topic Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports in Selling

Ebay pulling traffic reports

saarzi — Sat, 09 May 2015 13:40:15 GMT

Just a general chat!

RE: Ebay pulling traffic reports.. I know we already know this, but I was just reading some recent news stories on Ebay recently.

Some interesting comments in them.

ALL the articles I read from the various sites/ writers (from Ecommerce to Forbes to marketwatch) suggested pulling traffic reports could possibly* be a way for Ebay to hide wrong doing against small sellers / blackouts / invisible listings (theyve already admitted more or less to throttling, which is different) etc. All suggest the reports available possibly* clearly show evidence for this type of activity. Obviously. But was a little amazed at how widespread it was being talked about in the media, particularly in market watch sites.

Most are strongly suggesting sellers to print off and keep ALL reports they possibly can, for as far back as they possibly can, probably in liew of action against Ebay in the future.

Save, save ,save, print print print before its all removed forever.

Also been reading up in the finance sites, and theres plenty about Ebay underperforming significantly. They are comparing the whole of Ebay, not just the small sellers, to the sector, so when it comes to us, we are doing even worse than reported.

Sometimes I think you only hear the bad stuff on forums like this, so I dont take much heed. But financial reports and media reports are heavily supporting the negative thinking here.

I wouldnt be at all suprised if we hear talk of a sell off or take over in the future if they cant increase the traffic significantly and lay rest to corruption rumours and reform dodgy business policies over the next finacial year. Just putting this here so that in 2 years time I can say.. "see... told ya!" Lol

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

saarzi — Sat, 09 May 2015 13:43:38 GMT

oh was inspired to read up considering my listiings appeared to be completely invisible for the past few days. Almost zero views over 230 listings, right after 5 days of a crazy amount of sales. Again, strange traffic and sales behaviour that no other site on the internet experiences.

Print those traffic and sales reports, as far back as you can go - ALL of them!

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

cq_tech — Sat, 09 May 2015 14:10:48 GMT

I think the writing was on the wall the moment Paypal and eBay announced their split. Paypal is, and has been an extremely profitable company and had been propping up eBay's dwindling profits for at least a couple of years and it was really starting to hurt Paypal's bottom line as well.

Once Paypal are out of the equation, and the truth about the endemic internal corruption becomes common knowledge, eBay will crash and burn at a much faster rate than it is already. At eBay's current rate of deterioration, I can't see it surviving much beyond the 2 to 3 years that you suggest above.

No company can survive the amount of greed, mismanagement and corruption that has been endemic in the top levels of eBay's management for the past several years, and even the faithful are now turning their backs on eBay in sheer disgust, while buyers and sellers are deserting the place in their ever-increasing droves (myself included).

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

clarry100 — Sat, 09 May 2015 19:21:17 GMT

For the many reasons frequently discussed on these forums we have begun selling on other venues now. We would not have needed to do this if we felt comfortable with EBay. But we believe they will implode in the near term and we need to have a viable exit strategy in place now. It's early days yet but our other venues are showing some promise that makes us raise our eyebrows and say hmm should have done this earlier than we have.

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

Anonymous — Sat, 09 May 2015 22:13:47 GMT

clarry100, what other venues are you using

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

clarry100 — Sat, 09 May 2015 23:13:21 GMT

I will get a slap from the mods for mentioning specific names on here.

We have launched our own web site, Facebook Page and E**Y shop. Sounds a bit like the name Betsy really.

We tried QS but never got a single sale on there in 6+ months so gave that one away.

There are very encouraging signs in the first 2-weeks to 1-month of operations.

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

saarzi — Sun, 10 May 2015 01:58:46 GMT

Im only starting out really, so im luck im not in deep enough to need an exit strategy... selling clothes on Ebay was really just so I can learn. Im not interested in clothes.

I just opened an E shop like yours two nights ago.
I really want to get into the big A jungle and have them do all my shipping.. Straight from supplier to A. Sounds ideal to me. No worrying about shipping or storing stock.
And im creating my own website that will have a store, as well as advertising etc.
My aim is to travel full time, so my income needs to come from associated online businesses so im free to move as much as I want.

Its a shame about Ebay, but I really think it has passed the point of no return for them.

On the upside, theres so much opportunity out there, small sellers really dont need to worry if they get out there, create an exit strategy and move to other platforms. Its not hard, just takes a little work.

I think Ebay are arrogant enough to think they are all we have.

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

saarzi — Sun, 10 May 2015 01:59:28 GMT

Clearly, writing shorter posts is something I need to work on. Lol

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

i-love-my-sheep — Sun, 10 May 2015 03:15:30 GMT

@gtx305 wrote:
Clearly, writing shorter posts is something I need to work on. Lol

Ya reckon? Have you seen some of mine? 😄

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

myiipreciousones — Sun, 10 May 2015 03:52:49 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
clarry100, what other venues are you using

I love your post and research GTX, it seems the implosion is inevitable.

I have been using a new Aussie site that is just opened only a few months and

getting plenty of traffic and some good results for such a young site, their support is excellent

and they seem to be at least trying hard to create a good place for sellers, likewise I might get

a slap but meh it is a forum for sharing so the site is (swapmeet.net.au) have a look there and

share it with everyone so it grows:)

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

thecatspjs — Sun, 10 May 2015 06:26:32 GMT

I subscribe to inkfrog to list from as well as provide reports and real-time information on traffic.

The service was once able to record most if not all of the views recorded - however with the advent of mobile phones only a portion of views are now able to captured by this service, due to descriptions being buried on the phone app, with many buyers not even reading them.

