Competitors advertising throughout my stores' pages

[achronicyarnoholic]

As an eBay seller I have my eBay messages censored and run the risk of having my eBay Store suspended, should I try and give my customers my phone number, a non-eBay web address or any other form of non-eBay point of contact as eBay is paranoid about and determined to prevent any sales happening outside of eBay. And yet..... they happily use my Store to generate advertising revenue from direct competitors. Every single page in my Store (close to 2000 items) is littered with ads for competitors selling the same products as I am - thus taking my potential customers and directing them to a non-eBay sellers.

WHERE IS THE EQUITY IN THAT?????

Even putting Ad Blocker on, only eliminates some of those ads - they still appear throughout. I am paying the Store fees, the commission, the Paypal fees, operating within eBay's constraints and yet they have abandonned any effort to maximise my sales (and thus their revenue from me) in preference to sending my sales to a non-eBay competitor.  Compounding this appalling situation, is the obvious reduction in eBay's advertising on behalf of their site and their sellers. A few years ago, simply doing a Google or Yahoo search for 'knitting yarn' (my product) would have eBay at or around the top of page one of the search results. Now we are at least 2 pages in on such a search.

So we have eBay spending less on their sellers and collecting more from our competitors. Shame on you eBay and you will eventually get the demise you deserve.

[collect247]

I'm afraid it's just ebay's way of hitting 2,3,4 or more birds with just one stone.

And hear the sound of cashingcashing lol.

[achronicyarnoholic]

Why accept that? If you rented a bricks 'n mortar shop, would you accept your landlord putting big adverts in your window, on your facade, on your counter, advertising another shop elsewhere that sold the same goods as you sell? eBay is just an online version of renting a shop, except this landlord also creams it by taking a cut from all of our sales and payment transactions via Paypal. Not far removed from the practices of the major shopping centres and yet even they don't push the customers to shop elsewhere.

[digital*ghost]

You can't remove all advertising from your pages (it's actually in the user agreement, so in a nutshell by virtue of listing on the site, you agree to third-party advertising being placed on your listings), but you can reduce them. 

If you go to My eBay > Account > Marketing Tools > Promote Similar Items

Untick any boxes and other seller's items won't be cross-promoted on your pages (which also means your items won't be cross promoted on other seller's listings).

In the US, eBay has recently started reducing the amount of third party advertising while increasing promoted listing placement - not sure if you'll find that better or worse, but they may do the same here. 

[achronicyarnoholic]

Thanks for your info but I am already aware of that - my issue is not with other eBay sellers but with non-eBay sellers. At the risk of being repetitive, I find it completely unacceptable that eBay will promote and thus give a quick link to non-eBay businesses via my pages and yet I will be 'shut down/suspended' if I try and give customers a means of even contacting me outside of ebay.

[digital*ghost]

I said a lot of the same stuff a number of years ago, when third-party advertising was introduced, and was consistently met with apathy, which bemused me no end.

Perhaps disappointingly, that can be kinda contagious. 

I can only be repetitive too - if you list, you agree to it, the only way to not agree to is is to not list. So I just list. 

[phorum_junkie*]

Ebay exists for one reason only and that is to generate money for the shareholders. Advertising other companies goods earns them what is probably a substantial sum and without that revenue they would probably have to increase fees to an unsustainable limit in order to remain in the black.

Suck it up or don't list on ebay, your only two options I am afraid.

[achronicyarnoholic]

eBay generates income from all their sellers - the better they promote and support their sellers, the more income they'll generate. It is common sense that if they want to also generate income from advertising from non-eBay sellers, they need to ensure there is no conflict of interest. For instance, it's a no-brainer that my customers (knitting - crafts) are predominantly women, so ads appearing on my pages can be promoting women-focussed products such as beauty, clothing, shoes, handbags, you name it. They should not be products identical to my own, which are going to take sales away from me and also reduce the relevant commissions eBay take from me from those sales.

I don't intend to suck it up. eBay need to smarten up.

[phorum_junkie*]

I don't intend to suck it up. eBay need to smarten up.

Good luck with that one.

[achronicyarnoholic]

I'll take that as a challenge!