eBay

pokeboxuk · ‎23-04-2025

For the past 10 days my sales have dropped 90%. I thought it may just be a quirk of the time of year, but it appears I may have been naively paying eBay to list items that it's not actually showing to buyers.

And I don't mean not showing at the top of search results, I mean not showing at all. A regular buyer has messaged me asking where all of my listings have gone as he often buys the same items and can't find them. He's not looking through search, he's looking through my shop page and his watched items. The listings simply do not exist for him (and presumably for others too, given the abrupt and consistent 90% drop off in sales).

I have made £113 of sales in the last week, and none from my regular selling items, which typically make up £100 to £200 per day usually. I have had 3 days without any sales in the last 2 years. They were all this week. I understand peaks and troughs, and usually would've put it down to that if not for being asked where my listings have gone. Either this is an error or a very novel approach to getting me to increase my ad rate. But either way, is there anything that actually binds eBay to show the listings I am paying them to show? And how can I prove if they are or not? It would certainly be in eBay's interests to hide a seller's listings for a few weeks to get them to increase their ad rates.

ile136yz · ‎25-04-2025

I've had a look at your site - it is showing 72 lots on 25th April. Hope this info helps.

moonlight-rhapsody · ‎25-04-2025

I did a search for a couple of your items.

The "Harry Potter DVD bundle" came top of the Best Match search results. When I looked for it under the "Low-High Price" option, it was listed but the prices weren't in the correct order. Some higher priced items were listed above cheaper ones. Par for the course now with ebay 😣

When I searched for the "Pokemon Gift Box", even though I'd selected "Low-High Price" option, I was shown "we've streamlined your search results to show you the best listings", followed by "Picks for you under £37". More 😣😣😣 They're control freaks, they really are.

Anyway make of this what you will. I wouldn't be surprised if ebay had deliberately hid your listings from your regular customer for reasons best known to themselves. Nothing they do would surprise me any more.

pokeboxuk · ‎25-04-2025

Thank you both for checking this out. I have 113 listings with stock so only 72 showing is strange at the very least. I guess I just wanted validation that I wasn't going completely mad. Sales today are marginally up (still less than £50, and none of the items that were my typical best sellers). My previous best sellers are mostly all bundle type listings, and given eBay now gets significantly higher fees from private sellers selling individual items under £10, I can't help but feel that they're hiding bundle type listings from business sellers to direct people towards much more profitable (for them) low-value single item listings.

It feels as though the only instruction they provide to their listings placement AI is "do whatever maximises the amount of fees we receive. Don't worry about what the buyer actually wants and definitely don't worry about buyer or seller retention".