Impressions broken again??

[swiss_expert_uk]

Can you please check if there is another problem with impressions? Another counting glitch? These stats can not be correct. Organic impressions promoted views down to under 3000 views today at time of writing. This time last week almost 73000 views. Please help.  dave@ebay kat@ebay 

[simplyessential_uk]

I like to just play around with the titles to see what bites just using ebay prompts within the search bar is very useful too.

I agree BARD is strongly US but Ive had great results on my own website, sales have doubled since asking it to write my SEO & meta titles/description.

As BARD belongs to google I can ask it my page positions etc  so I find it easy to use but do have to ask it to write it in UK spelling/grammar. 

[the-nutwood-collection]

I spent my corporate career in IT, and I can offer some advice that will help you avoid a shambles such as this in the future.

Tests are done in the test environment, not in the production environment.

There are three stages.  Development is done in the development environment.  The code is then moved to the test environment for regression, pen and user acceptance testing.  When all the tests have been completed satisfactorily, the code is released into the production environment.  It's called Handover into Live, and is the end of the IT development journey.  

Try it.  You'll find it works.  Saves an awful lot of bother with the end user.

[simplyessential_uk]

But your assumptions are that its broken, I was hit 18th -28th like everyone else, but now Im v busy,  which Ive not been since March.  Now either, Ive been "switched on" or the changes Ive made over last few weeks are working with Ebays search algorithms, or theres a new batch of testing.   I dont know which it is but I dont think Ebays broken, its a multi million dollar company, who employ ppl who know what they're doing.  Unfortunately we, as business, may be collateral damage in their "bigger picture" and constant complaining wont change anything, but Ebay know exactly what theyre doing.  We just hope we can work it out so our businesses dont fail.  

[bennotbill]

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@simplyessential_uk wrote:

Now either, Ive been "switched on" or the changes Ive made over last few weeks are working with Ebays search algorithms, or theres a new batch of testing.

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Maybe those Chinese sellers with dozens of id's all selling the same things have the right idea. As it's unlikely that all the id's will be in the same test. Maybe.

But no one really knows if eBay is working "as designed" or they've lost the paddle.

[the-nutwood-collection]

... its a multi million dollar company, who employ ppl who know what they're doing.

Never assume that, just because a business has a huge turnover, it employs people that know what they're doing.

The Post Office revenue is around £900m and Fujitsu's is in the £ billions - between them they created Horizon and destroyed the lives of hundreds of people.

Remember the UK government’s cattle tracing system fiasco?  Cost a fortune and, within a year, 90,000 data records went missing.  A colleague that worked on the system said he was surprised that ‘only’ 90,000 records disappeared because the released system was so full of bugs.

Birmingham City Council’s whizzy do-everything Oracle system has already cost £40m, has overrun by three years and is estimated to cost a further £100m to put right.  I guess I’ll be looking at yet another rise in my council tax bill.

The list of failed IT projects is endless.  The larger the organisation, the greater the number of incompetent people available to mess up the project.  The greater the revenue, the larger the amount of money available to allow a failed project to plod on for years, eating money, just waiting for the glorious moment when the IT fairy will fly in through the window to wave her magic wand and put it all right.    

[auntietootieblue]

Hi 

Thanks for the advice, AI is not something I'm familiar with but did start looking at BARD the other day when you mentioned this previously on your other posts but the examples it were giving me were a but rubbish.  

I was always told that the size would have to be in the first 4 words as most people search by size but will have a play around with the titles.  I do do this daily and change/add stuff to the titles but its not really made a difference.  And use sell similar on my items.

I've also been told to put a white background on all my listings but that also doesn't make a different as I don't sell any with a white background.  

Also free postage that doesn't work for me either. as I just have to add it onto the price and then its too expensive.  I've been adding some listings with free postage and not sold a single one.

I am now promoting my full store excluding auctions which I haven't done before, I normally only promote half to see if that makes any difference but can't see it?  All its doing is giving the impressions but not turning into sales.

Unfortunatley I think that my items are too expensive for people now, I would be cheaper if I didn't have to pay 20-30% fees to ebay

I think I'm gonna have to start listing on other sites which I've not really looked at as I haven't had the time with listing on here but I think I will forcus my energy there from now on.

[auntietootieblue]

I forgot to add to this when I first starting doing ebay full time I think the minimum wage back then was something like £7.50 an hour, I haven't been earning this for the last year on ebay maybe longer working 7 days a week full time hours. Didn't pay any tax last year because of this.  Now the minumum wage is roughly £10 a hour, that is now looking more attractive to me than working full time on here 7 days a week and no holiday pay and having to deal with questions 24/7.  

[simplyessential_uk]

I use 2% PL, just applying 2% makes a big difference for my listings. Maybe also try adding multibuys, if buyers think they can combine postage then that may also help as you £4+  is quite pricey (im just offering my opinion if i was shopping)  

More buyers shop on mobiles now so it may be useful to try and find your items or similar via mobile as theres lots of filters etc and suggestions so Im now using the item spec.  Eg I sell incense burners and dont sell many, yesterday I noticed on the filters it said incense box, ive never called it that so now Ive changed my item specs, fearures and titles to match relevant filter options, maybe worth looking at that.

Yes bard took a bit of getting used to and i have to askbit specifics or it can churn out rubbish, but theres chat gpt or rytr.  I think getting keywords and long tail keywords may be something evays using now, it might not, but im just trying to play around with mine to see what lands and whatwhat doesnt.  

Ive now started adding a few vids, totally useless last year but its helped sell a few things now, again depends on your market but worth a try on a few listings.  Just about constant changing and updating.  Goodluck.

