Improving Cross Sales and Surviving Ebay Summer 2018 ChangesEvery year in June eBay makes changes to searches and categories that make it harder for buyers to find your items. After a few weeks the buyers will figure out work arounds or just stop buying on eBay altogether. One change that's irritating until you figure out the work around is completed auctions sometimes bring up existing listings rather than the ended one you want to see. I still haven't gotten used to this and wonder why I clicked on something so different that what I was researching. Anyway, when this happens, there is a line in a blue bar near the top of the listing that says “The listing you’re looking for is no longer available. Check out this similar item we found for you.” Just click on the word listing to open the ended auction. The snipe program I use – Bid-O-Matic – replaced a snipe I'd underbid on with another item that eBay showed as a similar item. It didn't bid because I caught it and deleted the new snipe. I would have ended up buying a $200 item for some price up to $660. Now I delete all snipes once they have run from the program to prevent this glitch. This year – 2018 – the big change is removal of the See Other Items link when the seller has a store. Store owners only have a Visit Store link. The store display doesn't allow shoppers to sort by eBay category only by store category which many sellers don't set up well. Without a store you can drill down the seller's listings by many factors: ebay category, listing type, shipping time, and more. You can see the difference between the two results in the photo below.
I find scrolling down to be much easier than going side to side and back and forth so the no store results is easier for me to use. Also when searching on eBay I frequently find sellers with an item that is similar to what I collect, but when I go to see his other items, he has so many items I just leave rather than trying to find what I want. Now with this change eBay has made it harder to drill down to the listings I want and I'm leaving more often. Many eBay buyers are doing the same thing. Especially in the collectibles markets. Until some other platform comes along we sellers will have to work with eBay's search structure. If you have an eBay store you can easily put a link into your descriptions so shoppers can see your listings in the easier to use non store format. Here's the link:
Just replace EBAYUSERID with your eBay user name and paste it into your description in your templates. You can use the HTML formatting tips you learned in the The IWantCollectibles Guide to Ebay Sales to spruce up your link. If you use turbolister you can paste the link into all your templates or existing listings - only at the very bottom of each – by using the edit multiple items tool. (Highlight all templates then right click and select edit multiple items. Paste your link in the description box and MAKE SURE THE box above says “Add To Bottom Of Description” then click save. On my computer Turbolister goes busy and doesn't respond for a while after clicking on save. Don't click on anything. Make use of this time by going and folding some laundry or emptying the dishwasher. Putting a link into your listings will make it easier for buyers to look at your other listings. Last week I had one buyer win 19 auctions. That means I packed one box instead of 19 of them and saved a bunch of time. One note here. Within the past year, two or three times I've had buyers win a selection of items and never pay. When I looked at his feedback later I saw many sellers complaining about him not paying. So when a buyer wins a bunch of stuff from you, or a few items difficult to pack together, check his feedback before packing.
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