How long will these boards survive?
Summary: vinylscot initiated a discussion expressing concern about the future of eBay's community boards due to an unpopular new format change, which several participants described as user-unfriendly and confusing. jonatjonatjonat mentioned the potential persistence of the boards despite the issues, while selective_distribution and theelench expressed dissatisfaction with the design and functionality, noting decreased engagement and footfall. Many participants speculated that the platform changes were motivated by cost savings, impacting user experience negatively. Overall, the consensus was that eBay's efforts to modernize the boards have not been successful and might lead to reduced participation and the boards eventually becoming obsolete.
I'm not going to accuse eBay of any pre-meditation, but how long do you think these boards are going to survive?
The new format is extremely user-unfriendly, far less intuitive than the previous format. Footfall has dropped dramatically. Only six questions have received any responses at all in the last 24 hours, and one of those is a long-running thread filled with criticisms of the new format.
If they could improve the visual format to make it look more professional, people might give it a chance, but it's really just a complete mess now. It has become pretty much pointless, and I can't help thinking eBay are bound to pull the plug sooner, rather than later, as they did with the weekly chat session.
tech-tonix
·Jul 19, 2026 at 11:06 PMIt comprehensively sucks. I can't see a search option across multiple discussion groups or categories. It seems designed to shut out legitimate member to member dialogue & help, driving it onto Reddit ? Or maybe the Ifixit site ? IDK
theelench
·1 month ago@moonlight-rhapsody
I found the "Evolution of higher ebay fees..." . Left-hand side bar Categories> click View all. Click Discussion in the Nested following page.
That takes you to a list of Discussions with Yellow/Brown tiles at the bottom (each with a number of members and discussions). The Evolution discussion is under that tile.
Does anyone have a rational explanation for this?
Does it make the board experience "seamless, smooth or easier to use"?
It seems to me to be hopelessly fragmented, needlessly complicated and more difficult to even find topics hidden behind tiles ?
reasonable.robert
·1 month agoand you also have to be carefull what you say the truth is gagged by the mods and you can find yourself banned from the boards
department28
·1 month ago@jefftopman
'The changes are not doing it for me. It was much better before the change was introduced.'
Yes, I think the majority feel the same. Unfortunately eBay have chosen to penny-pinch by replacing a well-designed, spacious, comfortable, easy-to-use forum, with this cramped, threaded, fiddly, cheapo version.
The same thing happened to a health forum a friend used to like using. Last year they announced 'an exciting new forum' that would 'get everyone connected' blah, blah, blah... A lot of the regular users were older, with various health issues, and were not able to adapt to this type of forum format. Too fiddly, too small, too difficult to follow the threads etc. Like here, many just gave up, really sad & disappointed to have lost a place they had enjoyed being a part of, some for many years.
theelench
·1 month ago · Edited@technthread
I followed your link and found the thread and reply but the header just reads "All Posts > Discussion > (no board). So I 'viewed all' the Categories on the left side-bar to see which one was highlighted -- None are. I still can't see the thread on either SC or the BSB.
Sorry to repeat my question but which board is this thread on please ?
moonlight-rhapsody
·1 month agoI could be wrong but I think what's happened is that the OP has created the thread whilst in "All Posts", so the thread hasn't gone into a particular board. If it was in a particular board, it would say "seller-central" (or whatever) in the URL but it just says "selling-11" - https://community.ebay.co.uk/forum/selling-11/topic/the-evolution-of-higher-and-higher-and-higher-ebay-fees-50598/ . Having looked through "All Posts", it's not the only thread that isn't in a particular board.
technthread
·1 month agoI am not sure myself. It isn’t seller central don’t think, I can’t choose specific boards because it freezes on me so I saw it on the main page.
Discussion > selling
jefftopman
·1 month agoThe changes are not doing it for me. It was much better before the change was introducd.
the_book_seekers
·1 month agoI've just posted a comment on a thread on the business board concerning how the number of threads have dropped. I've now dropped in here and seller central is just the same.
theelench
·1 month ago@technthread
Was it posted here ?
I can't find it today.
