Algorithm Shenanigans Perhaps?

[selling-uk]

OK, I find this a bit odd but gonna mention it anyway.

So, as private sellers, the wife and I have one account to sell the many kids toys that we purchased for them over the years and one to sell unwanted household goods and just about everything else as it just seems easier this way for us.

We both normally get the "80% off FVF" promo and do sell on occasion 2-3 items per week  on the kid's toys account and 1-2 items per fortnight on the other account.  Not a great deal, but always steady as sales go.

That was until we both got the "Too Good To Be True" promo that was the "100% off FVF" promo a couple of months back.

I say it was TGTBT as although 100% off sounds good and it seems it has been for some sellers, March 15th, when we accepted the promo was the day that both of our accounts screeched to a halt and over the next two months sold very little (less 10 items across two accounts) despite selling quite regularly (for us at least) before the 100% off FVF commenced.

Now, I know there could be many reasons for this, such as the tried, trusted and often repeated "Cost of Living Crisis", weather getting better and also the fact eBay will have been flooded for two months during the "100% off FVF" promo.

But something just didn't feel right.  Those who know what I mean, will....know what I mean.

Anyway, after the last two weeks of selling almost nowt, Kerching, Kerching, Kerching!

Three items within 6 hours. 🙂

Great, I though but while checking the addresses they all seemed to be in the same rough area at the other end of the country.

Now, I have had a couple of item sell on the same day (after a quiet period) to buyers that are unknown to each other but are in the same town or county and sometimes with very similar first or surname and this has blown my mind to the point that I know there are shenanigans afoot with no real way to prove it.

Then yesterday happenend!

Like I said, after selling very little over the last two weeks, 3 sales across two account within six hours.

The wierd thing is all three addresses are at the other end of the country and within 45 miles of each other (see attached map).

I have had similar recently where several buyers were from the Cardiff area and a while back when I had several sales over a few days from buyers in central Scotland, but these have always been on one account.

So can someone explain these occurences or did eBays IA (Invisibility Algorithm) break down for a few hours? 

[the_book_seekers]

A number of sellers including myself experienced selling come to a halt in mid March. Sales restarted but no where near previous level. Not everyone experienced it, but for those who did, it was like ebay's much talked about on/off switch had been flipped. ebay hasn't admitted to anything, but there have been a number issues which have been discussed on these boards. The geographical sales clusters are also another ebay phenomenon which has been around for many years and crop up from time to time. Again not every seller experiences them. 

[janrom2]

The geographic thing does happen now and then.  It's usually nothing to do with ebay itself, nor is it a co-incidence.

It's called "people talking".

When I was selling off part of my CD collection, once, I got about a dozen orders, in the space of a couple of days, all going to Grimsby.

It turns out that someone had said to her friends on some Facebook chat thing "check out the discs this guy has got for sale".

I suspect something similar has happened here....it happens more often than you may think.

[bojangled]

The local area purchases I don't find a coincidence, it has happened to me as a seller.
Last week for example I bought a some plant cuttings from another website, on checkout there was a recommend a friend £10 voucher, and I promptly sent the link to a nearby family member, who also purchased. 
According to my social/eBay statistics lot of item links been shared by WhatsApp and email. 

[eastern-lights]

Cuo bono?  Who benefits? From an Ebay "switch"? From any form of regional alogorithm?

A lot of the variations in selling can be explained by holidays, pay days, approaching holidays (so saving up to have plenty of spending money), post holiday feeling broke (especially Christmas), etc etc.

[dch2112011]

ebay promote your items via various social media from time to time - these get picked up by for example facebook and are promoted briefly in various geographically based groups - this can then bring what I call the machine gun effect - several sales in quick succession from a particular geographical area.

The larger the seller in volume the more visible this becomes - obviously as a small seller  it's effect can appear strange as it would not be a frequent event.

Or - one person bought and spread the word to family and friends in a local area.

Any way good for you 

[rjwilmsi]

Three sales on the same day to nearby addresses may just be a random coincidence (we haven't heard from the thousands of other private sellers who have sold 3 items in a day recently and whether they had any geographical clustering too). Or maybe as others have said, friends talk to each other (at the school gates perhaps if the items are toys).

100% off FVF: I don't qualify for this so have no experience on this specifically. However, what I expect is the following: eBay's algorithms for listing results and placements is based on a number of factors, some of which we'd understand and agree with such as sellers with good standards being ranked higher. I suspect it also includes factors for what suits eBay: that boils down to how much is eBay earning. When your item is under a free listing offer then eBay's direct earnings from it are zero, so I wouldn't be surprised if your items rank below items that eBay will earn fees from. (Whether eBay would have understood the implications of 100% off offers I don't know - I imagine the marketing team come up with the listing offers, the accountants say what they want the ranking algorithms to be, the IT team try to make it work. And those teams may struggle to coordinate with each other, as in any large company)

[dch2112011]

As much as you would hope for a level playing field - I fear your logic may just be true - well thought out