eBay

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎09-27-2021

Items are not getting views all of the sudden - The eBay Community

I'm in agreement!! Have you noticed similar?

-Lotz

msau4301 · ‎09-27-2021

Same for me! My views and sales are lower last few weeks. I figured it was because I stopped shipping internationally with the VAT nightmare (I have a customer in Italy trying to get her package out of customs that was sent from here July 9th! At least she knows where it is! She has spent hours on the phone with customs and had to fill out all kinds of extra forms and is still waiting.) For those shipping worldwide it may still be part of the issue, if buyers in Europe have been having bad experiences like this they maybe aren't buying (or even looking!) as often?! I'm just selling to Canada and US now...with the exception of a couple of international buyers who I've dealt with for years.

Hope things pick up again for everyone soon!!

ilikehockeyjerseys · ‎09-27-2021

Sales are down for me in September compared to the prior few months.

I don't know how reliable view counts are. eBay's performance tracker claims that I get 20k external page views some days, which makes no sense since I sell media that appeals to a very limited market. That is page views, not impressions. Then another day, I'll have 35 external page views, which seems a lot more realistic for what I sell. Even 35 people being pointed to the titles I sell from external ads (google, etc) seems high. This anecdote makes me think that the view counts may not be completely reliable.

After reading that thread, I took a list at my sales. I wanted to see if there was a possibility that eBay changed their algorithm with promoted listings, which might benefit certain sellers and hurt other sellers. I don't want to disclose exactly how I use promoted listings, but I can say that I haven't changed my use of it in 2 years. It appears that in my situation, there has been no real difference in how promoted listings have delivered sales.

Here is the percentage of sales that promoted listings account for:

This Month = 33.2 percent

Last Month = 31.0 percent

This Quarter = 34.6 percent

This Year = 36.0 percent

Last Year = 34.7 percent

As you can see, it is incredibly consistent. I used percentage because the quantity of sales I make varies month to month. Even when my quantity of sales vary, the percentage of sales delivered by promoted listings has stayed consistent. This makes me doubt there is an issue with promoted listings.

I think the likely culprit is that it is September. People spent big money vacationing or going to concerts/sporting events in the summer to make up for lost time with the pandemic. More people are back to working in offices, and not from home. Not to mention, families are busy with back to school. My September last year wasn't bad, but with the pandemic it is hard to compare year to year for stuff like that.

eBay seems to make a lot of changes to the site, so it is entirely possible that something is different. With that said, when EVERYBODY in that thread is saying their sales or views are down, it is probably a wider issue with the market, and not the site.

triber · ‎09-27-2021

My sales are down also. I stopped shipping Internationally a couple of years ago apart from Australia, so that is not causing my problems. I keep lowering prices, deleteing and re-selling similar and listing new items. Nothing appears to be working.

ilikehockeyjerseys · ‎09-27-2021

People have complained all summer about slow sales. During this period, I didn't experience sales that were that much slower.

I have only had two months this year that have been noticeably slower, February, and now September.

The only thing that will boost sales in times like this is lowering prices either manually, or through promotions. If you sell niche collectibles with few potential buyers, that may not work as it won't increase the amount of possible buyers.

I could be wrong, but it seems to me like it is probably a wider market thing, not an eBay has messed up by changing the site thing.

ricarmic · ‎09-27-2021

My sales over the weekend were about normal (pre covid normal), higher than the week before.

It is worth noting that just about 50% of all items sold were promoted items......

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎09-27-2021

@ricarmic wrote:
My sales over the weekend were about normal (pre covid normal), higher than the week before.

It is worth noting that just about 50% of all items sold were promoted items......

My sales are down over 50 % in the last 5 months. I'm not sure how relevant the traffic reports and impressions are for dot ca and dot com but putting them out there for the last 30 day period. Interesting how the views/info vary for the same report. In the past with dot ca there was regularly a 25 % difference for eBay views. Not so much anymore.

dot ca

dot com

-Lotz

femmefan1946 · ‎09-27-2021

Does anyone keep records further back than January?

Because to my mind (with 2020 being an outlier) comparing to 2019 and 2018 would make more sense than comparing September to August.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎09-27-2021

@femmefan1946 wrote:
Does anyone keep records further back than January?
Because to my mind (with 2020 being an outlier) comparing to 2019 and 2018 would make more sense than comparing September to August.

More flexibility for choosing any required date ranges would be a mega approvement. Those vary from data field to data field greatly. And have been known to suddenly change. You may choose a required date range today to find it missing tomorrow. Purchases seem to be the only category with extended date range choices. 60 days, 2021, 2020 and 2019.

As a sided my big wish, seeing as I list on dot ca, to see ALL breakdowns for selling totals in Canadian funds vs Cdn/USD and Euros. Useless data from a sellers perspective when exchange rates change at eBay's whim and secondly that totals were in columns as they were previously. Including shipping/tax collected is annoying. Those number are more relevant to eBay's profit picture.

-Lotz

ricarmic · ‎09-27-2021

Just to clarify my response, my weekend was just a bit better than a normal 2018/2019 weekend.

