IT LOOKS LIKE THE ITEM PAGE WATCHERS ARE BACK!

[silverpinups]

It looks like the watchers are back on the listing page but only on items that have five watchers or more.

The items with less then five watchers are still missing..... 

[ypdc_dennis]

and another display...

1 left / sold % / location

[momcqueen]

Ah, yes. There's that combo too, thank you. Interestingly, my own is offered in a different order.

I wonder at the algorithm that decides what sales pitch to offer and in what order.

Who wants to bet this thing with the Watchers and also the missing postage data for Calculated Postage is part beta testing for a new Item Listing page display? Hmmmmmmm.... 

[momcqueen]

---

wrote:

Thanks for the screenshot.

I've been confused by this howl (Hah! typo but I'm letting it stand!) whole discussion because the number of watchers on my items still shows in the only place I've ever bothered to look -- on my Manage Active Listings page.

And with mostly collectible , quasi-unique listings, at Fixed Price, Watchers are pretty well irrelevant.

If you want it, you can buy it . Right now.

The number of Views shows at the bottom left of the listing, but I'm not sure if that is public or not. It also shows on the Manage Active Listings page and the numbers seem to match.

---

Yes, that was my exact thought too when silverpinups posted it originally, in a separate thread, when they first disappeared. I sent him a screenshot of my list of Active Items from Selling Manager and said mine were still there. I don't think the number of Watchers ever disappeared from either that spot or from the listings as displayed in search results, only the Item Listing page itself. 

Also, I don't know what value number of Watchers truly brings to the table. A sophisticated or experienced buyer will look at a listing with 38 watchers and suspect it has 38 watchers only because it's been an active Buy It Now listing for three years and no one wants it at that price. As to Auctions, I had an auction once with a top number of 28 Watchers and still it went for only half of its value because, I think, it ended at 10 am CST on a Sunday as opposed to 10 pm on a Sunday. 

[momcqueen]

So here's another variation on the selling points ebay adds to listings. I know they keep telling us that offering Returns are a selling point to buyers, but having this featured so prominently doesn't float my boat as a seller. Returns accepted, yes, but really, I don't want to have it back after you've bought it and cannot accept it back if you've started opening it

[silverpinups]

I've seen a lot of variations, eBay has considered almost every combination. If only they would focus their energy on the too many to mention problems that plague the site.

These updates to the item page from a desktop view are minor compared to the updates to the smart phone view... I'm sure that was their main focus.

[momcqueen]

Smart phone view? What changed there? The view of listings within the app is the same as always.

[momcqueen]

When I look at the direction all things ebay are headed on ebay.com listings where they have already adopted the A-River style page that features only the top seller of any given product, I doubt very much that we'll ever see Watchers long-term or a postage cost on the Item Page again. It's almost like ebay headhunted kids who got fired from A-River and said, "Hey, make us look exactly like the competition!' 

I really need to refocus my efforts on my own website again. After ebay reversed their decision on the watermark policy, I let myself think it might be okay to just tread water for awhile. But, oh no, I see I'm headed up the creek (without a paddle) if I stay. My pricing, as a Canadian seller, cannot compete with this Catalogue-Card style of selling a product.....

Here, where did the listings go? Am I still on ebay? Well, yes, it's ebay.com. Otherwise known as Not-The-River-But-Up-The-Creek

[silverpinups]

Watchers are prominent on the smart phone view on eBay.ca.

Implementing a new payment system in the next few years will be the final nail in the coffin for me unless I can opt out and continue to use PayPal.  So, my time on eBay maybe limited also....

Just remember if you get your own website up and running that it will take 2-3 months for Google to index it into the general search. 

[pjcdn2005]

 I'm wary of a new payment sytem but I don't think that we should judge it until it is actually implemented and we see how it works. 

[momcqueen]

My worry with the new payment system is exclusively that it will be unreliable on a regular basis whereas paypal is not. 

[pjcdn2005]

I have a few worries too and there hasn't been enough information yet about how everything is going to work bit.  But I usually try to have a wait and see attitude.

[silverpinups]

Well, it's just that I'm comfortable (like everyone else) and I have PayPal set-up on my website as well.

I'm not willing to start doing more accounting work... PayPal has nice Monthly Summaries (financial and sales) and I'm not going to extend that to another payment system. It just starts to get messy....

eBay was nice enough to change my monthly billing cycle to Feb.1-28/18 instead of Jan.15-Feb.15/18.

So I'm good to go......  until the time when I might be forced to add or change to another payment system.   

[momcqueen]

I have trust issues with ebay which do not exist where Paypal is concerned.

As in, I don't fully trust ebay to unveil a checkout process that won't continually glitch or breakdown, leaving its buyers and sellers in the lurch. Or make us wait two/three weeks at a time before access to our payments money.

Paypal has that trust for me; 99 per cent of any issues I ever had with Paypal were with Paypal Shipping which had Pitney Bowes' fingerprints all over it. 

And then while we as sellers are being assured that it will be all cozy of a transition, Mr. CEO goes out and tells a convention of tech nerds that it will be implemented like The Big Bang and that users won't be coddled. According to https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2018/2/1518544969.html

[silverpinups]

Mr. CEO goes out and tells a convention of tech nerds that it will be implemented like The Big Bang and that users won't be coddled.

He can say whatever he wants.... I won't be part of the eBay experience from that day forward and I'm sure a lot of sellers will be leaving also.

Every year eBay loses market share to other ecommerce platforms so if eBay wants to sink their own ship so be it!