another GOOD TILL CANCELLED RANT.. let it fall on deaf ears...

[esclyons]

Compared to prior 31 days

Compared to same period a year ago

12.0%Down

You

>10.0%Down

Market

13.0%Down

You

>10.0%Up

Market

 so it has only been 9 days since, the true value of GTC can be calculated, as the items are now over 31 days old.. and auto-relisted.. But all i am hearing is crickets, the silver market had a huge gain in the last 4 days, and i have seen no impact from it.. why..??

My market on ebay is up, and i am down.???

[ypdc_dennis]

31 days:  me up 54%

year over year: down 78%

For the most part meaningless statistics (https://www.ebay.ca/sh/prf)

I do see an increase in views coming from outside eBay (https://www.ebay.ca/sh/prf/traffic) since my BINs became GTC only.

-..-

[the_d_consortium]

Count your blessings, I have two stores and 3 other sites.

Not one sale this month, next to none last month. At least I netted a whole $12. after fees.

I'm going to have to shut down the store who's subscription is coming due soon. 

I have no idea why eBay would take away the two best selling dates.

Newly Listed, and Ending Soon.

Many years ago I was told by an eBay executive not to use GTC because of the loss of these opportunities. 

So why has eBay crippled us?

Have they been infiltrated by an entity that wants to shut them down?

Maybe they are trying to grab more fund through the promotional option?

No funds on a no sale.

I am trying 10 day auctions, one bid so far, yeah.

[mrdutch1001]

Generally speaking, most months of the year were always good selling for many of the item categories I list in, but the past 3 years there's been a huge tumble with sales down over 80% and since May 2019 I am now seeing months of less than 5 sales...October = 0 sales.

I tried GTC years ago, did not work for my items and since the mandatory GTC has not worked either, I am now using auction format with BIN, despite the fact many of the categories I list in do not lend them selves well to auction format.  At least with auction format I have control over the duration of the listing...

eBay has lost sight of everything it was once so good at and I am at a loss as to why I even bother with this site anymore...

[rosscd57]

I have been thinking about  cancelling my listings at the 30 day mark and relisting them.

Any one have any thoughts?

[hlmacdon]

Assuming a listing isn't generating a very large number of impressions with very little page clicks or views you are better off leaving a listing active. The old tactic of artificially ending a listing to try to rank higher in newly listed don't have the same effect it used to and just counts against you with the direction ebay is moving. The historical data for a given listing is more important. The tough thing many are facing is they have one off single quantity listings, which means there is limited data and often little to no relevant item specifics. With a multiple quantity listing things like conversion rates and total sales are important ranking factors and you benefit from some of the email prompts ebay gives to watchers. 

What I would recommend is combining all of the following: 1) Review your listings and fill out any and all item specifics that are available. Always use the ebay provided field values where possible. 2) Make use of promoted listings, even at the minimum 1% spend. Monitor that over a period of months and look at your traffic metrics respond on a monthly basis. 3) Figure out a way to drive external traffic to your listings. If there are social media groups or communities link to your listing if you have something worth sharing. If you are already doing this as well as the other basics there isn't an easy answer and there are a lot of people who are fairly well optimized who just aren't getting results. You are fighting against buyer browsing behavior changes and changes to how ebay presents items to a buyer. 

The goal is to increase your impressions and that accelerates when you have item specifics that ebay can draw from to match your listing to other listings, which means more relevance in search and more impressions on the pages of related products from other sellers. More impressions should mean more page views which should mean more sales. If that cycle occurs and repeats you will start trending upwards. Think of ebay as a physical retail store. At the moment that location is only getting the same number of people walking through the doors so If you want your product to sell more in that store you have to make it more visible. In a sense we are fortunate that ebay allows us to show our products on what is essentially shelf space that was already paid for by a competitor.  The tricky bit is we are relying on ebay (who don't necessarily have the product knowledge) to create item specifics for that shelf space visibility, and for now ebay is prioritizing categories as they roll that out. It's going to get more challenging as ebay uses this data to limit and direct search results to specific listings.

[rosscd57]

Great info - thanks.

let me ask a couple of stupid questions: after the first thirty one days are up - what happens?

As the listing ends - does it nor show up in a: “listing endings search?

When it is automatically re-listed: does it not show up in a: “new listings search?

[the_d_consortium]

Would be nice if Canadians where playing on an even level as the Chinese.

Every time I open a Chinese listing, I check their feed back.

Sure they have a TRS as well as over a thousand negative feedbacks. 

Primarily because the items never arrive.

All 5 of my sites have 100% positive feedback but I can't have a TRS which would up my visibility, because Canada Post shipping rates reflect the size of the population and the distance they travel. Tracking rates world wide are not available to places like Russia, South Africa, pretty much any country that does not fall in the top 10 countries to live in.  Even the rates to the UK are set to only be accessible to the Illuminati. 