[auntietootieblue]

Thanks for advice, just having a look at the ebay title builder, that looks a bit better for my titles so might start using that.  I have looked at multi buy but I always have a coupon running and find if I take that off I don't get any sales.  I've been told by CS that you can't use coupons together with multi buy as it conflicts against each other, don't know how true that it.  

The offers tool works really well for me but since this impressions fiasco they seem to be none exsistent in coming through for me to send out now.  I used to get most of my sales from offers and coupons.  

I do combine postage but as all my items are different size and weight its hard to set up a rule for this on ebay.  Normally buyers do email me before buying if they want more than one item and I sort the combined postage out then.  My postage is high but I don't send anything signed for now and its £4.69 to send a signed for parcel through Royal Mail. I think coming up to Xmas if I am still trading on here I'm gonna do postage online as its cheaper.

[simplyessential_uk]

  I have looked at multi buy but I always have a coupon running and find if I take that off I don't get any sales. 

Fair enough - I was just thinging of when I was scrolling through it comes up in red on multi so more to grap the buyers attention. I have run coupons and multi buys together and it wont let the buyer use both so Im not sure which overrides.

The offers tool works really well for me but since this impressions fiasco they seem to be none exsistent in coming through for me to send out now. - Mine dried up during the "test" period but Ive worked out that this only kicks in when ppl view your items not necessarily "watch" it so I suppose if ppl arent seeing your items then no offers to send, catch 22.  

 £4.69 to send a signed for parcel through Royal Mail. - Is that over the counter? If I buy online RM Click and drop its £0-2kg £3.25  Tracked (£3.45 to drop off at p/office or free collection next day from your door) Why are you not doing already online - They now send QR codes if you dont have a printer.

[auntietootieblue]

Yes over the counter price, I do drop and go at the post office and didn't have time to weight and measure every parcel then print a label off before this impressions fiasco.  I just drop them at the post office and they do it.  But now with hardly any sales I will probably have time to do this going foward if I decide to carry on with ebay.

[simplyessential_uk]

On click and drop (online) its just brackets of 250, 500g, 1kg or 2kg (Small or medium) so no need to weigh or measure them - Honestly I just put them all at 1kg small parcels If I dont know as its all the same price regardless as long as I dont go over the declared weight . Youre wasting alot of money doing it that way, every penny counts over the year 😉  - Also you can just use the QR code and get the post office to print off the labels now. 

[auntietootieblue]

Yeah I know have been a bit lazy with it, need to sort it out really but I've got no motivation to do it with lack of sales and will have to put all my time and energy into getting a job after my hols so this will be on the back burner then and I will not have time to mess about with this site or postage if I go back full time which I think I might as these are normally my worse months upto Xmas for sales and if they are anything like last year which were dire but looking back were not as bad as it is now I will be looking for full time and probably then closing the shop or just working with whats already listed until after Xmas, even though I've got absolutely loads of winter stock, enough to last me all winter in fact, might list it on another selling site instead which isnt as much hard work to get a sale. Thanks for all your advice on this.

[lord_and_lady_m]

I'm guessing they're partitioned the guinea pigs in the last test and kept a bunch of us in another test. 

Impressions are, wonderful however they've move ally impressiona to off site impressions and clearly that's not working. Doesn't matter what I do, I literally have 1 single listing that sells and that's it. I am doing the AI thing now too, but at the same time optimising my website because if I'm going to work even harder than I've ever done, I damn well don't want eBay having the largest cut of anything. 

dave@ebay  marco@ebay  any updates? I couldn't find the community chat today either?

[swiss_expert_uk]

I doubt testing ever ends, my impressions are still very good yet sales grind to a halt overnight this week after two weeks of normal sales.

Like you,  all sales come from one or two items only (or from repeat buyers) 12 hours plus between sales and nobody wants items this week that we're selling daily last week. 

Hardly any UK sales, no EU sales but the few meager sales I receive come from buyers in Kazakhstan, Columbia and French Polynesia.

I am grateful for any sale from anywhere but it doesn't seem possible that nobody in the whole of the EU wants to buy anything (regardless of brexit) 

One sale and one offer a day, is the pattern and I've noticed the same pattern before when eBay are 'working behind the scenes'

[keepincaseshop]

Something is definitely wrong with ebay. I have several stores. And pattern of sale is not normal during past week. Usually i have 35+ transactions a day. while past several days:

Saturday: 35 transactions
Sunday 13 transactions
Monday 39 transactions
Tuesday 6 transactions
Wednsday 11 Transactions

All those are a huge jumps - not normal ones. When spoke to ebay they deny any issues, but clearly sale can not jump that much up and down.... ( all listings remain the same as always, no changes on my part, nothing ended)  no one wants to admit anything.... and rather than check whether inpressions are broken, or whether there are any other issues that affect traffic to ebay in general they just keep sending you remonders to use adds....

[swiss_expert_uk]

Promoted impressions dropping again this week. Yesterday at the lowest level since it was 'fixed' on July 28th. Sales this week down more than 50% 

[carinya.designs]

Very slow sales wise here today, we havent had an order yet whereas normally id have had about 10 by now 

[caz1718]

Following the test and the alleged end on the 7th things did seem to start to improve, last week was better though not setting the works on fire, my optimism now has been dampened with sales and impressions dropping again daily, with only 1 sale since the payout. I did believe it would take a gargantuan effort to rebuild after the trial but even that effort looks a bit fruitless. 
Of course we still have no idea whether the results of trial pleased eBay and it simply been rolled out as a here to stay, it's certainly looking likely right now. 

[the_book_seekers]

If it's here to stay then it is about time ebay made an announcement of what it is they've done and why. Then we can start to make some plans as to what we can all do.