New wrinkle from eBay - Anyone know exactly what this means?

[rose-dee]

Yesterday I noticed that the following highlighted message appeared under one of my listings on my "Selling" page:

"eBay note: This listing hasn't had any sales in the last 16 months. Please consider revising it."

I don't recall ever seeing this type of message before.  Maybe I just haven't had any item sitting long enough to generate a 'flag' by eBay.  This was an item that I used to sell quite a lot of, but interest has dropped off.  Still, I have a number of watchers and don't want to remove it entirely.  Why does eBay care if I want to carry an item in my store for 16 months if I'm paying for the privilege? 

It's the sinister word "Please" in that message that has me concerned.  Otherwise, wouldn't they have said "We recommend revising it"?  It sounds like there are going to be consequences if I don't do something about the listing. 

Does anyone know? 

[imbuzzy]

This is not new and is not a wrinkle.  This feature was introduced by eBay a few years ago to store owners to clearly highlight their slow or dead listings.

Consider yourself quite successful if you have never seen that notification before. Any items of yours with that notification attached are probably way down the list in best match searches.

BTW, "please" to me is polite and not sinister.

[westernstargifts]

This has been around for a couple of years but check the dates of your last sale on those items as that feature has not worked properly since it was implemented.

Check out an eariler thread from this year.

http://community.ebay.ca/topic/Seller-Central/Without-A-Recent/3000008167?#msg3000052794

I list only on .ca.

[rose-dee]

This is not new and is not a wrinkle.  This feature was introduced by eBay a few years ago to store owners to clearly highlight their slow or dead listings.

Consider yourself quite successful if you have never seen that notification before. Any items of yours with that notification attached are probably way down the list in best match searches.

BTW, "please" to me is polite and not sinister.

Thanks for this information.  I'll ignore the flag and do what I wanted to do with the listing.  Yes, you're quite right; usually "please" is very polite, but in the context of other times when eBay starts a notice off with "please", there is usually an "or else" that follows...:O

[block36]

I have these messages all the time for about three years.

I do not attend these items immediatey because the fee was just charged, but when they approach the 30 days' end, I delete them and then I "LIST SIMILAR ITEM".

This brings the item under newly listed and it may bring more attention. Many newly listed old items were sold almost immediately under new listings.

At the same time, when I create a new listing I check the accuracy of my shipping costs because on old items they are not always updated. 

Does not take too much time, but certain benefits are there.

[almond_t]

When I am doing a random a search, I always ditch the best match and go for highest price category.  I don't want to be bothered with  dollar store offerings.  Not that I would choose the most expensive one, but the options are usually better at that end than  at the low end.   And penny listings don't interest me in the least.  ( or whatever amount they are these days)

However, when I am doing 'seller searches' ( and that's what I do often) I pretty much always go for newly listed.  Of course, it's  not always new, often it is newly re-listed, and might even  be up or down in price.  

And, of course, that means I  need to search often to keep abreast of the new items without having to browse through the rest of things that aren't of interest each time. 

( I love seeing that 'newly-listed logo' in  my favourite seller searches! 🙂 )

[rose-dee]

To 'westernstargifts' -- Thank you for this link, I notice someone else reacted as I did and had the same concern about the listing being arbitrarily removed by eBay.  I see now there are actually 2 items with this flag on my list.  They are both GTC, and I had reasons for leaving them as such.

The first actually did have a sale a few months ago (multiple item), and has several watchers.  I see by the string you refer to that eBay wasn't correct in that instance about the 16 months either.  I'll probably do the same as 'block36', end the item near the GTC 30 day point, and list it as a new item, perhaps in another category.  Sometimes I find that changing the category or title can help as well.

The other item is a more expensive one that gets a lot of hits, has 23 watchers, so I'm reluctant to end it (which I assume will mean I'll lose the watchers).  It's one of those items that takes a long time to sell but brings attention and traffic to my store.  I'll have to think about that one!

Thanks for the input about this message.  I won't worry about it and will deal with the listings in my own way and time. 

[almond_t]

Rose-dee, i get a 'seller has relisted the item you were watching' msg when there is a change like that.  I don't know if that is the same scenario that you are referring  to.

[almond_t]

....but I don't recall if the relist goes back onto 'watch' ... ?

[rose-dee]

....but I don't recall if the relist goes back onto 'watch' ... ?

Yes, I think if you click on the item in your "Watch" list, it should jump to the relisted item, where you can put it on your "watch" list again.  Sometimes this seems to happen automatically, sometimes I've had to manually select "watch".

If a buyer chooses "Relist", then the item will retain the above link to earlier watchers.  If you use "List as New" (as indicated by Block36), it effectively becomes a brand new listing, so I believe watchers disappear.  I've tried this too -- some claim it helps with priority on searches, but I haven't always found this to be the case. 

The 2nd item I referred to still comes up fairly high on searches, so I'm in no hurry to end it, and there's no reason to relist it at this point and potentially confuse (or lose) watchers who might be interested in it.  I think most sellers are still a bit in the dark about how to achieve a good standing in searches, and eBay reps have indicated that the details of their placement policy are not open for discussion, so we do what we hope will work out.:-)

[queenpalmer]

I hjave had this popup on some listings.  I revise the listing by changing the price, up or down.  I also change the discription somewhat.  Guess what?  The popup is still there days later.  Go figure.