Nonetheless, the data on visitors that is captured is highly useful and confirms to me that my eBay traffic patterns, are not particularly unusual as far as I can see. The data includes ISP details, browser used, device type, location of viewer, exact times of listing views etc

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

expanded_perceptions — Sun, 10 May 2015 06:33:49 GMT

@gtx305 wrote:
Just a general chat!

RE: Ebay pulling traffic reports.. I know we already know this, but I was just reading some recent news stories on Ebay recently.
Some interesting comments in them.

ALL the articles I read from the various sites/ writers (from Ecommerce to Forbes to marketwatch) suggested pulling traffic reports could possibly* be a way for Ebay to hide wrong doing against small sellers / blackouts / invisible listings (theyve already admitted more or less to throttling, which is different) etc. All suggest the reports available possibly* clearly show evidence for this type of activity. Obviously. But was a little amazed at how widespread it was being talked about in the media, particularly in market watch sites.

Most are strongly suggesting sellers to print off and keep ALL reports they possibly can, for as far back as they possibly can, probably in liew of action against Ebay in the future.

Save, save ,save, print print print before its all removed forever.

Also been reading up in the finance sites, and theres plenty about Ebay underperforming significantly. They are comparing the whole of Ebay, not just the small sellers, to the sector, so when it comes to us, we are doing even worse than reported.

Sometimes I think you only hear the bad stuff on forums like this, so I dont take much heed. But financial reports and media reports are heavily supporting the negative thinking here.

I wouldnt be at all suprised if we hear talk of a sell off or take over in the future if they cant increase the traffic significantly and lay rest to corruption rumours and reform dodgy business policies over the next finacial year. Just putting this here so that in 2 years time I can say.. "see... told ya!" Lol

It is strange you say this, because this was my gut reaction on hearing the news in last weeks thread! No question in my mind that it is to hide traffic and throttling, too coincidental that it happens when there has been a lot more talk on this recently. I was also going to suggest like you, that people download the reports before it does happen, may just be the evidence needed in future.

But kudos, for the research done!!!!

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

expanded_perceptions — Sun, 10 May 2015 06:38:06 GMT

@myiipreciousones wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
clarry100, what other venues are you using
I love your post and research GTX, it seems the implosion is inevitable.

I have been using a new Aussie site that is just opened only a few months and
getting plenty of traffic and some good results for such a young site, their support is excellent
and they seem to be at least trying hard to create a good place for sellers, likewise I might get
a slap but meh it is a forum for sharing so the site is (swapmeet.net.au) have a look there and
share it with everyone so it grows:)

Not sure how much traffic it is actually getting? But I certainly welcome these new sites and hope at least one of them take off! I have listed some items over there, and to be honest items appear to be viewed early and then nothing or trickle views the longer they are listed. Happy to just list and wait and see to be honest, but at the moment the site is very much in its infancy, perhaps with the upcoming advertising it may raise the profile needed?

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

clarry100 — Sun, 10 May 2015 07:47:48 GMT

We went and had a look at this new site today.

Sent them some questions about managing multi-variation listings which we rely heavily on.

Currently they have no way to list with variations at all. It would all have to be done in messaging.

They also have a 5x picture limit on a listing which is hard for us to work with.

But you can link to a service such as photobucket from a little bit of HTML code embedded in the description field.

Then you can have virtulally unlimited pictures in the description field.

They answered our queries within 1-hour too on mother's day. So that in itself is impressive.

They did say that they are working furiously to add this functionality in as they have had a lot of requests for it.

They also said that they are seeing a very high number of disgruntled ex-ebay sellers moving across to their platform.

There is only one other seller listing in our particular category at the moment.

So we thought we might put up a few popular items and see how they go.

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

saarzi — Sun, 10 May 2015 10:54:45 GMT

Do your inkfrog traffic reports match the Ebay ones? I do look at the Ebay reports, but never really trusted them.

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

arlottstreetstation — Sun, 10 May 2015 12:03:43 GMT

I totally agree with everything you say. But IMHO I think it may be the beginning of a new Era of problems as the Architect of all of the trouble begins to spread the poison to PayPal.

So far PayPal have always been fairly reasonable to deal with apart from their 21 Day Holds & 180 Day Returns Policy... I'm now wondering what they will be in 12 months time...

The thing that constantly amazes me is why the Shareholders haven't deposed him. Surely by now it must be evident to all that the future, as it stands, holds nothing but ruin.

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

i-love-my-sheep — Sun, 10 May 2015 12:20:09 GMT

That's one of the many things I like about that place Clarry, they are open to any and all suggestions. They try and implement as many as they can. Sometimes it just takes a little while because they get overwhelmed.

I'm the only one in my category at the moment. I figured someone had to kick the category off, it may as well be me! I'm planning on putting a few more things on there, I just haven't got around to it yet. I've got the next 2 days off, I might look at putting a few new things on.

I think once the advertising campaign goes ahead things will pick up. I'm not planning on leaving eBay yet, but it doesn't hurt to have your eggs in a few baskets.

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

thecatspjs — Sun, 10 May 2015 12:22:58 GMT

@gtx305 wrote:
Do your inkfrog traffic reports match the Ebay ones? I do look at the Ebay reports, but never really trusted them.

I stopped looking at eBay traffic reports at the end of last year ... they have been broken for some time now IMO.

Incomplete and not reflective of actual listing views - ok to ascertain key word searches etc but not much else.

Re: Ebay pulling traffic reports

clarry100 — Sun, 10 May 2015 13:32:50 GMT

Yep Sheepie those are pretty much our thoughts as well. Free to give it a go. The more sellers that do list will help kick things along.
So you will see a selection of our stuff going up there soon too.
I particularly liked their responsiveness.