eBay is going to roll out changes to its search engine in the New Year, the company revealed during today's monthly chat session. 

Buyers and sellers have been complaining in recent months that searches on eBay are coming back with inconsistent or irrelevant results. On the December 13th monthly chat, a user wrote:

Etsy is laying off approximately 225 employees, including its Chief Marketing Officer and its Chief Human Resources Officer. The company said the 11% reduction of the Etsy marketplace workforce would increase its operational efficiencies but would not materially impact Etsy's three primary guidance metrics for the 4th quarter: GMS (Gross Merchandise Sales), revenue, and adjusted EBITDA margin.

In a letter to employees, Etsy CEO Josh Silverman said GMS had remained essentially flat since 2021. "This means we are not bringing our sellers more sales, which is the single most important thing we can do for them."

In Q4, Etsy has been ... Read More

Sellers with questions for eBay can attend Wednesday's chat session; this month, the session is open to all topics.

Sellers can show up on December 13 at 1 pm Pacific (4 pm Eastern) and type their questions in to the discussion board thread, and eBay moderators will respond.

Some months the chats are devoted to specific topics, but this month, there are no restrictions. eBay has been making many changes sellers may wish to get the company to address, such as the new ability for buyers to upload photos when leaving sellers feedback.

Sellers have also been asking eBay for information about its holiday marketing ... Read More

eBay now allows buyers to include photos when they leave feedback for sellers, although it isn't yet visible to anyone but the seller. One seller shared what they saw when they received feedback from a buyer who included a photo.

"I recently received my first picture feedback," the seller "inhawaii" titled an eBay discussion board thread, where they wrote:

"Good news: It was very positive. Bad news: It shows a free gift I sent with this particular order. I hope all buyers don't expect a free gift."

The seller included screenshots of how the photo displayed - a tiny thumbnail image is included in the ... Read More

eBay confirmed a bug that is hampering sellers from making offers in the app to would-be buyers this week. On Monday, a seller reported that when they went to make offers, the eBay mobile app forced it to enter a percentage instead a dollar amount. "So if for example I have an item listed for $9 and I want to do an offer of $7, I legitimately *can't* anymore, as I can only do like 22% to get to $6.93 or something."

The seller called it an annoying change that made it harder to make offers.

eBay introduced the offers feature ... Read More