This was the reason I was given when I called to ask them to bend the rules and give me a TRS. Not enough sales with tracking numbers, 

I do deserve one, I've been selling on eBay for over 18 years. 

It is obvious that the Chinese with their CRS are allowed different rules with as many negatives for lost or broken items that they amass. 

You did give some good advise. I fill in everything that needs to be done but  past promoting on my website, I'm not inspired to put up videos on Youtube and FB since I don't like FB, it owns you, and I'm not a fan of, "Reality TV." Sure at 70 it's going to take a lot of editing, for what?

That is doubling your work load to promote your one of a kind items. 

I will try the 1% promotion. Being at the tail end of the parade is better then not being in the parade at all. 

[ypdc_dennis]

---

@the_d_consortium wrote:

... This was the reason I was given when I called to ask them to bend the rules and give me a TRS. Not enough sales with tracking numbers, 

I do deserve one, I've been selling on eBay for over 18 years. 

---

TRS does not have a tracking requirement if you are listing on eBay.CA

$1000 in sales in the last 12 months and 100 sales made to the "Global" Region (which now excludes the USA and a few other countries) is all that is required.

TRS Plus (on eBay.COM) does have a tracking requirement plus $1000 in sales and 100 sales made to the USA region.

I miss the good old days when "Global" really meant Global with all countries of the world  included in the selling totals when calculating TRS.

-..-

[pjcdn2005]

---

@rosscd57 wrote:

Great info - thanks.

let me ask a couple of stupid questions: after the first thirty one days are up - what happens?

As the listing ends - does it nor show up in a: “listing endings search?

Yes, gtc listings do show up in an ‘ending soonest’ search. 

When it is automatically re-listed: does it not show up in a: “new listings search?

No.  A gtc will show up under its  original listing date, not the just renewed date.

---

[pjcdn2005]

As ypdc mentioned Canadians don’t need tracking to achieve global  trs status.  If you have global trs your listings on ,ca will have  the trs badge and you will receive the trs discount on sales from both .com and .ca.   I see that you don’t have trs on this ID but I am guessing that is because you don’t have 100 global buyers in the last year.  

The buyers on sites that have their own trs system such as the US and UK do not count as global buyers so it can be difficult to reach that number but it would probably help if you combined some of your ID’s.  With that being said, I do not think that  trs status is necessarily of benefit to us.  It’s not a detriment but I’m not sure how much good it does as far as sales go.

[reallynicestamps]

Compared to prior 31 days

Compared to same period a year ago

12.0%Down

You

>10.0%Down

Market

13.0%Down

You

>10.0%Up

Market

When eBay says Compared to previous 31 days they mean exactly that.

So if you had one fabulous sale on Day Two of that tranche, you would look really good on the 31 day metric.  And two days later, when sales were back to normal, you'd look awful.

Same with Compared to Last Year - it seems to be a very specific and constantly changing number.

I stopped worrying about those when I had my Last Month number jump br ove 600% and then drop the next day. Maybe a glitch, maybe a big sale.

And the numbers are site-specific.

I much prefer using my spread sheet (which is a lined paper exercise book, I'm old school) which also tells me which of my IDs is selling to where and what my procurement and shipping costs were.

Now I have to go chase some dinosaurs off my lawn.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@ypdc_dennis 

Just curious. Are there any specific requirements to qualify for the 10% discount within Global to the UK/Europe/Australia?

Thanks,

-Lotz

[ypdc_dennis]

---

@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:

Just curious. Are there any specific requirements to qualify for the 10% discount within Global to the UK/Europe/Australia?

---

"Global" excludes the other 3 regions: USA, UK/Ireland, Germany/Austria/Switzerland

100 sales worth more than $1000 over 12 months to all "Global" countries combined will give TRS status to Canadian sellers along with 10% off FVF for sales made to anywhere (not just "Global"). No discount on shipping FVF.

-..-

[rosscd57]

---

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

---

@rosscd57 wrote:

Great info - thanks.

let me ask a couple of stupid questions: after the first thirty one days are up - what happens?

As the listing ends - does it nor show up in a: “listing endings search?

"Yes, gtc listings do show up in an ‘ending soonest’ search. 

When it is automatically re-listed: does it not show up in a: “new listings search?

No.  A gtc will show up under its  original listing date, not the just renewed date."

---

                                                                       BUMMER

So where does it show up - at the head of the pile with the new listings - but with an old listing date? If that's the case it seems to be somewhat self defeating from a sellers perspective, as buyers can see items that have not been sold and and how long they have been listed for. I really don't want buyers to see a listing of mine that has sat for 6 months unsold.