I had a look at the BSB, can't see it there either.
technthread
·1 month agoHopefully this link works:
https://community.ebay.co.uk/forum/selling-11/topic/the-evolution-of-higher-and-higher-and-higher-ebay-fees-50598/
I was going to reply but I’ve done that a few times on others just so somebody doesn’t get blanked. I’m going to just stop logging on now there isn’t much point.
technthread
·1 month ago · EditedThe post has now has a reply. And a far better one than I could have given.
theelench
·1 month ago@moonlight-rhapsody
Neither did I when the drop-down showed all the boards. Newbies could get quick answers AND were made aware that there were other boards if they wanted to use them. Now the other boards are not mentioned, they're listed under Categories, off to the left, without even a mention of 'board' or 'discussion'.
"Advocate for ebay". That might have changed, but I know for certain that at least one Mentor (who spent years answering questions before Mentors were invented) who became a Mentor, was mildly critical of ebay in a reply and was stripped of their title and banned from the boards for life.
By directing those with questions away from the other boards and solely towards M2M will inevitably mean that any flow of 'new blood' through them will be reduced. Isn't that exactly what we're seeing right now ? Greatly reduced activity on SC ? The few times I've looked at the BSB recently, it's almost as dead. The Mentors seem as busy as usual on M2M and the Discussion boards look to be heading towards becoming another Ebay Cafe. A backwater inhabited by a tiny number of members trying to have a discussion but stymied by the new format.
technthread
·1 month agoSomeone posted a new topic last night at £8.41pm: ‘The evolution of higher and higher and higher eBay fees’ . I saw it and thought I bet nobody replies to this, not because there’s anything wrong with the post but the drop off on here. I think the apathy might be terminal.
moonlight-rhapsody
·1 month ago@theelench
So is this the board where ONLY Mentors are allowed to reply?
Yes, it was like that on the old forum.
I don’t have a problem with that myself. If somebody just wants to ask a simple question and get a straight answer, ebay evidently thinks the mentors are best placed to do that because they have to be long-standing members and very experienced at both buying and selling, enabling them to give accurate support on virtually any problem. That's not necessarily the case on the Discussion board (for instance I'm certainly not qualified to answer the vast majority of questions), but people can always come to the Discussion board if they want a wider range of comments.
I’ve never thought that the mentors “advocate for ebay” in a pro-active way, but obviously they’re not expected to be critical of ebay, although I’ve occasionally seen them express concern about something ebay has done.
gjalp
·1 month agoJust coming in on a flyby (checking what parts of the site I have working today and what isnt) - if I was a mentor after this change, I'd want paying for my expertise! I couldn't be one anyway as I am not a 'yes man/woman' which is how I tended to view them anyway since you have to advocate for ebay and not be critical of them. In years gone by, yes, I would have done it time permitting. But now, nope, no way since ebay are effectively using free support provided by indviduals far more knowledgeable than those tinkering around in the background breaking everything.
theelench
·1 month ago@moonlight-rhapsody
Isn't that because if someone asked a question they are given the option on their OP to "Accept as an answer". From memory few ever did, so few questions were ever marked as "Answered" Probably the same still applies?
Following your lead I also looked at the M2M board. I noticed there is no Reply/Comment button and all the replies were from Mentors. So is this the board where ONLY Mentors are allowed to reply? For the rest of the community it's 'read only'.
I also notice that the 'Help from the community' button gives a drop-down with a choice of either 'M2M support' or 'Chat with the community team (A.I?)', whereas before the header read 'Ask the community' and the drop-down gave a choice of all the boards? Now 'Discussion' is another header by itself. Other Board options are now over on the left under Categories.
If correct, it pushes newbies towards M2M and those enlisted by ebay as Mentors. If I remember rightly, Mentors are given the title on the condition that they 'advocate for ebay' and if they fail to do so have, in the past, had their title revoked. If I'm correct there will be little said there that is critical of ebay to get into any discussion about.
All of which neatly separates those asking questions from any discussion about wider issues like ebay policies or motivation and any views the Community has about them. So the community can still say what it likes (within the guidelines) about ebay on the discussion boards, but newbies with questions or doubts will be safely insulated from them and only get fed pro-ebay answers to their questions.
moonlight-rhapsody
·1 month agoRe papso22's earlier comment about how the number of newbies has declined (if only the posts were numbered for reference, or even dated...)
