eBay: listings have went from GTC to 30 days

[ModernAndy]

Luckily not my own listings but a competitor who I happen to have previous with has had their listings changed from good till cancelled to 30 days. I'm not sure if they've inititiated this or even notice but their listing numbers have nearly halved. I've kept an eye out and every time one ends it is dropped when they would have renewed for another 30 days before and this is the case for every single one of their listings which has ended so far (started happening a week and a half or so ago).

My question for anybody in the know is; can eBay change a seller's listings from GTC to fixed number of days and if so, why would they do it? Possibly due to negative feedback, low DSRs, etc?

[addsvrs]

I know i have to manually add the option to continuously list until sold, have been doing for the past year and none of them have reverted back to normal listings. I did read somewhere on Ebays update newsletter that they are changing the fees charged for items that havent sold for a long time, maybe its older listings that he is removing ?

[ModernAndy]

addsvrs said:

I know i have to manually add the option to continuously list until sold, have been doing for the past year and none of them have reverted back to normal listings. I did read somewhere on Ebays update newsletter that they are changing the fees charged for items that havent sold for a long time, maybe its older listings that he is removing ?

nope, it's definitely all of them. Many of them being good sellers. I'm sure he wouldn't actually know how to manually change them from GTC to 30 days either.

I think the thing you read about is that you get charged 10p for each item unsold after 18 months. I don't think they delete them but I'm happy to stand corrected. In any case, there's stuff that's sold recently that's going down after the listings have ended and it's happening instantaneously so it's not being done manually.

[whythem]

Ebay would just cancel the account.

. List using GTC (Guaranteed till canceled) with a twist - You should list using GTC to retain sales history. The more sales and watchers a listing has, the higher it will go up in search. This means that your listing has good buyer engagement. The twist is, what about listings with no sales after 30 days? You need to END these listings and re-list them! Why? Because it will re-index the listing and wipe the previous history of bad buyer engagement. Once re-listed, your listing will show up as a “new listing” and be on top of search. If the listing gets good buyer engagement, it will stay up at the top. If it gets bad buyer engagement, it will be pushed down in search. So make it a habit to always end and re-list items with no sales after 30 days.

[jammy_basturd]

addsvrs said:

I know i have to manually add the option to continuously list until sold, have been doing for the past year and none of them have reverted back to normal listings. I did read somewhere on Ebays update newsletter that they are changing the fees charged for items that havent sold for a long time, maybe its older listings that he is removing ?

My bet is that they've changed the software being used to push products to eBay and they've neglected to include the setting for GTC.

[ModernAndy]

jammy_basturd said:

addsvrs said:

I know i have to manually add the option to continuously list until sold, have been doing for the past year and none of them have reverted back to normal listings. I did read somewhere on Ebays update newsletter that they are changing the fees charged for items that havent sold for a long time, maybe its older listings that he is removing ?

My bet is that they've changed the software being used to push products to eBay and they've neglected to include the setting for GTC.

no new listings since 2013 and it's a fairly safe bet to say they don't use 3rd party software (and I include turbo lister in that). Bit of a mystery so it is.

[951TSE]

Maybe they've stopped having a shop. As I understand it you only get GTC listings if you have a shop. Maybe the monthly fee wasn't viable for them anymore?

Also there's changes ahead for some of the allowances for shops that may make them less viable in the long term for some sellers.

[ModernAndy]

951TSE said:

Maybe they've stopped having a shop. As I understand it you only get GTC listings if you have a shop. Maybe the monthly fee wasn't viable for them anymore?

Also there's changes ahead for some of the allowances for shops that may make them less viable in the long term for some sellers.

I don't think it's that as the shop is still there but perhaps if the subscription was stopped there'd still be 30 days before the shop closed so I won't say it's definitely not that. Maybe it's just a bug with eBay but then you'd expect the items to be relisted and not a single one has been relisted.

[russy01]

I think that when a shop subscription is cancelled all listings are removed. Our account manager gave us a big discount on anchor shop about 5yrs ago, this February the discount she applied expired and it completely fked our account and took our shop down (even though the subscription was still valid and active).

To get the shop back online ebay tech cancelled our subscription and were going to renew it immediately and they thought it would be problem free. HOWEVER as soon as they cancelled th subscription all of our 6000 listings came down within about 10minutes, taking with it 4-5yrs of sales history (some listings had thousands of sales).

Overnight our sales dropped by 25% and they are slowly recovering now. Ebay are considering compensation, but are being sts about it!!

[northwest monkey]

whythem said:

Ebay would just cancel the account.

. List using GTC (Guaranteed till canceled) with a twist - You should list using GTC to retain sales history. The more sales and watchers a listing has, the higher it will go up in search. This means that your listing has good buyer engagement. The twist is, what about listings with no sales after 30 days? You need to END these listings and re-list them! Why? Because it will re-index the listing and wipe the previous history of bad buyer engagement. Once re-listed, your listing will show up as a “new listing” and be on top of search. If the listing gets good buyer engagement, it will stay up at the top. If it gets bad buyer engagement, it will be pushed down in search. So make it a habit to always end and re-list items with no sales after 30 days.

Interesting point you make & one we've talked about a lot.

Quick question for you - do you get the same boost with a "relist" as you would with "sell similar"?

I've always wanted to know if a fresh listing (sell similar) is treated differently to a relisted old listing.

[russy01]

northwest monkey said:

whythem said:

Ebay would just cancel the account.

. List using GTC (Guaranteed till canceled) with a twist - You should list using GTC to retain sales history. The more sales and watchers a listing has, the higher it will go up in search. This means that your listing has good buyer engagement. The twist is, what about listings with no sales after 30 days? You need to END these listings and re-list them! Why? Because it will re-index the listing and wipe the previous history of bad buyer engagement. Once re-listed, your listing will show up as a “new listing” and be on top of search. If the listing gets good buyer engagement, it will stay up at the top. If it gets bad buyer engagement, it will be pushed down in search. So make it a habit to always end and re-list items with no sales after 30 days.

Interesting point you make & one we've talked about a lot.

Quick question for you - do you get the same boost with a "relist" as you would with "sell similar"?

I've always wanted to know if a fresh listing (sell similar) is treated differently to a relisted old listing.

I'm not so sure it will have such a huge impact. Best match isn't just about sales, it's a lot to do with conversion. I.e how many people see your listing compared to how many buy it....and this is conversions on a rolling time frame, not since the listing was originally listed.

So you have listed your product and it's not converted all month, how is just repeating the same thing again going to increase your business? For sure you might get another day of better exposure, but if the listing did not succeed in the previous month it's unlikely it will suceed once relisted.
Personally I think that instead of trying to find ways to manipulate the system you need to be looking at ways to make the product convert. If you have the right product, represented correctly at the right price you'll sell it regardless of how many months the listing has been live. If it's not selling then you have to figure out why?

I can take a listing which has been live for months if not years and been sat far down best match as we are not competitive enough. I can reduce the price and it will start to sell. After a couple days sales snowball and before you know it its at the top of best match with X sales in 24hrs - above listings who sell dozens per day. This proves that ebay position a listing based on a good increase of conversions over a small snapshot of time - ignoring all the data from before (I.e ignoring the data you are playing about trying to clear)

I have listings with several thousand sales which have been at the top of best match for months, but a couple of them have recently slipped half way down the page as our prices have gone up marginally and we have been undercut. This historical data isn't doing the reverse and helping us now, it's simply ignored as Ebay are just looking at recent conversions over a short period.