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I don’t know if this has been brought by anyone else but I couldn’t find it mentioned anywhere except ‘ebay for business’. I just noticed a new change to some of my ebay listings.
Right across the top of some of my listings ebay has put links to other ‘identical’ listings with price comparisons to mine! I can’t believe they are doing this. Below is a screen shot of one of my listings
They are drawing people away from my listing to other peoples listings at the very top of the page. Prime real estate.
It won’t be an issue for one of a kind items but it is on several of my listings. Further down the page wouldn’t be so bad but right across the top?!
And the thing is the other books that are linked to are not the same condition. So although it looks like you can get a better deal elsewhere it’s comparing items that aren’t comparable and also linking to sellers with lots of bad feedback.
I’m usually able to roll with the changes but I think this is ridiculous. Has anyone else noticed this? What are your thoughts?
Now I see why they are so interested in using product catalogs. Here goes the race to the bottom
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It has been like that for at least a few years with isbn books. I’m not sure how long, but as far as I know at least 3 years. It actually looks like an improvement over the way it used to look on the listing page – they used to have books with catalog images show up right over the description field. With the way they have them now, most people will probably just ignore it.
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almasty this isn’t just with books. It’s on all kinds of things that are branded. Here is another listing of mine. I remember there used to be ads in the middle of the page or at the bottom. I don’t remember it ever being across the top like this.
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After some further investigating it seems that this must be a beta test and I am in a test group. When I’m in my other ebay account I don’t see the price comparisons and a friend of mine doesn’t see them from their account either. I’ve looked at some items in other peoples’ stores and I see price comparisons when using my affected account. Can some of you check my listing and let me know if you see price comparisons across the top of the page?
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FYI, I don’t see that comparison at the top when I view that listing.
Interestingly, however, when I signed out of my account and viewed the listing again, now I see the “people who viewed this item also viewed” strip of listings/photos across the top.
When I’m signed into my account, I see that same strip of listings/photos BELOW your listing. There is an unrelated advertisement (in this case for KOA campgrounds) across the top.
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Thank you junque redux. It looks like ebay is experimenting with the best placement of cross advertising. I see my own ‘items on sale’ at the very bottom of the page below everything else including pictures of other peoples items. My sale items used to show in the middle of the page.
It seems wrong when I’m paying for a subscription for a store and ebay is trying to figure out where they can get the most bang for their buck with cross advertising on my listing.
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I don’t think ebay considers the stuff at the top “cross advertising” so much as they see it as an effort to incorporate product pages into listing pages. I THINK this is a test; a question about it has been asked on the Product Catalog Community page, but no answer so far.
One thing I think we all will eventually need to do: we need to accept that neither our listing pages nor our store home pages are “our” real estate. To continue to feel that way is to invite disappointment, because ebay clearly does not see it that way.
My guess, eventually pretty much everything will be a hybrid of product page/listing page, with the seller having less and less control over just what shows when and where and to whom.
Not trying to be mean-spirited, just trying to face reality.
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I don’t mind the product details / information I just don’t like links to other peoples listings (that cost less than mine) at the top of my page but you’re right it is probably the new reality.
My first thought is I need to focus more on sourcing things that don’t fit the product catalogs. Avoid items that have UPCs and ISBNs unless I want to match low prices which in many cases I don’t.
I’m also going to beef up my Etsy store. I’ve let my inventory there get down to around 100 items. I used to have it around 300. For the time being a person still owns their real estate on Etsy.
In my many years of selling on ebay this is the first time something they are doing has made me feel a little panicked. My store has been dead this week and I started noticing this testing on my page a couple of days ago. Along with everything else that has been glitchy I have a bad feeling.
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If we see eBay continue to chase the Amazon model, then advertisements for other products on your listing is the norm. Amazon spearheaded these advertisements.
I do get Nancy’s point as far as paying a monthly subscription fee for an eBay store. Amazon doesnt charge a fee to list so can do what it wants on its pages. Because we’re paying for a “store”, it seems weird they are selling other items on “our” pages.
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We are not in control of our stores from the street, so to speak. When someone enters our listing, they have yet to enter our store, they are still window shopping. Here’s the difference though, between online shoppers and brick and mortar shoppers: They can get all the detail at the window shopping level, they don’t have to cross the threshold and enter the ambiance of the shop itself. That takes a level of interest that isn’t required of an online shopper.
I always wonder what it would take to open a simple scavenger online store as a community. How far could we get collectively with our own pay-per-click money versus how much we all pay in overhead to eBayand other platforms? All of the other platforms are created with the buyer in mind. What would it look like on a platform with the seller in mind? No goods from China, no multi-quantity stock, no race-to-the-bottom, etc.
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Jay, Been a while since I’ve looked at Amazon’s fee structure, but I thought they were like ebay in that you could either pay as you go so to speak, or pay a monthly store type fee.
My point: we tend to see the store fee as the same thing as renting a B&M store, and we all tend to feel possessive, it’s OUR store, and ebay should just collect its rent and shut up about how we run it.
the longer one adheres to that idea, the harder it will be (emotionally) to sell on eBay because it just ain’t so. That’s why I suggest accepting the reality that ebay views ALL the real estate on eBay as eBay’s, and our monthly fee gets us only whatever eBay wants to give us at any moment in time.
Not too many weeks ago, I could decide whether List view or Gallery view was the default view when a buyer comes to my store. I could decide “newly listed” was the default search order that they would see.
Not anymore.
Now, it’s Gallery View and Best Match, and I have no say in the matter.
That’s the reality of eBay
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Marjean28: Lots of sites out there started as “we’re not like ebay. We are about the seller, not about the buyer” Problem is, that may be attractive to some sellers, but it’s not very attractive to most buyers. And the larger problem is, sellers want to sell on sites with lots of buyers.
Bonanza began as a “seller” site, the site owners proclaiming that they would soon REPLACE ebay. ecommercebytes gave the site glowing reports, about how fast it was growing, etc. For a while, in the beginning, it was Ina Steiner’s fair haired boy. eBay was going to be history!
And now? It survives only because it cut a deal with ebay to pull ebay merch onto its site.
Most of the other Seller-centric sites haven’t even done as well as Bonanza. Many are long gone.
To me, it comes down to this: Yes, sellers would like all sorts of things. But at the end of the day, what they really want can be summed up in one word: buyers.
Have enough buyers, and sellers will come to your site.
Buyers are more varied. They want lots of things, and there are lots of sites with lots of things, and if one site doesn’t provide what a buyer wants: whether it’s an item, a good return policy, free shipping, whatever, the buyer will go elsewhere.
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I remember there used to be a setting where you could choose whether or not to promote other sellers listings on your listing. I had opted in because although I didn’t want to advertise other peoples’ items I figured just as often I was being advertised on someone else’s page. Well after this new thing started happening to me I wondered if I could still opt out of such advertising. I can no longer find that setting. I find the link where it used to be and I’m redirected to another page. On that page I can’t find the setting. My guess is that ebay took away that choice but hasn’t bothered to remove the old links.
Here is a screen shot from Site Preferences of the option setting
When you click on Marketing Tools there is nothing that I can find to opt out.
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