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 

[goingfishing]

---

@lingerie0nline wrote:

It's still not right, sales are coming through in fits and starts. Friday was a good day but now I'm seeing sales come through in 3-4 in 10 minutes and then nothing for 1-1½ hours...............this promoted listings is a joke.

---

Exactly my experience.  Normally on a Sunday I would have much more at 10:30am like 90% more so fingers crossed it is getting better but not convinced.  To be honest with the problems in the last 10 months and lack of help from CS I doubt it will ever be 'fixed.'

[wearenowclosedthankyou]

Nhs and police also still 20-21st

[tackshackuk]

The only impressions i am getting for the last 4 days is external.

I have also been waiting over 2 weeks for the IT dept to sort my time zones out, If they can't sort out 2 different times zones what chance do we have with the impressions?

[lingerie0nline]

Mine impressions are down again today...................and traffic, still silence from eBay.

[sheba-knows-best]

---

@simplyessential_uk wrote:

But how does payday weekend effect impressions? Yes sales but as you can see on my graph like eveyone elses 18th july slump then 2 days ago a steep (higher than pre 18th levels) upturn.

---

??? 

Because impressions are made by searches and more people search when they have money to spend; some come back at payday weekend - in a collated drove - to buy after looking all month, some come for the first time. Either way payday weekend always sees a rise in sales driven by a rise in impressions (Impossible to have a rise in sales without a rise in impressions I would have thought? There must be some exceptions I guess ).

Interestingly, payday weekend does tend to cover 2 weekends with some buying before they get paid (and struggle to pay their bills afterwards) and with others paying their bills and then treating themselves with what they have left. So this weekend maybe boosted by what others are saying about some people being paid last weekend. Although I expect another rise next weekend too (as many people pay bills on the 1st).

I saw my usual midmonth slump in July - exacerbated, as July always is, by the break up for the 6 week school holiday. You have to compare July 22 with July 23 for anything meaningful in impressions or sales. And yes this July is slightly down for me y-o-y (impressions not sales) because ebay is struggling with increased competition in the online market and there is a nationwide cost of living crisis.

Just Polyanna's take-away as ever...

[simplyessential_uk]

As much as Id like to agree with you my 90 day graph says otherwise. big slump 18th like everyone else then, last 2 days,..... Not complaining but certainly not normal but also similar to many others who had the 18th july slump.  

[swiss_expert_uk]

Huge increase in impressions but sales on Sunday lower than any previous day in the last week... how is it possible that impressions rise by more that 50% but sales are lower? As someone mentioned previously the impressions are 'junk' and/or inflated. 

 

[simplyessential_uk]

Same, page views up also.  Great day Thurs then poor weekend.  Baffling with double impressions, the most by far in 90 days.

[vintagewatchpart]

Impressions come from everywhere, its whether those impressions convert or not thats important, my graph is the same but interestingly although impressions are way down, my clickthrough rate and conversion is higher than usual, doesn't this tell me that Ebay have simply put my product infront of "better" and more converting eyes?

[swiss_expert_uk]

Agreed. When I say 'junk' what I mean is not well targeted. 

[oceanartsnorthdevon]

Exactly the same here, big jump in impressions on Sunday but sales rubbish had more orders in on Thursday and Friday but impressions were much lower?

[sheba-knows-best]

I will attach my 90 days for comparison. Then 13 months below.

First of all I think everyone needs to allow the 72 hours to feed through (that is what ebay asks for before saying its impressions are accurate).  Then I agree with what other posters are saying that we don't exactly know how all impressions are made and which are well-targeted or not. This is why I tend to not look at my traffic overly-much. I measure sales (and profits). 

As an example if you take a look at my sold sales I sold 4 pairs of 'victoriana' boots in quick succession (interestingly the ones I didnt use victorian as a key word took 2 days for someone to find). All of the boots had been listed a while. I have no idea what programme, celebrity or event drove sales in victoriana boots. But I think something did. So is suspect impressions with anyone who had 'victorian boots' keywords would have seen an unidentifiable leap. This could be happening on loads of items at any one time. It is all so nebulous.

[sheba-knows-best]

Look at my 13 month graph. It goes everywhere. Its a roller coaster. Sometimes it is to do with examples like above, sometimes to do with ebay tweaking the power of PL, sometimes to do with the weather probably... we had a wet payday weekend inJuly, I suspect that drove people online.  I advise myself to keep an eye on traffic y-o-y (and I wish ebay would allow more than 13 months data for this - as we can only look at one month y-o-y) but otherwise focus on sales y-o-y where we can always look further back. I don't want to be mean - I understand people are worried - but I think this thread distracts from selling and makes pepole feel powerless.

[sheba-knows-best]

---

@sheba-knows-best wrote:

Look at my 13 month graph. It goes everywhere. Its a roller coaster. 

