eBay

blacktopautoparts · ‎04-05-2024

As of March 3rd we have noticed that our promoted listing impressions have dropped more than half. It has been a gradual decline over the course of March. We use the promoted listings automated. Nothing has really changed on our account. We list everyday, also update old listings, have promotions on, promoted listings are above the trending ad rate, run the store newsletter, top rated seller with no defects and we also offer good old free shipping. Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same issue. We sell a variety of used auto parts with roughly 14000+ items in our store. I think that something has also changed with the promoted listings and fear that the off site ads may have taken prominence at this point. As much as I have spoken with managers at eBay CS, they keep telling me that is not the case, but it is hard to believe some when you always get the wrong information from rep to rep.

I know that the economy is not helping matters and taxes are due in a few weeks for those that owe, but even in years past it has not been this bad. Our accountant also did mention that people are not getting as much back since they received that money in their paychecks and those that are getting refunds, those refunds were coming back a little later than the usual. There is a whole host of things going on for sure that add to this.

I was comparing YOY for March 2023 vs. March 2024 numbers and we are down a good 30% down from last year at this time. I understand that 2024 is different than we were at with 2023 from an economical standpoint. I don't even count the covid years numbers at all, because those were an anomaly or blip on the radar with some over inflated numbers due to people having all this extra spending money. I look at my 2019 numbers as a reference point and even partial point of 2020 before the madness started.

I have been told by eBay management that eBay Motors is down quite a bit from last year. They are not sure as to why it is so down.

@zamo-zuan are you guys experiencing the same issue? I know we have spoken about these kind of issues in the past.

Another thing that I have noticed, and nobody over at eBay will admit if our account is in some kind of beta, but my iPhone app has changed UI now about 3 times in the last few weeks, while my wifes and daughters, since they have their own accounts are still the much older version.

Not sure what is going on here, but usually March-May and August is when sales are really good for auto parts and they are in the dumpster.

liawri-75 · ‎04-05-2024

I don't have promoted ads but if you go online to the Resell influencers it seems those sponsored ads is not worth it.

I know as a buyer, I normally DO NOT buy from sponsored ads because I scroll through and find the cheapest and best deals, and sponsored MAY NOT/or MAY be the best deal. I normally buy supplies.

blacktopautoparts · ‎04-05-2024

I agree with you. A lot of these sponsored ads are a real problem on how they surface. When I do searches in general, just like you, they tend to surface the most expensive crap at the top of the search. It ends up hurting search, but then also for those looking for a good seller/deal. Promoted listings suck, but we have learned to adapt to them as sellers and if you do not use them, you will barely be visible to make sales. What is even worse is that eBay had triple downed on promoted listings where they now have the PLS/PLA and then they added both the Store and Off Site Ads. They expect you to also use those too. How much can they squeeze out of someone at the end of the day on ads. PLS/PLA used to also be the offsite ads, but now they are more for just the search on eBay. What I think is hilarious is that I had a rep tell me they split these out to create the offsite ads, because customers wanted to know where their offsite traffic was coming from. I turn around and tell the rep that this is **bleep** and if eBay IT wanted to give us that data with the PLS/PLA, they can, but they just created another way to make money off of the seller and muddy up their site. Everything that I have heard from many reps and managers, the off site ads has very minimal use. If you had issues getting people to use PLS, what says they will use PLA and/or Off site ads.

I don't know what they have done here in general, but with our economy being in such bad shape, I don't think that eBay can afford to keep doing this crazy stuff they have been. If we are not selling and making money, they are not making money. It is time they stop with all of the changes and try to do more to get traffic back to the site and rebuild their brand. The problem is the board and upper management is so worried about different goals that at the end of the day to not help the site, but help their pockets.

redlinear · ‎04-05-2024

@blacktopautoparts
You mention the economy. Not sure how long you've done this, but when the economy is bad, our sales increase considerably. Always have.
I see compatibility is filled out as well as Hollander interchange part number in item specifics in your listings.
I almost think e-link listed or something like that. BUT, I look at your listings, descriptions, and sales....and it makes me think y'all are listing one at a time.
As opposed to an item, with a picture of the whole vehicle, no description, and.....no sales.
Basically, to me, it looks like you're doing it right.

