.
Here is a post from a USA seller we found very informative:
Hello, here is all I know about this so far
This started being implemented on Tuesday 23rd of January 2018 (USA)
I have recently been informed by an ebay rep that the removal of watchers is in fact a trial (or had been relabeled "a trial" due to the overwhelming negitive responce) (this explains why unlike other changes, this change has not yet had 100% confirmation of being permanent)
it is being left this way for research purposes in order to gauge the reaction from sellers, buyers, and its effect on sales.
I don't know what's going on behind the scenes but I expect they will review the effect this had before deciding whether or not to show the watchers again.
There is no known deadline to this trial, I wish I could find out more, If they have already decided never to show watchers again they should make a formal announcement so that I can make plans to sell elsewhere. Because I am now making around $10 in a 10 day time frame instead of the $1700 I made in the 10 days before the watchers were removed.
I hope they do bring the watchers back because it is essential for the many items that are priced depending upon their percieved popularity at any given time, which is something buyers of antiques and used luxury goods like to have data for , the watchers provide that data. it is similar for rare and high value collectables as well as used designer brands. (I have given all my most powerful arguments such as this to ebay which have all been written down and been passed on for review) so I will have wait in hope.
The best advice I can give to other sellers who are suffering from this is to call ebay with details of how it is affecting them and ask for their complaint to be passed on to the relevant department.
( don't be put off because others have already said the same thing, its about numbers rather than the originality of your statement)
I am pleased to report that buyers are also complaining about this, which is really good of them considering they have a lot less to lose financially from this problem ("trial")
The results are in for me: the money made though my ebay accounts is less than 5% of what it was with watchers over the same time frame (barely enough to cover listing fees), if they don't put watchers back on the item view page my ebay accounts are basically finished!
for anyone reading also google the following " ecommercebytes 1517174414 " and read the article "ebay makes unnanounced changes to item page" useful information there and some good readers comments from other concerned sellers.
(flame icon) 3 watched in last 24 hours: Ebay are still showing this allert on the view item page (Directly below the title in BOLD, RED, and with a HOT FLAME!)
MAJOR CONTRADICTION! they either want buyers to know about watchers or they don't?!
Plus lots of my items have 10 percent of the sale price donated to charity. These charities are now suffering an unnecessary loss in donations since this problem is killing my sales! (and likely 1000's of other charity sales who rely on the watch number displayed to boost sales, resulting in potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds not going to good causes)
It is a major issue because displaying the number of watchers should increase the frequency of sales as well as the average price because it shows when an item is popular, (popularity, competition, and a sense of urgency should trigger a person to buy an item more quickly)
Buyers so used to seeing the number of watchers on items will assume an item with no watchers is priced too high or is simply no good. This will be the case for all sorts of items until ebay start having the number of watchers displayed in the listings again!
I can't sell anything especially my higher price items which rely on the "social proof" confidence formally provided by the watch number being displayed,
I have been slowly bulding my experience on ebay for 10 years, I had just recently got to the stage where I was selling about $2500 a month and was excited about the future. Since the watchers are no longer being displayed I have made just $10 after fees!
I hope ebay can make a clearly worded formal statement as to whether or not they have made the final decision on this
Thanks to everyone here who has called in to ebay about this
Also "WATCHCOUNT" streams data straight from ebay so we know it's not a glitch.
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