topic Re: ITEMS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCHES in Selling

ITEMS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCHES

vchatawa — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 08:53:29 GMT

My sales dropped dramatically in both ebay stores and somehow I noticed that my items are not appearing in searches, I have 2 Anchor stores and have around 2700 items in each store. We do have a sale here and there so at some point something must be appearing. I have been contacting ebay for 2 months now and at one point was told it was a IT problem but the last 2 times I have contacted them I was told I would get a response in 24-78 hours nothing has happened I am being ignored by them. We have been selling adult products for years now and are registered for such and use the correct ebay categories. I have noticed when searching for one product that none actually appear even though I would think other sellers would be listing the item so it may be a wide spread problem. Does anyone have a solution I'm at my wits end trying to get an answer from EBAY. Items show in my store but if a buyer searches a product it will not show.

Re: ITEMS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCHES

jellybirddesigns — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 09:18:05 GMT

Sales have become pretty poor for many sellers - there have definitely been a lot of complaints about visibility. I've had the same thing in my store - days and days without sales and zero international sales, which is completely different to how my store was in the years past.

I wouldn't even bother with customer service - they are useless. I think their stock standard answer is to blame the "IT department". In reality, there is no answer they can give you.

Actually, just wondering about it now, I think my sales have become poorer since we had to start filling in the additional item requirements. I did mine back around October last year and I can actually track my decrease in sales from November onwards. I've got a spread sheet which tells me my sales figures month on month and year on year and I can see that I am currently at 50% of what my sales were before November 2020.

I would be interested to know if others have noticed a decrease in their sales after filling in the item specifics.

Re: ITEMS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCHES

davewil1964 — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 09:24:03 GMT

My sales have decreased to pre-COVID levels since about November. Maybe something to do with COVID.

I have been filling in nugatory item specifics since last month and haven't noticed any effect on sales, which are traditionally slow in June. EOFY I imagine.

Re: ITEMS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCHES

digital*ghost — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 10:42:25 GMT

I searched for half a dozen of the items in your store (not even gonna thing about what my home page is gunna look like for a while 🤣), your stuff came up first on 2 of 6 searches, and didn't appear in the rest. It's affecting google search, by the looks of it, too - I searched the keywords from one of your listings followed by "ebay" and got links to US stores but not yours. 😕

I'm guessing this might have something to do with the new policy introduced in the US (announced in May), where they have withdrawn the adults only category, though their new policy mirrors our current one. Maybe they have "shadow-banned" some types of adult items - the new policy is scheduled to take effect July 15, so if there is any merit to this theory at all, things might start to change in around 3 weeks (this is definitely pure speculation on my part, though, they might be planning on phasing in other policies , an "NSFW" filter or something else entirely).

How often do you edit listings? Sometimes a phantom edit can force eBay to re-index the listing, but that's about the only trick I know of.

Re: ITEMS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCHES

jellybirddesigns — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 10:58:05 GMT

@davewil - interesting to see you also mention a drop in sales since November.

Looking over my figures, my 2020 EOFY sales were far higher than they are this year. It's only been since November 2020 that my sales are consistently between 50-70% lower.

I wonder if something happened to the Ebay/Cassini algorithm since November, although it could just be a coincidence.

Re: ITEMS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCHES

davewil1964 — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 11:06:58 GMT

My sales were 200% over average (and I have data going back a decade) between March and October last year. Since then they have dropped to 'normal' levels, so I haven't seen any material change.

Re: ITEMS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCHES

vchatawa — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 13:24:55 GMT

Hi, Items do not appear in searches at all, even when searching for the item number they will not show. Do your items show when searching for item numbers.

Re: ITEMS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCHES

davewil1964 — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 13:32:56 GMT

You are showing 2336 listings.

Is that correct? Do you have many thousands more?

Do you understand the new eBay adult listing policy?

Re: ITEMS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCHES

vchatawa — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 13:37:52 GMT

Ok thanks for your input, I can tell that it isn't only my listings that are not appearing as some of the items are sold by numerous other sellers yet nothing shows at all in some cases. It is frustrating as we are not selling enough to cover fees at the moment. I will give editing existing products ago but even items just added are not appearing in searches.

Re: ITEMS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCHES

jellybirddesigns — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 14:40:08 GMT

I'm just wondering if you still need to be paying Anchor store fees.

On the new Managed Payments system, I think that everyone gets 250,000 listings per month, so you could drop down to a basic store and save a fortune. Perhaps even combine shops.

The only things would be to check if there are any categories which are excluded from the additional benefit, for example, adult items.

Can anyone clarify about the listing volume as I cannot find it in the help section and my own listing quantity in my seller shows 600 available.

