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 

[paul*tribesandvibes*]

@the_book_seekers we gave up our 10% discount so that we could have the 'dispatches within 2 days' option, which in actual fact works out as a next day dispatch in ebay land, which works fine with us. Trying to dance to ebay's tune will only lead to burn out and anxiety and not much more in the way of profit. Been there, done that, t-shirt in the mail etc.

ebay is also offering us the 'Try Promoted Listings Advanced blah blah blah', and we wont do it, there's no point - there has never been a fantastic outcome for ANYTHING that we have tried on ebay. And if they think we have a minimum budget of £10 a day to spend on clickable Google links they can think again. Thankfully they've given up telling us that our shop is ripe for Multi-Buy because we already run that 🙄 (good to know they are on the ball with this stuff!)

[the_book_seekers]

Thankfully they've given up telling us that our shop is ripe for Multi-Buy because we already run that (good to know they are on the ball with this stuff!)

Multi-Buy - that's another thing that's recently been appearing in my messages. I'd forgotten about that one.

[oceanartsnorthdevon]

Is it just me or has anyone elses sales dropped over the week?  Been absolutely dead, not much in the way of activity but impressions on the rise? It is quiet like when they were doing their "tests"?

[the-nutwood-collection]

Nope. 

Suddenly, this week, someone fed the vampire that is eBay a drop of blood.  Sales have been better than they've been in a long while.  Note 'better' not 'good'.

I expect someone will be along shortly with garlic and a stake.

[paul*tribesandvibes*]

Actually come to think of it, my sales doubled from 1 to 2 for a couple of days ... and then nothing ... then 1 ... 1 ... 2 .. etc. Binary sales towards the end of the week.

[goingfishinguk]

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@oceanartsnorthdevon wrote:

Is it just me or has anyone elses sales dropped over the week?  Been absolutely dead, not much in the way of activity but impressions on the rise? It is quiet like when they were doing their "tests"?

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Maybe because the new Promoted Advanced Smart PhD Astro Physics Ecomomy Buster listings or whatever they are called has been released... remember you need to pay to play!

[oceanartsnorthdevon]

Yes you are probably right!  I do promote but only on the standard promotions where I set my own rate which has obviously now been pushed aside.

[simplyessential_uk]

I will just comment for the sake of balance but my sales have been fine, I only use 2% PL.  I know we have had discussions on this thread about closing old listings, title word order, item specs etc, adding new listings regularly, multi buys, vouchers etc, Im not going to repeat that but I do them all.  I have had the few low days but traffic since the test week debacle mid july which kicked off this thread, traffic and sales have been good. Im not being pushed off the site for not using dynamic or the suggested Promo %. 

I agree that sales are not what they used to be compared to 5yrs ago but I sell across several platforms now as buyers have more choice too, Ebay doesnt have the same pull as it once had.

For what my 2 pence is worth, i see the same sellers complaining but when I look at their listings see very little change when ppl have offered suggestions to help, no multi buys, poor title word order, poor images etc.  I know that may sounds harsh but youre more concerned about conspiracy theories and complaining on the boards than realising Ebays changing and youre not changing with it.   Sorry if this sounds rude, I dont mean it to be, but think it needs to be said for the sake of these boards and other sellers reading looking for help.

[goingfishinguk]

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@simplyessential_uk wrote:

For what my 2 pence is worth, i see the same sellers complaining but when I look at their listings see very little change when ppl have offered suggestions to help, no multi buys, poor title word order, poor images etc.  I know that may sounds harsh but youre more concerned about conspiracy theories and complaining on the boards than realising Ebays changing and youre not changing with it.   Sorry if this sounds rude, I dont mean it to be, but think it needs to be said for the sake of these boards and other sellers reading looking for help.

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Not rude at all and very helpful.  However and this is what I've literally just typed about what if you have done all those things and it still makes no difference?  I've just mentioned in another post if I sell at least 4 of every listing every week why does it appear 'capped' at that.  Surely if the title, pictures, word order etc is good enough for 4 people to buy then surely it's good enough for 44 to buy. 

I'm 99.9% certain eBay are hiding listings and making the search invalid in most cases that people simply can't find listings hence poor sales.  The jumping through hoops, pictures, titles etc has been their go to advice for years and years now and simply can't or won't work if listings are being hidden.  Actually nothing will work. 

So as you put it if eBay is changing but their advice is remaining the same as it was 15 years ago how logically can that advice still work?  I mean as an example they said use clear pictures with white backgrounds but now they are rolling out a site that changes all those white backgrounds to a rather dull grey beige.  Eh!!!  beggars belief to be honest...

[oceanartsnorthdevon]

Could not agree more, most people are open to any advice that will help improve sales why wouldn't they be?  As you say no matter what changes you make on their recommendations if the listings are not visable then it will not achieve anything.

[lingerie0nline]

My theory, and it's only my opion, is that they are rotating listings not hiding. This is why you will have a rush of sales and then a period of no sales. Ebay are doing this to spread the sales amongst sellers, if everyone is promoting we can't all be on the first page so they rotate us. So gone are the days where a good seller with good feedback, customer service and excellent listing quality thrive. We are now in a time where if you promote you are on the merry go round of when your listings are visible and when they are not................Spreading the sales in this way, ebay are trying to keep everyone happy. Unfortunately, this will not work. Buyers want cheap items from good sellers, but this is not happening now. Listing are being displayed from sellers with few sales and low feedback in the rotation. This also give the poor customer service Big Brands high prices the opportunity to make sales, they pay eBay the most, so eBay will promote them more which will reduce your listing exposure (impressions).

