eBay Boosts Listings Due to Latest Promotion Fiasco

by: yesmikan

My experience so far is that if you end (or sell) the original listing, Webinterpret will end the linked multi-language ones automatically.

But yes I was also surprised to see my listing count quadruple overnight.

by: Silver Ice King

They can show they have 6 times the number of listings this way and knowing Ebay's creative accounting for GMV (since they don't have to report that for audited Financial Statement purposes) that will also probably count as 6 times the GMV sale as they will probably count it as a sale on each site.  I guess that is one way to finally show double digit growth when all else seems to be failing and most sellers are complaining about the new Product Based Search that appears to be having a big effect on sales.

I guess Ebay was determined that sellers were going to use the Promoted Listings so they could increase their FVF revenue.  My guess is if you want to appear in one the Product Based Search boxes, one of the requirements will be that you agree to pay Ebay additional revenues via Promoted Listings.  The program was a flop like every other idea that Wenig and his cronies have come up with to take more money out of the sellers pockets, so once again if you want to sell anything Ebay will force you to pay them more money.

I am starting to understand why the BOD feels that Wenig needs to fly on the Corporate Jet for his protection.  He has already alienated almost all the Ebay sellers and most buyers (except the scammers) and I guess his next stop will be all the employees and buyers from GM when he suggests that they ship all the labor over to 3rd world countries as there seems to be nobody better at Disruptive Technology than those who do not understand it.

by: Marie

@Silver Ice King

You know they are doing that or you are assuming they are doing that???

by: ebayout

How does ebay ebay measure the effectiveness of ANY change given the number of crapola changes going on at any one time?
A simple statistical rule is that correlation and causality results are not equal.
They don't have a clue as to what works.
All they know is, if GMV falls, throw another promotion log on the fire.
At some point, giving up 15%+ to make 10% is the e-commerce equivalent of destroying the village to save it...Kalifornia Logic.

by: pace306

Marie - its the standard eBay MO.

Program start off as optional then become mandatory (returns etc)

eBays always been pay for play - not new news.

Ive said they are the kindler gentler Mafia for the LONGEST time ....... why steal from sellers with guns and knives - just use Paypal and your TOS

by: Rexford

Clusterfug

by: RKTOYS

I sometimes list items in duplicate or even triplicate when these promos come in.  Then when one sells, I add a zero or nine to the others so they don't sell.  This avoids the "abloobloo don't cancel or we'll fee you" warnings.  They're probably also happy to report the "extra" GMV.

by: dander

the whole month has sucked.

by: Snapped

"You know they are doing that or...."

I read it as "guess".  

Nobody can really ever say they 'know' what eBay is doing.

Especially eBay themselves.  

by: cfrphoto

I am still assessing potential collateral damage. So far the duplicates have not been sucked back into the SixBit database, possibly because the SKU (Custom Labels) should be the same. Questions remain. What happens if translated titles are too long?. Is the Condition Description populated correctly? What about item specifics?. Also, what happens if a listing is revised? Since the listings are on eBay.com, will all of them appear in search? One listing I checked stated: "Does not deliver to the United States".
Many questions, few answers.

by: Geetar

I have seen this. last night. I have a selling account, and a buying account. When I saw all my listings were listed in Pound Sterling, I went and checked my listings in my buyer account and they were in dollars, and didnt say "does not ship to USA"

The only intl shipping I do is to Great Britain, so I did not see a ton of listings duplicated. I stopped shipping INT. when I said to myself "why is ebay getting a FVF on that high shipping cost?"

by: Silver Ice King

@Marie

Let's just say a very well educated guess,  having been a former auditor and knowing the games that are played by the public companies and the things the CPA firm partners are willing to overlook in order to keep the business.

The audited financial statements come out much later down the road, and EVEN IF Ebay does include something about the GMV in them (which I highly doubt) by time that information is out to the public they are already onto the next Quarters over exaggerated information.  Ebay needs to show growth and if things were based strictly on presentation according to GAAP - I am sure they would not even have shown the 3% they previously claimed.  Again, there is a reason they are not showing revenue gains but constantly show GMV and why when showing the graph of increase in number of buyers they have to make the growth look larger than it really is by making a small growth look larger via the graph.

Ebay is getting more desperate each quarter when they see how the competition does vs their results and if I was Wenig or the BOD, I would be hiding my head in shame as even Etsy outperforms them.  Ebay had a chance to put these other sites like Bonanza, E-Crater and possibly even Etsy in their rear view mirrors long ago if they had not focused on alienating their sellers and referring to us as noise.  Now they have let those other sites get a foot hold and start infringing on their business and the only solutions they can come up with is to blame the sellers for selling off Ebay.  Maybe if the site and the programs they came up with actually worked, sellers would not have an issue making the changes or paying a little more.  But when it appears that you have to pay extra to even get your items to show (Promoted Listings) and then they come up with these type of promotions and either cannot or will not answer their customers questions when the s*** hits the fan, its no wonder they continue to flounder.,