Personal listings taking priority?

[caminokids]

Hi,

I'm curious to see if anyone else is experiencing the same issues we are.

We recently reactivated a dormant eBay account and started selling. About 150 listings in total. This was on a standard account and costing us about $220 p/mth. 

I was initially surprised by the conversion. Almost instantly we started selling well, with an average of 2 orders per day for 7 days.

I then found out that we could utilise the business account benefits and upgraded the account to Basic Business, for $29 p/mth. A huge saving.

However, sales stopped, almost instantly. With only 2 sales in the following 2 weeks!

I have spoken to eBay 3 times on this, and they assured me that Personal listings do not take priority... however, in my experience I cannot see how this could be the case.

Has anyone else experienced this? Would love to hear about it.

[gutterpunkz05]

Did a search for brand  M***&M*****,  Best match.  Your items are showing on page 1.    So dont think it is a priority issue.

[chameleon54]

Theres a very interesting thread on the Powersellers forum, titled " scary news from America ". ( 3rd down from the top ) . The link in the OP is VERY detailed and technical but worth wading through if you have a spare half hour.. If you have access to that forum it may answer some of your questions. I cant provide a link to it as it is a closed Powersellers only forum.

My own experience is that non store accounts seem to me to be completely unregulated and will make as many or as few sales as the item quality and price dictate. Private seller auctions also often get pushed up in the search rankings. Store accounts, particularly featured and anchor store classifications appear to me to have very structured sales, with pre determined sales averages often achieved to within a few dollars per month. Basic stores appear less regulated.

[brerrabbit585]

It was also posted in the Selling forum. I wasted my time reading it (didn't click on any links in it) and it was basically just sour grapes from a seller who loved being top dog in best match and none of their opposition getting any sales, but thinks it's not fair when the opposite happens.

They had no qualms about running down the opposition but their own terms violated ebay policy and their response to negative feedback left a lot to be desired - it was similar to what you expect from the worst Chinese sellers.

[chameleon54]

Thanks brerabbit, I didnt see it on the selling forums, but a parallel thread is running on the powerseller forum, started by the same OP.

  I found the article very interesting with some well researched stats. Sure the guy appears to be top of his tree, but a seller turning over 200K or 300k a month on ebay, must be doing something right and is worth listening too. My selling is only a miniscule drop in the ocean compared to this guy, but some of the things he was saying have been reflected in my experience with three stores and the way my competitors are placed in searches.

[chameleon54]

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@brerrabbit585 wrote:
It was also posted in the Selling forum. I wasted my time reading it (didn't click on any links in it) and it was basically just sour grapes from a seller who loved being top dog in best match and none of their opposition getting any sales, but thinks it's not fair when the opposite happens.

They had no qualms about running down the opposition but their own terms violated ebay policy and their response to negative feedback left a lot to be desired - it was similar to what you expect from the worst Chinese sellers.

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But I think that was the point the guy was trying to make. We are told if we do this or that it will improve our rankings in search results. Sellers go to a lot of trouble, jumping through all of ebays hoops, same day mailing, gauranteed delivery times, money back gaurantees etc. only to find some new seller with 30 feedbacks, 93% pos. and five day delivery gets placed higher than them in searches.

The U.S seller in the link had gone to the trouble of collecting the stats and had screen shot, documented proof that the best match system was simply not working in the way we are told it should by ebay. I think he hit the nail on the head when he stated the best match system was designed to share sales around amongst all sellers ( and newer sellers in particular ) rather than rewarding the best sellers who follow all of ebays advice.

This was reinforced by the dozens ( 150 odd from memory ) of respondents to his U.S thread, sharing similar experiences.

Its not a biggy for me as I dont offer all of the bells and whistles, have a 5 day handling time and fairly low sell through rates, so I never expect to rank brilliantly in best match, but it would be a huge concern for sellers who put the effort into trying to meet ebays best seller policies and then dont get rewarded for their efforts.

[digital*ghost]

If the sample period is only a few weeks, it's not really enough to draw any conclusions about the shift or fall in sales, so it's only possible to theorise. 

New listings do get a boost in best match results, but if you're still ranking highly, then there's several other possibilities that could have caused it - eg brand popularity and representation on the site. I don't know how many other sellers stock what you do, but if you're a newcomer with good prices, have stuff other's don't, etc, it's possible people bought specific things they've been keeping an eye out for once you put the listings up.

If your listing format / duration changed, the sense of urgency to buy can fade (i.e. if you had listings ending within shorter periods, people can be more inclined to purchase than when they see the seller has a store, and the listing is likely to be around for a while). 

[brerrabbit585]

He APPEARED to have done his research but he expected everyone to take his word for it, which I won't because he conveneniently forgot to mention things like their own bad attitude to buyers with problems.

He also talked about offering guaranteed delivery but conveniently didn't give any stats confirming that they actually met those guarantees. That could greatly affect their standing in best match.

They believed offering returns, free postage, and all the other stuff GUARANTEED that they'd be up the top in best match, to the exclusion of all other sellers. I think it was fair enough that they weren't because even though they offered returns it wasn't what ebay means by offering returns - they stated that buyers had to pay return postage on faulty/defective items, which is against ebay policy. I can't remember all the details now but I'm pretty sure that they also required all returned goods to be in their original condition, and how can you install something in a car, find out it's defective, then return it in original condition? They seemed to have a problem with defective engine mounts but their standard reply seemed to be "sold heaps of others with no problems" so they weren't interested in addressing the problem.

As for the other posters who responded, how do we know they were any different from the people who complain about lack of sales on the Aussie forums and blame everyone else rather than look at their own listings and selling practices?

I'm not saying there aren't problems, but I wouldn't base my beliefs on anything he said.

[kitschkoven]

The opposite happened to me. Ever since I closed my store several months ago I've had about one sale per month. I've been considering reopening my store for a short time to see if it makes any difference (at my end it'll make me more motivated to list things, at least). I think you should wait a while.

[caminokids]

I think this theory definitely relates to my experience thus far. Yes, I agree, the sample size is way too small, however, I think it's too much of a coincidence to not to be the case.

I will keep optimising our listings and run it for another couple of months. In saying that, the only way I will know for sure would be to set up another standard account, with the same listings, and run these parallel, this will provide the perfect test case.