Watchers have Disappeared from Listings.

[silverpinups]

I just noticed tonight that the number of watchers on my individual listings have disappeared on both eBay.ca and eBay.com.

Is this something new?

[momcqueen]

I'm not sure how to answer your query. All mine are still there. 

[silverpinups]

Look at your individual listings and not from a Selling Manager Pro view. Click on any particular item you are selling. 

Your listings have no watchers when you actually click on a particular item.

Your watchers should be below or beside "Make Offer" button (on view item page).

[momcqueen]

The listings still have Watchers; that which is missing is the text on the Item Listing Page that announces to the world how many watchers are watching the item. 

[momcqueen]

Ebay France still has them. Other international sites do not. I'm certain it will be a temporary problem. 

[silverpinups]

Yes, you can see them from a 25 listings per page view but if you click on a particular item and look at from that view point.

I just got off the phone with eBay Customer Service and they are attributing it to a glitch in the system and is supposed to be fixed within the next 48 hrs.

[momcqueen]

Good to know, thank you for sharing those details. No doubt other sellers will notice and wonder as did you. 

[momcqueen]

Actually, this makes me quite wonder what page appearance 'improvements' that ebay is working on right now to cause this unintended effect. 

[silverpinups]

That's a good question.... I'll be calling eBay CS back if the problem is not fixed in the 24-36 hrs.

It's like the watchers feature has been removed because nothing else in the listing page has been effected.

It's been my experience that having watchers on items is a good motivator for selling in the movie memoriliblia category. It also provides some insight into what's popular and what's not and assists me on what I should focus on when I'm buying movie memoriliblia related photography. 

[mrdutch1001]

Although "watchers" have disappeared from individual listings, the watchers can still be viewed  via "Active Selling"  list view on dotCA, as well as through seller hub on dotCOM so at least the watchers information has not totally disappeared.

[momcqueen]

And from search results. It’s still all there. Puzzling as to what warranted wiping that one field of data from the Item page.

[tyler@ebay]

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wrote:

I just noticed tonight that the number of watchers on my individual listings have disappeared on both eBay.ca and eBay.com.

Is this something new?

---

Hi @silverpinups - I looked into this and discovered that the Watcher-count from the Item Details page has been removed as a feature as of last week.

I'm still looking for more details as to 'why', but I do know that this isn't something that is considered a glitch or error.

Watcher-count will continue to display in search results and there is no plan that I can find to remove it.

I'll keep everyone updated as I hear back on this. Thanks!

[momcqueen]

Well, THAT is an interesting development. Thank you, Tyler, for that insightful information.

I can only assume that ebay analysis determined the number of Watchers was not a selling point.

Or... That the number of Watchers is, in fact, such a fantastic selling metric that this information will be kept confidential and only shared with key parties or stakeholders. 

(SFX: squeaky squeak as the rusty hamster wheel inside my brain starts churning.)

[momcqueen]

Like I've said a few times now over the years, I really cannot believe how much sales data on sellers and prices that ebay gives away for free. Like, anyone can go through my list of Sold Items at any time and calculate what sold for how much and on which day etc. Aside from that being an invasion of what I feel to be my right to some degree of privacy, it seems like intel for free to anyone who comes along being a nosy old neighbour looking to capitalize on my record of what items sell for how much. Like competitors. Or competing sales venues. Cough cough.

[silverpinups]

I appreciate your response to this issue but .... It's just another bad decision on the part of eBay Management.

Even eBay Customer Service had no clue as to why the watchers were missing from the item page and gave me the standard "it's a glitch" response.

Why remove something that can give that item an extra boost in popularity and sale ability.

It just makes no sense, just like when they revised the platform for leaving feedback or removed the print option from the item page.

Don't change things that aren't broken.

Focus on improving the buyer and selling experience. Have a ecommerce website that runs smoothly and isn't riddled with malicious advertising. 

Every month people are complaining about the site freezing up or being unresponsive. There are unwarranted sound bites from aggressive advertising.

Ensure combined invoice messaging is working.  

Most of these complaints are coming from buyers and sellers looking for answers. I could go on and on but what's the point..... This should be eBay Corporation's number one priority and not making useless decisions that sellers or buyers may find beneficial to the eBay experience.    

[momcqueen]

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/abblog/blog.pl?/pl/2018/1/1517174414.html

[momcqueen]

---

wrote:

.... It just makes no sense, just like when they revised the platform for leaving feedback or removed the print option from the item page.

Don't change things that aren't broken....

---

Hear, hear. I still profoundly miss that feature. I would print to PDF a copy of each new listing that I had created and it served the purpose of long-term archiving as well as a final copy to which to refer if I needed to recreate another after the first was sold-out. (Because ebay only allows completed listings to live a limited number of days.) All the photos were embedded at a good size, no superfluous junk on the page.... unlike now when I have to print the whole browser page instead.

[silverpinups]

They probably deleted the watchers because of the Cassini search engine boost in visibility that it was giving listings with watchers and we know that eBay wants you to "pay" for that boost via Promoted Listings.

All the photos were embedded at a good size, no superfluous junk on the page.... unlike now when I have to print the whole browser page instead.

I have a Snag-it program on Internet Explorer and when I purchase items that I intend to resell I just keep refreshing my browser until the 1 or 2 rows of other sellers items disappear. Then I can print off a clean, cropped item page with my Snag-it program.

The item page looks better then when eBay had the print option.

Although it can be time consuming on occasion......

[momcqueen]

I've never heard of Snag-It, I'll look into that, thanks.

I don't know about the Promoted Listings theory since the Watchers are missing form the item page yet still show in the Search as they always did mixed in with Sponsored ones. Does Sponsored mean higher placement in Best Match? I thought it simply meant you got a Sponsored tag. I could be wrong. I've run a pile of Promoted Listings, they work alright. I'm not breaking the bank on extra fees to boost things, either. I'm fairly cheap. 

[ricarmic]

For certain promoted listings creates higher placement in best match search queries.

If one runs this query:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=canada+mix&_sacat=260

I have 8 sponsored items showing on the first page (all of them are mine), and they have been seriously boosted because they are "off" against the search (they are coming up because they have the word mixed and the search is really looking for "mix" which should have placed them much lower).