We had 1,000 listings on one account a few years ago. Averaged 10 sales a day.
All the way to 10,000.....average 10 sales a day.
Split that 10,000 listings between two accounts. (5,000 each).
Sales now average 20 per day.

I have several theories and all revolve around when items are seen during a search result. And where.
Example: I have a car that has four fender emblems. Two on the left, two on the right.
If I search that vehicle/fender emblem. I was seeing all four (best match).
I then filter to Used and Lowest$ 1st. I lose three emblems in search results.
I find one down under "results matching fewer words" (but the words are still exact match of my search query).
The other two emblems? Probably on page 10 or something....I have no idea.

Seems whatever controls the search results gives everybody a chance, every so often. And everybody gets hidden, every so often.
The sales ups and downs appear to have more to do with search results than any other factor.

redlinear · ‎04-05-2024

@blacktopautoparts
Oh, and promoted seems to work just like normal listings.
They start out hot, then taper off as time goes on. Then all of the sudden hot again.
Then, if promoted, they get a boost.
But, that tapers off again rather quickly.
Then you increase the promotion %, and hot again...but not for long.

blacktopautoparts · ‎04-05-2024

We've been on eBay for 21+ years. We started off selling collectibles in the early days such as action figures, DVD's, Blu-ray's, toys, magazines, etc. Then about 8 years ago we started selling used auto parts. We have seen it all throughout the years on the platform from the ups and downs. This appears to be something new that has started recently with the huge drop in impressions. We also had a few hundred collectibles on this account and I have slowly been moving them off of this account to a specific account just for collectibles.

In terms of the listings, we have everything filled out to the brim on these from the eBay compatibility chart, we are a Hollander member and used to used eLink many years ago (eLink sucks, lol!), but dropped it for a much faster internal process. We still use Powerlink for our interchange data. All of our item specifics are filled out the best that we can. We try to get 10+ pictures per listing on white backgrounds and even have been going through this huge inventory we bought 2 years ago to re-picture some of the stuff because the images were not that great at the time from the persons account. We have almost perfected the listing process on our end. We were also a MyFitment client well before eBay bought them.

The issue that I am seeing here all of a sudden is going from selling 40-50 items a day, all the way down to 20-25 which is quite the drop.

You are correct about the search. It has been wonky for years, and I know last year they made a change that affected everyone. I think they made another change recently where you can't find anything just like how you have described.

That is the crazy part as you mention having to split our accounts into lets say 2 accounts to garner up sales. I know many that have had to do that so they can increase their amount of sales.

redlinear · ‎04-05-2024

@blacktopautoparts
I don't know when we got rid of hollander, been a while. (Wyse 50 terminals on dial-up is what we had)..LOL
During any poor economy, our sales always increased. eBay or no eBay.
Your listings look good. Unlike most "big" salvage yards. Which, explains your sales that I can see.
Most "quick list" salvage yards have thousands more listings, and they only sell one or two things a day.
Your sold listings % compared to the amount of listing you have running is really good. That means you're doing your listings right.
We've noticed some really strange trends when it comes to sales and search.
My locations are dated. If I list 30 items today, and put them all in one location? At some point around 90ish days? I'll get to work one morning and be pulling several un-related parts out of that one location to ship.
It's not a coincidence either. Every day most of my trips to pull parts for shipment, is going to one location.
I miss the old days. LOL

redlinear · ‎04-05-2024

@blacktopautoparts
Check out eBay item number 386882988682 (compatibilities and item specifics)
We may have to resort to similar tactics if eBay doesn't do something about search pretty quick.

blacktopautoparts · ‎04-05-2024

Thank you! I really appreciate the kind words. Since I've been on the platform way long before doing the parts, we have been trying to be consistent with our listing structure. I hate where some yards just take a picture of the door mirror on the car and then its all interior parts of the car. On the flipside though, I do understand as to why these yards are doing this due to resources and trying to get items listed. Then you go into the listing and then there is barely anything filled out.

Hollander is good for data, but even some of their data is not accurate at all. The scary part is that this data feeds into the eBay compatibility chart and most of the time things are not correct.

We have also noticed some weird things going on with the trends from the traffic, sales, and the promoted listings reports.