It was maybe 66% of a "COVID era" weekend, which was running about 2x normal in much of 2020.

bentley65 · ‎09-27-2021

Yes I have noticed this as well. I signed up for managed payments and set up my bank account. Then I listed some things and I had items that still had zero views even 2-3 days after they were listed. I have never had any item with zero views right after listing. Usually that is when the views come in and then after a week they drop off. I have not sold any items since listing with managed payments so far.

dinomitesales · ‎09-28-2021

Definitely noticing lower-than-normal views (which seems to be translating into fewer sales). Sales come and go all the time, but I usually get fairly consistent views on the types of items I sell; not for the past 1-2 weeks or so.

wecango88 · ‎09-28-2021

Yeah, I noticed it a few days ago when I listed a quick-selling item (which I had started selling a few weeks ago that I couldn't get stock fast enough). These were selling minutes after I listed them and now it is sitting with 70 something views in 4 days. Yes, I guess it is possible I satisfied the buyers with initial demand...

Then I listed 3 new items last night... 3, 4 and 8 views (2 of each would be from me listing them as I view them twice). Two items are listed at the MSRP (taking a loss on those) and one is more rare that is extremely sellable.

Definitely something fishy going on!

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎09-28-2021

@wecango88 wrote:
Yeah, I noticed it a few days ago when I listed a quick-selling item (which I had started selling a few weeks ago that I couldn't get stock fast enough). These were selling minutes after I listed them and now it is sitting with 70 something views in 4 days. Yes, I guess it is possible I satisfied the buyers with initial demand...

Then I listed 3 new items last night... 3, 4 and 8 views (2 of each would be from me listing them as I view them twice). Two items are listed at the MSRP (taking a loss on those) and one is more rare that is extremely sellable.

Definitely something fishy going on!

Views can have major random spikes on some days. Also many sellers are reporting major gaps between sales. My last sale was on 22....of Sept. Used to reliably have something every day.

-Lotz

mrdutch1001 · ‎09-28-2021

It's my belief that 2021 sales are off because many folks are no longer focused on the internet/internet puchases,etc...with a percentage having gotten their vacinnations, folks are out & about more over the past several months and trying to find and put back into their lives some sort of "normalacy"

...online purchasing may be declining because folks are going back to in-person shopping...

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎10-05-2021

@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:
@wecango88 wrote:
Yeah, I noticed it a few days ago when I listed a quick-selling item (which I had started selling a few weeks ago that I couldn't get stock fast enough). These were selling minutes after I listed them and now it is sitting with 70 something views in 4 days. Yes, I guess it is possible I satisfied the buyers with initial demand...

Then I listed 3 new items last night... 3, 4 and 8 views (2 of each would be from me listing them as I view them twice). Two items are listed at the MSRP (taking a loss on those) and one is more rare that is extremely sellable.

Definitely something fishy going on!
Views can have major random spikes on some days. Also many sellers are reporting major gaps between sales. My last sale was on 22....of Sept. Used to reliably have something every day.

-Lotz

Updated View Comparison - Part of the new normal?

Sept 2020 30 Day Window

Jan 2021 30 Day Window:

Sept 2021 30 Day Window:

Drop in sales much? Totally!!!! In my years of selling and viewing eBay's traffic reports I've NEVER seen higher views with external!!!

-Lotz

darak10 · ‎10-06-2021

i suspect ebay may be counting 'views' as for example someone getting flashed an ad while perusing their email - they arent looking per se as its the digital equivalent of wallpaper, I know I dont pay much attention to these banner ads popping up when Im checking my email or whatever - but ebay may be counting that as a view anyways. I know when the ebay ads pop up I often see my own item in there so I'm probably counted as a view on my own item hahahaha

The folks reporting consistent promoted listings sales makes sense to me, as MP to me was and is fundamentally a way to extract more dinero from sellers, and promoted listings extract even more, bumping up their fee rate per item even higher, making it in times of decreased overall sales even more in their best interests to promote the heck out of these items.

I think the reason for the drop is largely three fold - continual IT infrastructure problems created by poorly rolled out and poorly timed system overhauls, international shipping problems brought about by COVID, all the problems Brexit has created (formerly my number 3 market in the world, now I ship less stuff there than I do to Oz), the tempering of the EU market via VAT implementation, and lastly, mysterious market forces related to the pandemic, which no one understands or has a line on. Its possible customer purchasing patterns are changing, but exactly how no one knows. I think thats the last actual reason for disappearance in sales actually.

I think the customers are there, it just that they just cant get at stuff they want due to a variety of issues. In the case of EU customers, the reality is many items are now priced out of peoples reach due to the added VAT, which is essentially an import tax on the customer, right out of Donald Trump's playbook. Yet another way to nickel and dime the customer...yay Brussels. The EU making this decision to implement VAT on a per item basis has taken alot of money out of my wallet.

The larger effect I think is a major tempering of globalism. Its forcing customers to forgo international purchases and buy nationally. My Canadian sales in the first six months of the pandemic as a percentage of my total sales doubled, long before Europeans and the British started disappearing due to their issues.

As for the IT issues, when winter comes everyone knows your car needs to be tuned up for best performance so it can handle rough weather. Ebay implementing MP in the middle of a pandemic/Brexit/EU VAT implementation era has been like pulling your car over to the side of the road several hundred kilometres east of Yellowknife during a raging snowstorm amidst -30 C weather and deciding your car, while otherwise working well enough at the time to get you back to town safely, needs a full transmission overhaul, right then and there. They really have done a very poor job rolling this out, made worse by all the elements coming together to create a perfect storm for sellers.

Whatever the reason / cause, what most sellers have been enduring this last year plus has been really, really, really, REALLY bad.