eBay

Anonymous · ‎09-04-2019

In our ongoing effort to optimize the visibility of Promoted Listings placements, we’re shifting to a mix of promoted and non-promoted listings at the top of search results. Now a mixture of promoted and non-promoted listings will be eligible to appear in the top search rankings.

What qualifies as the "top of search results" - the top 3 spots? Top 10 spots?

How many promoted listings will appear on the first page of search results?

dtexley3 · ‎09-04-2019

Also, will this continue the current behavior where listings that are an exact match to the search criteria get pushed to the second, third or 4 page of returned results?

(FYI, I know people who no longer use eBay to find items because of this behavior.)

Member of the Grumpy Old Man crew

gwent22 · ‎09-04-2019

Thanks for your question!

Instead of fixed top slots in search (most recently, slots 1, 4, and 5), the top 5 slots in search will be a dynamic mix of both organic and promoted listings. While ad rates are certainly a factor that is considered for Promoted Listings placement, other factors that determine the performance of your listing include listing quality, relevancy, and more. Listings will be shown based on which listing ranks higher: the organic or the promoted listing. This will help balance visibility for both promoted and organic listings, diversify the buyer experience, and help the overall health of the eBay marketplace. The remainder of the search results will maintain fixed slots for promoted listings.

eBay is continuously improving the buyer experience onsite and increasing the relevance of our search results to highlight high-quality listings by giving them greater visibility on site. Our priority is to balance our buyer and seller experience to drive positive buying and selling experiences, which means that the mix of fixed and dynamic slots may change over time as we test.

bargainbigly · ‎09-04-2019

@gwent22

Thanks for clarifying that.

Although many of us already advertise across a multitude of online platforms, I can definitely see why some sellers see this as a concern.

Mr Wenig stated earlier in the year regarding promoted listings:

First-party advertising business enables sellers to trade-off a bit of margin for a bit of velocity.

Theoretically, that sounds great. But the reality is that eBay's traffic is in decline, so rather than trading a bit of margin for a bit more velocity, sellers are getting the same (likely less) velocity while handing a substantially higher percentage of the sale to eBay.

In other words, we're all getting less and paying more.

If traffic her and GMV was increasing, great! But it's not.

Does management have any plans to address the declining traffic and declining GMV?

Thanks

dasarock · ‎09-04-2019

@Anonymous

sounds like the promoted and natural listings both being seen now is an ebay created and generated **bleep** shoot with worse odds than a roulette table.

ohgollythrift · ‎09-05-2019

@gwent22 wrote:
Thanks for your question!

Instead of fixed top slots in search (most recently, slots 1, 4, and 5), the top 5 slots in search will be a dynamic mix of both organic and promoted listings. While ad rates are certainly a factor that is considered for Promoted Listings placement, other factors that determine the performance of your listing include listing quality, relevancy, and more. Listings will be shown based on which listing ranks higher: the organic or the promoted listing. This will help balance visibility for both promoted and organic listings, diversify the buyer experience, and help the overall health of the eBay marketplace. The remainder of the search results will maintain fixed slots for promoted listings.

eBay is continuously improving the buyer experience onsite and increasing the relevance of our search results to highlight high-quality listings by giving them greater visibility on site. Our priority is to balance our buyer and seller experience to drive positive buying and selling experiences, which means that the mix of fixed and dynamic slots may change over time as we test.

I'm concerned about the search results duplication update. If now only either the promoted or regular listing will be shown to the buyer what happens if the buyers have an ad block extension installed on their computer? Will ebay be able to detect this? Otherwise some people won't see certain listings at all any time the promoted listing is chosen. This is a huge negative for someone who promotes most of their items.