Impressions decrease - Potential reasons?

[liamtoretail]

Hi Everyone,

Ive noticed over the past 2 weeks that my views and impressions  have dropped drastically. I was getting well over 150 views per day and now I’m getting less than 80 views per day and a lot less sales. Also impressions have dropped massively too.

I’ve seen this mentioned on quite a few other threads on here but just wanted to share my own thoughts and see what others think.

Ive noticed at the top of my active listings page there are 2 messages trying to encourage me to up my ad promotion rates, I’m wondering if this has something to do with it? or a potential algorithm change? I refuse now to promote over 2% because of the high fees and because of the new promoted listings rule that came in.

It’s just really concerning has I’ve been working so hard on being consistent recently with my business, sourcing and listing every day and it seemed to be paying off then all of a sudden things have dropped drastically. Massively deflating and it just knocks your drive and energy. 

Any thoughts? Or suggestions? How’s everyone else feeling with regards to their EBAY shops at the moment?

Thanks 

[jonatjonatjonat]

You are in peak season heading up to Christmas.

youll likely find more items are being listed and many sellers may be increasing their ad rates to compete.

if you are not increasing ad rates, you will inevitably find a drop in impressions as eBay will prioritise those with higher ad rates.

[typo_lee · Accepted solution]

Everyone is experiencing a downturn. Its not just ebay either. Our amazon store is 50% down on last year. There is a really concerning economic situation in the UK right now which I am sure you are aware about. People are saving for gifts for the festive season and the overall christmas spend. There is a lot of people skint out there right now but there are also wealthier people but the divide is now massive.

[liamtoretail]

I completely agree with you with regards to the economic situation having an effect. I can see the budget at the end of November having further negative effect on it too if they go through with the rumoured VAT threshold lowering and tax rises.

I guess as EBAY sellers we've just got to stick at what were doing in the hope that things turn around next year and the economy improves, its a long road though.

Just out of interest have you changed anything on EBAY to drive more sales to your EBAY store? I'm really not wanting to increase my AD rates but might have to in order to try get more sales

[liamtoretail]

That makes sense. Its difficult with regards to the ad rates, I'm currently working on tight margins so If I increased my AD rates to say 10% + it would eat into them margins quite considerably.

I've tried other ways to try increase exposure, all my listings are premium listings and I've been listing every day in the hope that this helps with regards to the algorithm.

[typo_lee]

Yes did an experiment last week. Applied ebays suggested ad rates to my listings and guess what?? Nothing changed. Not one bit. So they are back to 5% now.

[liamtoretail]

That's quite interesting. Good that you tried it out though to see what happened .I was considering increasing my AD rates but don't think I will now to be honest, its just giving potential profit away.

Some of the suggested AD rates on listings are between 13-16%. It's just not sustainable with regards to my profit margins. One thing that I've noticed as helped though over the past few months as been running a promotion 10% off coupon, that's helped drive sales up massively up until the last couple of weeks.

[blackcatbooksuk]

I am 46% up on impressions but 22% down on items sold, 37% down on click through rate, 11% down on listing views. 

Weird.

[jokers_toybox]

No Ads, No Promotions, not listed anything for 5 days

Impressions up 17%

I just dunno what to think anymore in regards to selling and using the system to it's best.

[liamtoretail]

That’s strange isnt it. Have you had an increase in sales too?

I totally agree, there seems to be no right way to do it. I always feel consistency is the key but even that’s not been working much over the past couple of weeks 

[the_book_seekers]

I've been watching my views and impressions and I've noticed that as the month goes on they slowly disappear. I know ebay blocks views generated by bots, but I thought these were never counted. The impressions and views drop over a number of days and I roughly lose 10 to 20% on both. Added to the fact that my traffic figures are a day out its not very good at all. 

[jokers_toybox]

Not that I have really noticed, stayed pretty consistent considering I wasn't really listing anything new