---

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@ypdc_dennis  tyler@ebay 

According to dot com to qualify for the 10% discount dot ca listings MUST also include 30 day returns. This information apparently is available on the dot com but was not ported anywhere on dot ca help that the CS's I spoke to could locate. Regarding the note on dot ca Sellers Hub *Line items above marked by (*) received Top-rated Discount is also is a dot com thing and is not applicable. Items that meet qualifications on dot ca are lumped together as a single discount.

-Lotz

On a slightly unbelievable side note one link on dot ca for Additional Notes for Store Terms is dated May 1, 2013.

[hlmacdon]

---

@the_d_consortium wrote:

Would be nice if Canadians where playing on an even level as the Chinese.

Every time I open a Chinese listing, I check their feed back.

Sure they have a TRS as well as over a thousand negative feedbacks. 

Primarily because the items never arrive.

I find these days that a good seller record vs a bad seller record doesn't effect best match ranking as much as it used to, especially since best match results are tailored more to the individual buyer these days. You have to also consider the heavy stick approach towards seller policy and buyer protection. If ebay knows they can take money or items from a seller they are less concerned with problems that may arise in a transaction. If they resolve it amicably for the customer, buyer loyalty is maintained and the negative experience is attributed to the seller and not the marketplace. I mean you only have to look at Amazon where the FBA experience can be god awful down to frequently receiving counterfeit product (even when Amazon dips into FBA inventory to fulfill sold by Amazon listings), but nobody minds because Amazon is there with a refund for another free month of prime.
 
For best match Ebay is more concerned with buyer and seller pair matching, item relevance (hence item specifics are important to focus on), and conversion likelihood. Multi-quantity listings that have a sales history with a high conversion rate will rank higher. Low prices and free shipping will garner more customers, even if the buyers experiences are statistically worse off, so those will trend higher as their sales stats increase. And then you have sponsored listings throwing their monkey wrench into that mix. So in the end it's about what sells frequently and who is paying to get pushed up the list.
 
Shipping as you point out is the number one limiting factor we contend with as Canadian sellers. Unless you can leverage shipping forwarding services that bring down the cost of international shipping you'll always be at some level of disadvantage depending on what you sell. Unfortunately those services are usually geographically bound to parts of Ontario and cities near border crossings. Canada Post consumer rates are inflated to subsidize mass retail. Starting next summer countries can opt to self-declare the rates they charge for international processing so I only expect rates to get worse moving forwards. Finding the right price point and weight range where what you sell becomes less sensitive to the shipping price or is generally competitive with other shipping prices is one of the few other ways to counter this conundrum.
 
It's a tough nut to crack these days as you have to deal with a lack of customer browsing, artificial search results that only further worsen visibility, and inherent logistical challenges. You can be doing all the right things from a sourcing point of view and from a customer service point of view and still be stuck with few sales. As all these marketplaces get flooded with inventory and the level of gamification increases you have to try to find some new tricks or at least go with the flow, even if that is akin to having your nails pulled from your fingers as the case often is these days. The question I'm left wondering is where does all the non-mass retail product fit into this new approach to streamline how much inventory gets shown to buyers. In many ways the experience is now like a retail store that only has endcaps, nobody is browsing the aisles. When ebay starts excluding multiple search results from a given query as they are currently testing, you really have to wonder how well that will play out with product that doesn't have a UPC or part number. 
 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

I just noticed on some random dot com listings it displays "Limited time remaining".(Below listing). Unsure what that means when the listing is GTC. When I searched one of my items with limited time left it does not appear using exact wording match or the item number in either dot com or dot ca. Is search supposed to work this way? Apparently, results can and do definitely vary.

Escape to Danger Paul Brickhill 1948 UK

-Lotz

[ypdc_dennis]

---

@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:

According to dot com to qualify for the 10% discount dot ca listings MUST also include 30 day returns. This information apparently is available on the dot com but was not ported anywhere on dot ca help that the CS's I spoke to could locate. 

---

30 day returns are only required to get Top Rated Seller Plus status on eBay.com

"Starting June 1, 2018, Top Rated Sellers will be required to offer 30-day free returns to be eligible to receive Top Rated Plus benefits."

However, TRS+ only exists on ebay.com -- it is not part of eBay.CA

TRS requirements for the USA sales region are different from the requirements for the "Global" region. Canada is part of Global.  But Canadians can qualify for TRS under either the Global rules or the much more difficult USA jump-through-the-hoops rules. Depends where the majority of your sales are and whether the extra effort is worth the benefits.

https://www.ebay.ca/help/policies/selling-policies/global-seller-performance-standards?id=4351#secti...

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@ypdc_dennis 

That was the explanation I received after chatting with several fine CS's. No ifs ands or buts. I lose. No discount!

-Lotz