[wearenowclosedthankyou]

I really think we need to remember ....

1. There are thousands of business sellers

2. We are ALL promoting.

3. There are less buyers to compete for.

It's only logical to assume that a specified seller simply cannot be on page 1 every single search surely?? Unless selling unique.

What about all the other sellers with excellent accounts selling same items?

so it must be a roundabout sort of system Which would in my opinion answer recent questions about sales spurts and stops, why sellers get 4 sales in a morning then nothing the rest of the day? This is the only thing that makes sense to me.

If the same sellers were always day in day out on top of page 1 then EVERY OTHER SELLER would have 0 orders every single day and not be on ebay for very long........

[bojangled]

@paul*tribesandvibes*  @oceanartsnorthdevon 

Thank you for pushing me into action!

I had the same issue on PL, a lot were showing at 0%.
My campaign had been running since November. 

With 4th Quarter kicking off tomorrow, RM price increase on Monday I've spent the morning, revitalising campaigns and setting up promotions.

Hoping the refresh will make for good payday weekend sales.

Jo

[oceanartsnorthdevon]

Let us know how you get on and if it makes a notable difference, are you ending and restarting a new campaign to see if it clears all those listings stuck on zero?

[bojangled]

@oceanartsnorthdevon 

Yes, exactly. Completely new campaign. All at 2.5% on items that have a lot of competition on.

Some of the 0% were sold single items and current multiple quantity items. 
Not really sure what happened, I do mess about with it a lot particularly at the end of the month, so probably layers of messed up info. 

Jo

[goingfishinguk]

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@lingerie0nline wrote:

My theory, and it's only my opion, is that they are rotating listings not hiding. 

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Agreed however by definition it's the same.  Rotating listings surely means some of the time they are hidden.  I pay for my listings to be be viewable 100% of the time and back that up with advertising costs.  If this rotation is happening and I'm sure it is how can we trust eBay are actually doing it fairly or even showing my listings at all?  They take our ad and listing fees but how can we be sure we are getting the exposure we pay for?  I'm sure if I ask CS to explain this they would not have a Scooby Doo.. 

The problem is as outlined here if everything is promoted then nothing is promoted.  There is simply not enough site 'real estate' for all the promoted listings to be displayed 100% of the time.  So in essence we are being ripped off.  We are not getting what we are paying for.  Through their greed and obsession with 'promoted campaigns' they have destroyed the site.

[oceanartsnorthdevon]

Good luck I hope it makes a difference and kicks things into action.  I am thinking of ending my current standard promoted listing campaign and starting one from new, it will be at the same rates as existing one, I can't help but think this one has got "stuck" or not "updated" since the introduction of the new PLs , it has been running for years with no issues until now - just waiting for a reply from customer service to see if they can expalin why some items are showing at zero and also that it includes sold items and items ended for relisting in the overview.  I suspect it has something to do with the new promoted listing campaigns rolled out in the seller update which will probably at some point supercede the standard promotions

[paul*tribesandvibes*]

@bojangled I  hope it all improves for you, and yes, let us know what happens.

@goingfishinguk yes to all of that. I think the fact that this post has gone on as long as it has, without much input from ebay says about as much as you would expect from them. Crickets. Too busy counting their money.

In the end people will vote with their feet and leave the platform, and then ebay will have to start reading their own forums to find the best advice from real business people who have been in the arena!

[oceanartsnorthdevon]

Again, I quite agree so many of us are paying for a service that we never had to pay for and things worked out fine for most sellers everyone was happy, business and private - everyone got a fair crack of the whip the only extra you had to pay for was a larger photo if you wanted more coverage or a stand out sub title, that was a personal choice and depended on the value of the item you were selling.  Paying now for your listings to be seen at an allocated time if you are lucky, as it seems, visibility will become less and less when they run out of space on the site to show everyones promoted listings, the small window of opportunity will narrow that it will become a pointless task and they will lose sellers.  Surely the loss in revenue from sales would be greater than what they earn in promotions, especially if they loose customers who pay for the promotions? For those who don't want to pay to promote god knows where their listings end up!

[best-range]

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@goingfishinguk wrote:

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@lingerie0nline wrote:

My theory, and it's only my opion, is that they are rotating listings not hiding. 

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Agreed however by definition it's the same.  Rotating listings surely means some of the time they are hidden.

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I noticed the same thing whatever we call it " hiding listings", "rotating listings" or "rationing visibility", a good day of above average sales always followed by 0 or 1 sales for 1-3 days.

The IT people at ebay should be working on the solution day & night, as this is simply not sustainable for small businesses.

There was never such "visibility rationing" in the past years, plus the fees were much lower, no promotions & sales were abounded for many, the exact opposite to what is happening now.

I used to pay ebay 2-3K per month in fees, now with all the expensive promotions & very high fees they're getting £200-300 per month in fees from me.

This is not working neither for ebay nor a small business.

I remember only 3-4 years ago I'd had a 24 hours "sales window", now I only have maybe 2 hours & not every day, I no longer wake up to lots of international sales, they have completely gone.

If it worked well in the past, why was this changed resulting in much worse outcome ?

It looks like I'll  be joining the exodus of small businesses after Xmass, as this "rationing visibility" model is simply not sustainable & it's pushing sellers away to other platforms, does ebay really wants that?

Is this really by design ? unintended consequences ? tech. incompetence ?, luck of imagination & forwards planning ? greed? - the possibilities are endless.

Again, the last day where I sold a bit within the "allocated" 2 hours window was Thursday the 28th, since then absolutely nothing, big fat 0, so well over 50 hours now & typically the "0 sales days" fall on the payday weekend.