I've just looked at the M2M board, which is now laid out in grid style. Unlike the SC board, it doesn't show the first few lines of the original post. Instead, what hits you in the face is the word "Unanswered", "Unanswered", "Unanswered" ad infinitum. All the threads are shown as Unanswered. So if I were a newbie coming to ask for support, took a quick look and saw that all the threads were Unanswered, I'd immediately leave. It matters not that if you look more closely, you can see that there have been X number of comments an hour ago. How many people will look that closely when they've already immediately seen that all the threads are "Unanswered".
If ebay had set out to sabotage their own platform, they couldn't have done a better job.
theelench
·1 month ago · Edited@moonlight-rhapsody
I think it's just window dressing from the Marketing dept. and so the can shout "New & Improved" and pretend that we've been given something wonderful.
I'm not interested in badges, perks or anything else ebay throws into the mix as a distraction from the basic and very obvious fact that the point of SC and the BSB, that is DISCUSSION, has been reduced to almost nothing.
Whether that was the intention or whether it's just another example of ebay's obsession with turning everything that worked because it was simple and intuitive, into a non-functional labyrinth of complexity is beside the point.
gjalp
·1 month agoI've decided, Im out. I really can't be bothered with all this. It doesn't really surprise me it is so bad as there was such a fanfare about how exciting the new community area will be and in true ebay form, it fell flat. Along with the site as Im getting more and more errors every day when trying to view my dashboard, Ive had images disappear at point of a listing go live and not to mention the sales have gone on holiday. I spose it will work fine if you are willing to do lives in tacky QVC style but even those, my items aren't suitable and even if they were, I wouldnt do it. Neither would I buy using this method. Ebay itself seems to by dying or morphing into something I dislike. I'll buy on other sites and only sell all the time Im in profit (unlikely for long looking at this year's sales so far).
The community was a brilliant part of ebay and they killed it.
theelench
·1 month ago@moonlight-rhapsody
You have to click "All Posts" top left of the page.
"Dive into dynamic discussions, earn badges, and unlock exclusive perks. Every interaction contributes to a vibrant community experience. Join us for themed challenges, live events, and collaborative activities."
I'm only interested in the first part, all the rest is just ebay spoon feeding the 'Users' busy work to try to keep a few people on the site and no doubt show us all yet more ads.
"A vibrant community experience"? I don't think so. Not any more.
Ebay, having butchered any attempt at "vibrant discussion" they've almost managed to wipe-out the remnants of any community in just one month with their usual style of ham-fisted and ill-conceived 'improvements'.
moonlight-rhapsody
·1 month agoThanks for that, theelench. What on earth are they talking about? Exclusive perks? Too exclusive for me, obviously. Themed challenges? Apart from the fact that the new board itself is challenging, what on earth do they mean? Collaborative activities? They make it sound like an online fitness class. Who makes up this stuff? It's all the complete opposite of this new forum. Orwellian-speak yet again.
theelench
·1 month ago@jonatjonatjonat
"But then - if ebay excised the boards tomorrow - that honestly wouldn't bother me either."
I don't think you'll have too long to wait -- SC and BSB are emptying out as we watch.
Or if you're not all that bothered you could help ebay out by ceasing to post. You're about the most prolific poster ATM.
Difficult or not it looks like most everyone else has gone, even the few like myself, who are looking in and adding one or two comments/replies seem to be slowly drifting away, as there's less and less of any interest or worth reading.
papso22
·1 month agoAll of which makes the blurb in the blue box under 'Forum' look like false advertising as well as a rather sad reminder of what we actually used to have ☹️
moonlight-rhapsody
·1 month agoI can't a see either a blue box or the word Forum - where are you seeing that?
kath3735_wxmjn
·1 month agosame here! I have recently stuck my toe back here to sell (had kept on using the forum though) but have found this site now practically useless. Managed to sell one item so far but definitely less and less people even viewing never mind watching. I have only put a few items on to see what happens but so far it is a choice between slightly higher price if it does sell or practically giving it away on the other - but at least it goes! Having said which the car boots so far this year have been pretty drastic as well - everyone wants something for nothing and i am talking really stupid offers for cheap items already. Obviously too many gullibles watching Bargain Hunt and thinking it is real.....
messier44000
·1 month agoScrolling down , can only see 10 posts before you have to go on to page 2 . By which time I am bored and head of to you tube to watch cute kitten videos.
jonatjonatjonat
·1 month agoUnsure of what the criticism is. Should there be more posts on a page? Is that really a massive issue?
