Sellers Thrown by Changes to eBay Stores

by: Bill

I have never had a custom store front, fancy HTML or CSS since it has been the same basic store design that I picked years ago and as of this date it still does not have HTTPS.
What are these goons doing?

by: FidoMaster

Regarding eBay’s poor functional and design choices regarding promotions and stores…

1) Promotion’s don’t show up in search results to entice buyers (Buy one, get one at X% off)
2) Promotions have (again) been moved back to the _bottom_ of listings where they serve little purpose
3) Inexplicably, seller promotions don’t appear at all on a seller’s store page (!?)

Out of all the chicanery eBay has been up to with glitchy promos, search manipulation games, driving buyers off of listings with 3rd party ads, TRP badge and seller marginalization, etc…

…the decision to not have promotions clearly and prominently displayed at the top of a seller’s store page is inexcusable.

Cross post to other platforms.

Make plans to protect your side income or business as Wenig runs this place into the dirt.

by: AlexF

With all those issues it seems like the right thing to do will be to revert to the old eBay look and use a custom design/template to make it look better. (eBay announced that they will allow sellers to keep custom designed store for 1-2 years).
I wrote a blog post describing the benefits of doing this process:
https://3dsellers.com/blog/ebay-will-stop-supporting-custo
m-designs-for-stores-but-now-is-the-perfect-time-to-design-your-ebay-store/

by: Rexford

The clusterfug continues.

No one mentioned disappearing inventory.  Lately, I've seen items disappearing from my inventory more than usual.  Poof!  Gone!  Vanished!   And it does not appear in unsolds so that I can catch it.

by: geoffreymason

Rexford: Yes, I have had inventory disappear. As well, I have had merchandise that sold YEARS ago mysteriously reappear in my active listings.

by: RKTOYS

What's the point of a store again?  No customizability, no private search, no useful promotions, no savings at the lower end...

by: pace306

RK - gr8 point!

The value of a store no longer exists.

by: lessthanthreerecords

I see a slightly different layout on my store, but thankfully, don't seem to be encountering the issues that other sellers have reported (at least not yet).  However, I am noticing something that was not reported.  When I search my store, I get a list of items (they are all my items), but at the bottom, it says ''# items found from eBay international sellers''.  Most of my items appear above that, but one or two appear below, apparently indicating that I'm shipping a small portion of my items from another country.  I clicked one of these items to verify where it said I was located, and it correctly showed ''Item location: Hatfield, Pennsylvania, United States''.  So why are some items showing as being from international sellers when they are ALL shipping from the SAME place by the SAME seller?!

by: maxmad

Too funny, who in their right mind would pay for an ebay store, what a total joke and not to mention a waste of money,

We terminated all our stores a few years ago,  

by: Flying Childers

And I thought Etsy was bad!

by: Chicago48

"Two major complaints: ads for competing sellers are appearing on sellers' Stores, and the new function that allows shoppers to search a store is baffling - and it actually disadvantages Store owners.
"How long do you think it would take Home Depot to react if Lowe's hung a banner in front of Home Depot," a seller wrote in this thread. "This is now what is happening when customers request to "search this store."

1) Does AMZ do this  to the Pro shop owners?
2)  I want to open a basic store for 4.95/month but scared to do because of all these nonsense changes.

by: Whatever

"it had begun rolling out the new experience"

yes it's quite the experience isn't it?

how do you think the buyers feel?

couldn't possibly have anything to do with -0- sales days upon days would it?

don't all of you already sell on some other kind of site now?

I don't list ANYTHING anymore on ebay that isn't immediately mirrored elsewhere so that when the final nail hits the coffin my hard work isn't lost forever.

riiculous

and ebay just thought we'd drink the koolaide forever.

by: I Must be Crazy

Per another note from eBay, competing listings and redirects are now part of the user agreement to take effect June 21.

How nice for me to pay for the right to attract buyers to my items, only to have them see someone else's listings. The ONLY benefits that I can see of having a store is the number listings that are included and the ability to put it on vacation. Beyond that it's useless.

by: Windkissed

If we have new URL's we need to be notified of that fact and what it is because I do my own advertising and directing others to my store on social media.

by: Ric

From the revised eBay User Agreement:

“Seller fees don’t purchase exclusive rights to item exposure on eBay, whether on a web page, mobile app, or otherwise. We may, in our sole discretion and without consent from, or payment, fee reduction, or other credit to, sellers, display third-party advertisements (including links and references thereto) or other content in any part of our Services.”

In other words, eBay is telling sellers that you will pay to place listings and when they choose not to show them to potential buyers, you have zero recourse.

If you are still selling on eBay after reading this, you do so at your own financial peril.

eBay has officially become a zero sum game for sellers.

by: FidoMaster

''In other words, eBay is telling sellers that you will pay to place listings and when they choose not to show them to potential buyers, you have zero recourse.''

Not only are sellers paying for listings that eBay chooses not to show, but when they _do_ show them buyers will be assailed with 3rd-party PLAs enticing buyers to click pulling the buyer out of ebay (and the seller's listing) onto some other retailer or platform.

by: Silver Ice King

The only advantage to having a store is the number of listings that you get with it, especially since Ebay changed the listing fee to $.35 each.  Other than that I never really worried about the store because I had to many customers tell me they could only find 4 (the displayed items) of my listings in the store to many times, when in fact I had almost 1000.

by: buffalochick

and now they had added that once you list an item in your store, you CANNOT change the price or include it in a sale/promo for at least 14 days.  EXCEPT, that they sent out emails to a number of sellers to tell them that they are exempt from this policy.  Right?  So only "special" sellers don't have to abide by the rules?  So we are paying for the ability to use markdown mgr, but we can't really use it?  No one is answering those questions.  Busy dreaming up some weasel worded answer.  Just wow is all I can say.  Cannot wait for this company to go up in flames.  Will personally stop the fire trucks.

by: LasVagueness

There is a popular meme circulating on Twitter and Facebook. The meme features a boyfriend and girlfriend walking down the street. The boyfriend turns to look at an attractive woman while the girlfriend glares at him. An eBay adaptation would feature the boyfriend ('venue') and the girlfriend (small sellers). The beautiful woman would be Amazon.  

by: Snapped

"popular meme circulating.."

FIFTY SHADES OF GREEN
"Why your squad all say the safe-word is 'NARU'"