How eBay are hiding fixed price items in search

by Chris Dawson

I’ve been trying to figure out why my sales have dropped since eBay introduced catalogued listings to the tech categories and it’s all about visibility. I had thought one of the major problems might be how highly catalogue product cards were ranked in search results. I was concerned that my listings were being demoted in search results. I might have been wrong on both these counts as it appears that buyers simply might not be able to find my listings no matter how hard they try…

…The problem is that on the initial search eBay say that there are 16 matching items in search results but only choose to show me one. Buyers aren’t as persistent as me, they’ll get fed up and go away to buy somewhere else.

IS eBay search broken? Read the rest of Chris’s article here.

Apparently it’s spring cleaning time over at EBAY again! More changes, but hey, life is change. I guess more than spring cleaning, it’s just reassessment time again!

Well…. Here is the text of the seller’s letter we received from ebay:

We know that online buyers pay attention to the total cost of an item–including shipping–when deciding what and where to buy. That’s why, to encourage low-cost shipping, starting July 6 Final Value Fee rates for Store sellers–Fixed Price and Auction-style–will be reduced and then applied to the total amount of the sale–including shipping.

The best way to minimize the impact on your overall fees is to take advantage of the available ways to reduce your shipping costs and charges.

New eBay Shopping Cart
Online shoppers are accustomed to adding items to a shopping cart–and they’re often motivated to buy more. That’s why we’re introducing the new eBay Shopping Cart that works with both Fixed Price and Auction-style items. Buyers can add items from multiple sellers and pay in one easy checkout–making it easier and more likely for them to buy more. It will become the way to shop on eBay before the 2011 holiday season.

New communications hub
Starting in May, you’ll be able to manage your communications with buyers from just one location within My eBay. View the emails that eBay sends to buyers after a transaction, manage your buyer-facing Automated Answers, or access your Store newsletters–all from one convenient page.

Category and item specifics changes
Category and item specifics changes are also consolidated with rest of updates. Find out if your listings are impacted and get details on the 2011 Spring Seller Update.

As always, thank you for selling on eBay. (aka thank you for giving us more of your profit margin. LOL)

OK – the takeaway:
Sellers that honestly charge reasonable shipping fees are getting a bum deal. Sellers that blatantly gouge on shipping fees should be banned from eBay anyway and make the world a better place. It is eBay’s lazy way of handling these type of sellers who use shipping to skirt paying fees.

Our store always charged reasonable shipping and in the past two months have readjusted 98% of our listings to reflect free shipping anyway. There are, however, a few things that irk me: 13% closing fee for books and media – give me a break! (In other words, if you’re still selling books on eBay, we’d just as soon not have you here.) Also ‘eBay will eliminate the current 5% discount for non-TRS PowerSellers’. See the new charts here on the AuctionBytes Blog (they do a great job of reporting these changes). Check out this blog post about the podcast with eBay’s Vice President of Selling Experience Todd Lutwak at radal.info.

As usual, I will see which parts of my store it affects and if possible, move those listings to another marketplace – namely Amazon.
Just another day in paradise!

Ebay has screwed themselves so much in trying to become Amazon. Why? Ebay had a good thing at one time. Why keep trying to be someone else when you were great to begin with? Some people never learn. Pitiful. Just Pitiful.

Read the latest headlines and articles about the “Ebay’s mission to become Amazon”.
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eBay May Offer Outsourced Fulfillment Service to Sellers
By: Ina Steiner
Sun Aug 15 2010 17:45:44

eBay is surveying sellers on whether they would be interested in using a fulfillment service called eFulfillment Service. Sellers would send their inventory to eFulfillment Service, which would store the items, and then pick, pack and ship orders as they were received. ….
eBay is under pressure from some Wall Street analysts (including RBC Capital and Deutsche Bank) to offer fulfillment services – some analysts want eBay to actually move in the direction of inventory ownership. No doubt analysts are impressed with Amazon’s success with its FBA fulfillment service; Amazon is building 13 new distribution centers this year…..
READ HER COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE ON HER AUCTIONBYTES BLOG
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Would you use Fulfillment by eBay?
by Chris Dawson

Amazon of course already have Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) so it would be interesting to see how eBay’s service (FBE?) stacked up against it. In fact users of FBA in the US can already have their products to fulfill non-Amazon orders so potentially could already be using the service to satisfy eBay orders.
Fulfillment services are best suited for multiple quantity identical items that are already boxed or bagged preferably with bar codes. It’s not so suitable for individual items or large, heavy or awkwardly shaped products that require specialist packaging – cost will be considerably more.
READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE ON THE TAMEBAY SITE
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A Portion of a Comment from the blog post “eBay Should Not Follow Amazon in Offering Fulfillment Service By: Ina Steiner” that pretty much sums it all up about eBay even venturing into this:
COMMENT: eBay Should Not Follow Amazon in Offering Fulfillment

If they just go with the big box companies like smartbargains and buy.com they should rely on their fulfillment. For smaller sellers that only have one warehouse or have valuable small items like jewelry or collectibles, the thought of giving control to ebay and its lack of experience in any matters opertional makes me shudder. If they go with a 3rd party, they might pull it off on inexpensive items but why risk it? They have only been a ”venue” remember? It takes experience and Amazon has done this since day 1 and although they might think they can ”buy” experience since ebay has its own quirky corporate culture and are behind in most platforms.. it won’t work.
They can try it but there will be many mistakes and will lose customers or another even bigger SKYPE disaster….
READ THE REST OF THE COMMENTS AND THE COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE
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Buyer Protection cases penalize eBay sellers even if resolved happily or false in the first place
(The Whine Seller Blog)

eBay sent out a seller update out earlier today and most of it was “Yes, yes. Fine, fine.” Then I got to this part:

New seller standard: Buyer Protection cases counted along with low DSRs. You’re on the right track!

Opening a case with the eBay or PayPal Buyer Protection program is a clear indication of buyer dissatisfaction, especially when the buyer tries and is unable to resolve an issue directly with the seller. That’s why, starting in September, “item not received” and “item not as described” cases will be considered along with low DSRs to evaluate and reward seller performance.

The “You’re on the right track” bit is because I currently meet this requirement.

Um…. I’ve been selling on eBay for many years now and I have had lots of buyers start “Item not received” or “Item not as described cases”. But here’s the thing, eBay. Of all of those, only five were actually buyers whose item didn’t arrive or wasn’t as described or who had a problem at all for that matter.

All the others. Let me repeat, ALL THE OTHERS were buyer who opened the case because, as they told me, “They weren’t sure how else to email the seller to ask a question.”

So if this is going to count toward my freaking DSRs, are you going to make it clearer what the process is for? Better yet, is there going to be a way for buyer and seller to amicably close the case if it was started under newbie confusion?

Read the ENTIRE article here.