I did check out the eBay item number 386882988682, and wow, they are messed up. The other thing that I have noticed too is that search is terrible when I did a few keywords and the full title. Then I looked at the item specifics, there is quite the keyword stuffing in there.

blacktopautoparts · ‎04-06-2024

Has anyone else been having this issue?

zamo-zuan · ‎04-07-2024

We experienced that LAST YEAR. And it has never recovered. Since basically 1st quarter 2023 onward, things had drastically slowed and never recovered.

Motors traditionally peaks after tax time around April. As of last year, that trend is still happening OUTSIDE of eBay, but eBay itself is just a flatline all year.

It's quite clear this isn't a Motors issue when you look at what is happening with competing listings, and the changes in traffic for the most competitive sellers.

Also ad investment does nothing, it's just an on-off switch, as long as you're investing enough to be "on" is the best you can do (even if "on" is a trash amount of traffic compared to what we used to have). But investing MORE certainly doesn't improve things. If the switch is on, that's all you have.

eBay has stopped assisting with these types of issues. They had reached out to me and I'd given them a list of reproduceable issues with evidence, and they had checked with me to see if they can call me if they have any questions, then ghosted me. No longer even responding when I reach out. Which tells me that most likely, they aren't able to fix it, and can't put anything in writing.

I've all but given up on eBay.

blacktopautoparts · ‎04-15-2024

Hi @zamo-zuan, sorry I didn't see your message till now as I didn't get an alert, which is odd. I remember last year when we were having this same issue, but it seems to have gotten way much worse this year than what it was last year.

I agree that Motors starts taking off in March and then slows down a bit later in May, and then starts to pickup again through September when we hit a lull again. While it slows down, it is nothing like what we are seeing now. Sure people do not have as much disposal income as they had a year ago, but this is quite wild to see. I will not disagree with anyone on the economy and where things are at right now, but us Motors sellers should not be in such bad shape, but it appears that we are as even a manager at eBay provided me with the GMV percentage for Motors a year ago when compared to this year, and they are down quite a bit.

I have noticed the same thing with the tests that I have done over the last several years with regards to investing more with the promoted listings. It is like someone controls the narrative with an on/off switch and it depends on the day or week that you will be "ON" or the week where you will be "OFF".

Just like you, we are top 5-10 in many parts of the parts & accessories sub categories we sell in and it is wild to think that if we are doing this bad, what are other, even larger sellers doing?

Tell me about it. eBay has totally stopped assisting with any reported issues like you have mentioned, at this point they do not want to hear from us anymore. I've had to also start to really explore other avenues at this point to help make up for our losses on here.

chariot_badges · ‎04-15-2024

@blacktopautoparts wrote:
Has anyone else been having this issue?

I sell similar items to you.

While I do have a decade of experience with on line sales, most has been on Amazon and has been in books.

I've only been at it in Ebay for a year or two, and just learning to walk.

I've done LOT of testing those two years.

I've tested, shipping terms, picture quality and background colors, promotion and amounts, ending and selling similar, SEO optimized listing descriptions, and many more.

I believe that every store is different. Every product niche is different.

For MY store I think I have found a formulae that, while maybe not best for everyone, seems to be optimum for ME.

Though I am always making slight adjustments, and pokes to see if there's a reaction.

I've noticed an increase in volatility in sales ... in all the metrics really these last six months.

To a certain extent, I have to not worry about 'why', and just accept the 'what' and respond (if possible).

That said, I promote ... heavily. I spend, on average, $140 a month for an extra $1500 in sales. I will do that all day long, especially since the $140 doesn't come out of my pocket anyway. If it costs me $2 to advertise something, I add $2.50 to the price.

I recently raised shipping charges to my buyers by $1 to $4.95 to ship up to 4oz (which is 99%).

I am seriously thinking of running a test to see how $5.95 would be accepted.

zamo-zuan · ‎04-15-2024

@blacktopautoparts wrote:
Hi @zamo-zuan, sorry I didn't see your message till now as I didn't get an alert, which is odd. I remember last year when we were having this same issue, but it seems to have gotten way much worse this year than what it was last year.

I agree that Motors starts taking off in March and then slows down a bit later in May, and then starts to pickup again through September when we hit a lull again. While it slows down, it is nothing like what we are seeing now. Sure people do not have as much disposal income as they had a year ago, but this is quite wild to see. I will not disagree with anyone on the economy and where things are at right now, but us Motors sellers should not be in such bad shape, but it appears that we are as even a manager at eBay provided me with the GMV percentage for Motors a year ago when compared to this year, and they are down quite a bit.