---

Just to clarify... I mean a rollercoaster if we focus on a few days here and there... but if we could see 2023 vs 2022 I think there would be very clear seasonal trends

[swiss_expert_uk]

---

@sheba-knows-best wrote:

I will attach my 90 days for comparison. Then 13 months below.

First of all I think everyone needs to allow the 72 hours to feed through (that is what ebay asks for before saying its impressions are accurate).  Then I agree with what other posters are saying that we don't exactly know how all impressions are made and which are well-targeted or not. This is why I tend to not look at my traffic overly-much. I measure sales (and profits). 

As an example if you take a look at my sold sales I sold 4 pairs of 'victoriana' boots in quick succession (interestingly the ones I didnt use victorian as a key word took 2 days for someone to find). All of the boots had been listed a while. I have no idea what programme, celebrity or event drove sales in victoriana boots. But I think something did. So is suspect impressions with anyone who had 'victorian boots' keywords would have seen an unidentifiable leap. This could be happening on loads of items at any one time. It is all so nebulous.

---

Your graph show the exact same drop on the 18th as everyone else. Some sellers sales have suffered, some not so much, but I don't see how you can continue to argue that whatever happened on the 18th is either a figment our collective imaginations or some how part of the normal rise and fall or impressions. 

[goingfishing]

---

@sheba-knows-best wrote:

but otherwise focus on sales y-o-y where we can always look further back. I don't want to be mean - I understand people are worried - but I think this thread distracts from selling and makes pepole feel powerless.

---

My sales are down nearly 80% y-o-y for the last too years.  This is normally my busiest time of the year by far.  Some points to consider..

1) Amazon Sales roughly similar to last two years - so is the fall here eBay's fault?

2) Brexit, Cost of Living etc etc - don't buy it see point 1), plus the huge numbers of people out in IKEA and CostCo to name two places I visited at the weekend and yes they are buying unless they are standing in the till queue for a laugh.

3) Completely inept CS team who do not know if they need a **** or a haircut - is this eBay's fault?

4) Extremely buggy platform, near constant bugs, poor search engine, knackered promotions etc etc - is this eBay's fault?

5) Last Autumn/Winter £30,000 plus sales lost due to not being protected against INR cases when a policy was written to state we would be - is this eBay's fault?

6) March - altering the promoted listings and adding dynamic so if you did not pay you did not play - is this eBay's fault?

7) The July debacle, what we are going through now (ref point 3) - is this eBay's fault?

So sorry yes I do feel powerless, I've jumped through every hoop and then some.  I've even opened a new account as point 3) was told to by a completely useless CS adviser.  eBay like it or not has directly contributed to me losing close to £50,000 in sales over the last 10 months and all they have done is managed one way or another to increase my selling costs by close to 35%.

So whose fault is it then?  I never asked to be 'not protected against INRs, I did not ask for a new improved dynamic advertising system which if I followed eBay's recommended % would cost me ANOTHER 20% of each sale.  I did not ask for my impressions/sales to plummet in July.  What I did ask for or dare I say it expect is decent customer service, not having to jump through hoops, not having to spend 100s of hours jumping pointlessly through said hoops.  I did not expect to have to open a new account and wait and wait so I can add more listings and build up to top rated.  I did not expect that account to be banned within 20 mins of opening for zero valid reason.

eBay currently is not fit for purpose.  It's a disgrace and now with ETSY making headline news at the BBC maybe eBay should be next.

I loved last year during the promised not promised INR shambles I got the 'you are putting the community at risk' email.  The irony is not lost on me with that one.  It's eBay putting the community and sellers at risk each and every day and getting away with it time after time.

But yes you are right.. there is no reason for me to feel powerless, I feel completely in control of my selling experience at eBay and trust them to have myself and my business' best interests at heart.  Mmmmm

[lord_and_lady_m]

Haha  a figment of the global imagination 🤣

[oceanartsnorthdevon]

I think in this instance when so many sellers are experiencing the same major problem (not just the UK) then it is correct to assume the issue is with Ebay and it is not the other usual patterns like seasonal, cost of living etc which most of us are aware and can spot the trends, these are not so drastic and immediate.  The last time I remember experiencing something similar to this was when they first launched the promoted listings and sales more or less stopped overnight.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

My impressions are up massively since Saturday however page view are not rising with them so I can only presume Ebay is adding a shed load of promoted listing items to the description page of items which doesn't really help anyone imho. It just creates chaos and confusion on an item page.

[wakeson]

This is taking the p### a bit !!! 

Impressions up 50.62% and sales up 11.21%......this is a joke....eBay is playing a game, its fiddiling something, i miss the era were you had to really work at a listing to get it to the top, non of this promoted BS, totally ripping everyone off, and stay away form the promoted advanced, its rigged in a big way...