Feels like only showing a few posts is by design due to the degradation of attention spans said cat videos have caused.
theelench
·1 month agoNo, the criticism is that before it was logical, finish page one- click page two - there it was instantly. Now, have trudged through various nestings and noticed 'load more comments', up comes something that may, or may not follow-on from what was being read before. The whole faffing process is just so tiresome it becomes hard work, rather than the previous easy read
. It's rubbish.
jonatjonatjonat
·1 month agoIt honestly isn't that difficult to follow (IN MY OPINION OF COURSE). But then - if ebay excised the boards tomorrow - that honestly wouldn't bother me either.
crn303
·1 month agoagreed … the deletion of these boards would give us all a few sane moments in life.
honeymonster007
·1 month agoImagine they will be around for a while, although the new format does take a little getting used to.
Only real gripe is the panel on the left makes everything look pretty cluttered and could do with a button to hide it or bring it back if you wanted too. Having the titles of the different sections in different colours might help as well, I'm not sure which board I'm reading half the time.
suelel1968
·1 month ago · EditedI don't ike it and I don't understand why the old format is just shoe horned into the new providers forum. There was opportunity to just have seller central and buyer central or business seller and private seller boards and or a general board. But we have all the same titles as before without the functionality. A board that seems to just have a post about sausages. A technical board where you sort of hope eBay are monitoring... but they are not. Postage, what's the point? It's all about cost and that is fine, I think they could have made it cheaper and easier to moderate if they sorted the entire format out. It cant be that difficult to just delete some categories or keep them for a while as read only.
technthread
·1 month ago · EditedI can’t even check specific boards. If I try from the homepage it freezes, if I try from a page like this I see it popup like this below, oh and the page also freezes:
theelench
·1 month ago · Edited@department28
I agree, the downwards spiral continues.
"You're not worth it"
Ebay used to set aside a small part of its huge profits to support "the community" or at least maintain the illusion that there was such a thing. Not any more, whatever's cheapest is all 'the users' can expect, whether it works or not.
The attitude now is, 'be grateful for any crumbs you're given, get used to the new lower standards, lower your expectations and don't expect anything better'.
wheretheloveb
·1 month agoSeems like the main purpose of these boards is to act as a free customer service for people that have a problem, although even that appears to be dying, with very few replies.
I know it probably wont happen, but with all the other dysfunctions, it does 'feel like' Ebay itself is reaching for life support. First time in 20 years I've ever felt that
technthread
·1 month ago · EditedI have felt that for a while. I put an item of clothing up on another site yesterday that had been on here previously before I shut my shop.
I listed it, made a coffee and by the time I came back to look it had sold. All done in 5 minutes max.
It is a pattern beyond an anomaly. How is it possible with such a big buyer base on eBay that I can have items up here for a month with under 10 views and then I list somewhere else and have a dozen watchers within an hour?
Regarding the forum, it’s easy for me to say from the outside but there were so many unanswered posts in the community team area someone at eBay should have sorted that out early so it didn’t look like an abandonment.
simplyessential_uk
·1 month agoI concur with all these comments. This new format is pants. Far less engagement and hard to see new posts. I pop over once a day and see hardly any activity and just leave. Unfortunately that paired with poor sales, I suppose theres not much to converse about and the ridiculous AI summary is longer to read than the flipping posts, who ever contributed that idea to the format needs to have a word with themselves. I think ill be popping over less and less if nothing changes.
the_book_seekers
·1 month agoIt takes up more time trying to catch up because of the way ebay has it set up now, and that's with a big dip in traffic since the change. It used to be much easier to get up to speed. Will the boards disappear, I'd like to think they won't, but ebay has undermined them greatly.
gjalp
·1 month agoI dunno but Im not here that often since it won't work on my ipad (unless ebay wants to buy me a new one that is up to date enough for them to work) which I use in an evening for an hour or so to catch up on the news in general/family/friends/swing by the boards - latter I did, now no more. Im having to rely on my laptop and since I mostly use this for work, Im too busy to visit the boards.
blackcatbooksuk
·1 month agoI admit I don't like it and am wanting to read the threads a lot less than I used to.
dantwocats
·1 month agoyes this is pants
department28
·1 month agoNo-one expects a company not to be always on the look-out for various ways to save money, but for eBay to choose to scrimp on the forum, by swapping it for something that is clearly inferior, doesn't reflect particularly well - and certainly leaves the community in no doubt that they have been fobbed off. 'You're not worth it', in other words...