I have noticed the same thing with the tests that I have done over the last several years with regards to investing more with the promoted listings. It is like someone controls the narrative with an on/off switch and it depends on the day or week that you will be "ON" or the week where you will be "OFF".

Just like you, we are top 5-10 in many parts of the parts & accessories sub categories we sell in and it is wild to think that if we are doing this bad, what are other, even larger sellers doing?

Tell me about it. eBay has totally stopped assisting with any reported issues like you have mentioned, at this point they do not want to hear from us anymore. I've had to also start to really explore other avenues at this point to help make up for our losses on here.

The most alarming part of Motors drop is that they have been heavily advertising during this time, and like to claim the category is seeing such growth.

Which makes me wondering if the statistics are even correct at all (among other reasons). Traditionally, when the traffic stats don't add up properly, the algorithm acts strange by not highlighting any of the top competitors in the category, and observable drops appear. This is what we've seen for over a year now.

How could it be that all the sellers in the country that have the best amount of stock/best prices of engine mounts do not have the highest visibility in the category anymore, across the board? If I check the top listings nowadays, it's smaller sellers who, based on pricing and ship location, are USING ONE OF THE TOP SELLERS TO DROPSHIP FOR THEM! Their prices are higher, their shipping time isn't as fast, and they are literally using the top sellers to offer their service. So how on earth do they have a top listing, instead of the seller they're using to ship their items whos listing is ~10% cheaper and offers faster ship time/better feedback/etc?

And it's quite telling when the market trends are still happening outside of eBay, but eBay doesn't show them. This means things are being suppressed by the algorithm somewhere.

"Just like you, we are top 5-10 in many parts of the parts & accessories sub categories we sell in and it is wild to think that if we are doing this bad, what are other, even larger sellers doing?"

Exactly! And it's kind of crazy that all of us sellers are thrown in to the same basket. The reason we're a top seller isn't because any of our listings are super popular anymore, it's because of the sheer amount of listings we have. But then, as mentioned above, we have people who even buy from us and use us to ship to the customer, and their listings (of our items) are somehow more popular than ours, despite being inferior in every way. If we're able to provide service for other sellers, why are we in the same basket as them nowadays? It makes no sense.

zamo-zuan · ‎04-15-2024

@chariot_badges wrote:
I've noticed an increase in volatility in sales ... in all the metrics really these last six months.
To a certain extent, I have to not worry about 'why', and just accept the 'what' and respond (if possible).

That said, I promote ... heavily. I spend, on average, $140 a month for an extra $1500 in sales. I will do that all day long, especially since the $140 doesn't come out of my pocket anyway. If it costs me $2 to advertise something, I add $2.50 to the price.

I recently raised shipping charges to my buyers by $1 to $4.95 to ship up to 4oz (which is 99%).
I am seriously thinking of running a test to see how $5.95 would be accepted.

This has sadly been the reality for us for years.

But this is building a bubble that will eventually burst. Because it's driving sellers from eBay to elsewhere, when the prices on eBay are skyrocketing. And the only one making out from this is eBay with higher profits... But is it really higher profits when they are losing buyers? It's short term gains for long term loss.

And the sad part is, despite finding what "works" for our stores, each year comes alongside more volatility, higher investment in promos, for lower sales.

"To a certain extent, I have to not worry about 'why', and just accept the 'what' and respond (if possible)."

Knowing why used to help - eBay USED to fix things. But for more than a year now, they have just ghosted rather than address the problems. Something changed for the worst in terms of their communication and support. Now we just have to accept it and try to work alongside it as best as we can.

A harsh truth? Our monthly average sales used to be 2.5x/250% what we're getting now before they started going overboard with the promotions. That's how much eBay has dropped. And no matter what we do - whether it's lower prices or increase our promo investment, that monthly average doesn't move. If we end up getting much more sales, once we hit our monthly average, traffic/sales just stop coming in...

Seeing how much of a decline has happened on eBay feels bad. It's certainly did a number on us as an eBay-based business. But when nothing we do moves the bar anymore, eBay is in the lead and not us, so what choice do we have other than watching as the ship sinks?