Re: ITEMS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCHES

curraone — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 20:20:24 GMT

Managed payments gives 250,000 free listings, and the counters no longer move.

Read our full terms for fees when listing an item

All sellers with an Australian registration address are entitled to 250,000 free insertion fees per month for items listed in auction-style or fixed price format in most categories, including relisted items and listings that are ended early.

https://www.ebay.com.au/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/selling-fees-without-ebay-store?id=4822

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Re: ITEMS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCHES

x3n0m — Thu, 24 Jun 2021 01:35:38 GMT

I have noticed that in the past if you have an item for sale on ebay with various keywords set the item would appear in search no matter how few keywords were used when searching for the item .. but there is a now a problem:

Say for example you have an item called:

"pentax 50mm f2 lens" ..

in the past this would have showed in search results when you searched for "lens" .. now there is no guarantee it will show in any search where you search/filter for "lens" .. to have a better chance of finding that lens you will now need 2 of the keywords .. eg "pentax lens" may be required to have that item show in search .. it all depends how many items are in that "search" .. so if there are lots of "pentax lens" results your item may still not appear in search .. but if you search for "pentax 50mm lens" or "pentax f2 lens" then it will probably appear .. and yes it is a major problem for many many ebay sellers now .. depending on things like "item specifics", dashboard status, how new or old your selling account is .. best match default standing and probably what subscriptions you have or which ebay promotions you are using (eg ebay plus etc) .. even something vague like postage method (express or regular) or handling times comes into it, business account or personal? etc .. to to put it simply: it is now a lot harder for buyers to find your stuff .. tempted to use ebay promotions now are we? ..

this could be the least of our problems as "they" are still mucking around with the glitchy ebay selling console (which changes in behaviour by the day or minute to minute) (yet we still can not verify our phone numbers??!! plus a whole heap of other problems) and obviously "they" are not finished tweaking cassinni yet (15+ years later) .. anyway suffice to say that cassinni is heavily rigged to favour the well-heeled/connected and "little" to do with "best match" .. cassinni and best match default is a confusing and corrupt "hot mess" that has single handedly decimated ebay yet "they" persist with it ..

marketing 101 of all multinational monopoly practices businesses dictates that marketing credentials trumps common sense .. anyway I haven't got the energy to report the bugs and logic errors any more .. just go to "chat" when money is "missing" following one of their glitches now .. which I have to do again now as got caught up in the ebay voucher/credit card glitch which immediately cancels you ebay purchase after credit card payment while using an ebay voucher (They insisted that I use a credit card to get the voucher .. I feel so used) .. and then ebay holds onto your credit card money (for how long? .. has been a week now) .. maybe one day ebay will get their ducks in a row or collapse .. the way it is looking right now I lean towards the later theory .. this is probably what happens when all/most of your coding is outsourced to "shelf company" contractors based in tax havens who outsource to sub-contractors in the third world who do not speak the same language etc .. creative accountancy will only get you so far ..

as for the OP .. I am not sure how I could advise them .. it would seem that dumping the anchor store would be the solution (right now) but will probably make the search visibility problem worse for them too .. all depending on how cassinni has been rejiggered this week/month etc .. it kinda gets back to selling down inventory whilst the sales are declining and not tooling up for a declining market .. until ebay can breathe vitality back into this steaming mess I am thinking many lesser heeled ebay clientele will see less sales due to their item visibility "rating" in search .. and no it is not just best match default it is not appearing in .. all searches, recently listed. ending soon, lowest price etc etc .. up till this happened ebay was "decreeing" a lot of my stuff is/as "irrelevant" and hiding it in the irrelevant link but now much is hidden completely unless specifically searched for with multiple keywords I used in my item listings heading or item specifics or if customers browse my other listings and find it that way .. unless using multiple keywords in search etc etc ..

hope that all made sense ..

Re: ITEMS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCHES

lynne8221 — Thu, 24 Jun 2021 10:41:14 GMT

Yes, May & June my sales have dropped by 50% & I have been updating the item specifics as per requirements. My items are books so the requirements aren't so many.

I don't know what the answer is to the drop in sales & whether it's coincidence about the requirements or other factors are in play. Keeping my fingers crossed that sales will pick up, but they're even lower, at this stage, than last month.

Re: ITEMS NOT SHOWING IN SEARCHES

lynne8221 — Thu, 24 Jun 2021 10:46:23 GMT

Like @davewil, between March & November 2020 my sales were way over what they usually were due to Covid & everybody wanting to buy books (or so it seemed). But from December to April they remained at least 50% higher than pre-covid months so I was a happy little camper, so it's only May & June that have crashed & burned!!