The community forum might only be a small part of eBay, but it represents the opinions of many more - and it's not just this forum that has been affected, is it? If UK users are unhappy with the new forum, presumably the feeling will be pretty much the same in other countries?
Can't help thinking the increasing amount of bad feeling, frustration & dissatisfaction etc- mostly caused by changes being made without any consideration whatsoever for their 'valued customers' - must be gnawing away at eBay's foundations, like disgruntled deathwatch beetles... 🐞
*vyolla*
·1 month agoThe new clinical format isn't engaging for the eBay buyer/seller demographic and, as already mentioned by @jonatjonatjonat the younger ones tend to go straight to ChatGPT, so in one fell swoop 'modernising' a community area such as this one probably wasn't their best move. Traffic has slowed down to nearly nothing.
eBay Community was very unique amongst selling platforms, a fabulous resource and great look for eBay.
I'm not against change, I totally get it, but this doesn't work in the way I'm sure it was intended to.
1956glyn
·1 month ago · Editedi would say give the boards a max of 4 months before they die totally. I just cannot be bothered anymore and rarely visit.
sunflowers4me59
·1 month agoI hardly visit anymore, just don't understand it.
moonlight-rhapsody
·1 month agoI dare say they'll rumble on, enabling ebay to rely on volunteers to solve people's problems. But the heart has gone out of it and engagement will probably continue to decline.
c_of_e84
·1 month agoAs with most aspects of life nowadays if falls the volunteers to fix problems even though someone somewhere is being paid to fix the problems, thats why they call it a community so you can feel a part of it until something goes wrong that you need fixing then your on your own.
theelench
·1 month agoHaving read the A.I comparison between Bevy and Khoros it's difficult to see how this isn't pre-meditated. I don't think changing host is something that was decided on at a low managerial level and it was done with one intention -- to make the boards cheaper for ebay to run.
Similarly the decision to start the new format without proper testing was made with cheapness in mind.
The result is what we now have boards that are inferior, cheap, nasty and harder to use. Almost the opposite of what was promised.
No doubt they will still be here in a few years, ebay never admits that anything they 'improve' was a mistake and sticking plaster has and will continue to be used liberally.
But, as we've already seen, engagement has collapsed and as with other areas of ebay, the boards will become another rarely used, mostly deserted dust-gathering back-water.
jonatjonatjonat
·1 month agoso the headline is international limited company carries out costs savings on a marginal tool used by minority of their customer base. A tool that certainly doesn’t generate revenue directly, though there’s indirect reasons to have it.
I can certainly see why cost cutting would make sense.
A lot of people come to forums to get questions answered. But they don’t need to do that anymore. Because they just ask chat gpt.
papso22
·1 month agoI do think it odd that there are so few posts now. I would have thought the route to the boards was the same, the problems are the same, and new posters wouldn't know how it used to work. I can understand established posters tailing off with all the generally unwelcome changes, but why so few new posts from newbies?
selective_distribution
·1 month agoCompletely agree. Previously it was easy to reply and comment and follow a discussion, but now it is almost impossible to see what is going on, and who is replying, or even where comments are! Conversations are LOCKED, so you can`t reply.......a total mess, whoever designed this ought to fired !
morseidiot2
·1 month agoWhoever designed this has probably already been promoted !
4_bathrooms
·1 month agoThe boards now use Bevy as the back-end platform; Bevy is also used by Reddit and Etsy. Although it can be "skinned" the basic functionality is set by Bevy - if you ever view a Reddit thread you will notice the obvious similarities.
That said, I'm not a fan of the new format. The Khoros version eBay previously used was end-of-life but I would have preferred vBulletin or phpBB in order to retain some commonality to the previous format.
jonatjonatjonat
·1 month agoGetting rid of mentor only responses would liven it up a bit.
The boards will still be here in several years time though.