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Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Sales are down and no matter what I do listings won't show up! It kinda feels that my account is targeted on purpose by the eBay search engine!

The items in my category are being randomly organized and sorted in a way that makes no sense at all!

Other sellers are also suffering!


Any practical way to fight this insanity?!

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Have you tried the obvious and switching around your keywords and listing titles?
Depending on what you sell, try to place those items in a second similar category and monitor the number of views. Any change? If so, adjust accordingly.

Also try starting your listings at a different time/day than you usually would. Also pay close attention to your pricing and shipping options, as Cassini seems to respond to those two things more.

You may also be trying to sell in a highly saturated category shared with a ton of Chinese sellers. If so, it's going to be tough competing on price alone.

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

This isn’t a instant option but I would suggest more stealth accounts so that you can spread your items out to increase sales and help prevent throttling.

By the way are you Just using one account?

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

The best way in one simple answer is utilising multiple stealth accounts.

If that doesn't work, then you'd need to figure out what's causing it.

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Check and see if your listings are showing up in the catalog for whatever item you're selling. I don't know if you've changed up things in recent month but you and I used to be selling in the same category. If we still are, then your listings are without a doubt being drowned out by catalog recommendations.

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Could also be a shift of the market? Buyers going on to something else? Not as popular as before?

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Not at all. I don't know who twists the system at eBay, but that group of people are as dumb as it could ever get and let me elaborate why. The category where I sell has been dramatically shaken up in the last few weeks, it literally looks like all listings were in a jar and that jar had been shaken up so hard that all items are now sorted out in a weird way.

They brought up listings that are not selling very well even though they're placed on top of search results. On the other side, the listings that were doing excellent in terms of items sold were sent back way down the road.


So in essence here is what they've done:

1. They made space for listings that never showed up before. These listings are ****ty as f and very little sales are being made off them.

2. They picked up top-performing sellers in the category and sent them 20+ pages back in search pages.


I don't know if they are aware of the fact that such policies could literally close down businesses. I am all about giving space for new sellers, but doing that by suppressing top-performing sellers is not the way to go!


One of my competitors used to have 300-500 sales a day and now he has like 30 something!

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

I have tried that already. Nothing seems to be working. I am starting to believe that no matter what I do it won't get fixed because a decision has been made at eBay to send my listings way back in the hope that this will create space for new coming sellers or something... who knows!

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Then become a new seller...

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Are you drop shipping ?

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Hmmm... I"m not aware of a recent change in their algo, but have you tried listing the exact same item using a brand new account?

I'd do that right now if I were you and test it for a week. If you see a difference you have your answer. If it's the same, then we'll have to figure out again what is going on.

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

I just tried doing that yesterday, but no results! I am starting to think that the market is locked upon Christmas or something!

What bothers me is that they killed top performing sellers and brought listings up that are so shi**y and not bringing sales even though they are placed at the top.

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Not at all. I called CS yesterday and explained that I bought a huge inventory that needs to be sold as soon as possible and they didn't ask for invoices...etc. So I don't think they have doubts whether I drop-ship or not.

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

It’s not customer services you need to speak to it’s “Trust & Safety” that’s who you need to speak but I don’t think they will let you speak to them.

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

I just called eBay and complained about the twisted search algorithm and the recent change that toasted my sales. The person I talked to said it's just the system and he can't do anything about it. What he offered to do though is something called "Account synchronization", he said it will take around 24 hours and asked me to relist then!!

Anyone ever heard of this?

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Nope, never ever. What is it?

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

That’s new to me I’ve never heard that!

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Not sure if I believe you or not. SOMEONE is getting the sales... trust me!

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Never heard that term before...

You can give it a go if you want, but I would be surprised if it did actually do anything to be honest

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Of course someone is getting the sales, that is, new sellers with shi**y listings. For the items I am selling there used to be around 1000 sales distributed among sellers of the first two pages on eBay. Yesterday I counted what has been sold in the last 24 hours by browsing all top listings and the number turned to be ~ 350.

It literally feels as if the eBay algorithm has sneezed and everything is turned upside down :smash:


I don't know if the geniuses at eBay understand how serious the consequences on many sellers could be because of such sudden changes and drops in sales. You try to explain this on the phone and it is like talking to a brick wall.


Honest to god I hate how eBay has become in the last few months :juggle:

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

I have no idea and was kinda clueless when he said it to me. I think it would be something like the "refresh" thing on Windows :noidea:

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

It could just be eBay saying something to get you off the phone

They are pretty well known for doing whatever they can to get a phone call to end.

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

I did say yes and asked him to do it actually in the hope that it will change things for the better :violin:

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Yeah eBay reps, including their supervisors are literally TRAINED to be professional liars. I have yet to find one single eBay rep who gave me a useful advice that turned out to be true. Like eBay, like Amazon, these online platforms are incompetent and corrupt and until congress is going to audit these companies like they did with Facebook, nothing is ever going to change. You will continue to "build your business" and they will continue to ruin it for you. Selling on eBay and Amazon has has become literally like playing in casino. You could never create a brand on these platforms. Thats why so many resort to take advantage on these platforms and commit fraud instead.

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

100% agree with you

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

true!!!!!!

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

They are not well-paid to be that knowledgeable - meh

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Add to this that they're not capable of fixing every bug that the eBay search engine suffers from :smash:

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Had a rep last week tell me to "just go ahead and add another Paypal" to my eBay account with a merchant account "so more customers can pay". Told him I tried that a few years ago and had $2500 held for 6 months by Paypal after being linked. He just said some stupid garbage like "that shouldn't happen again". Almost wish I would've recorded the call - not that it would have got me anywhere once that new Paypal was linked/limited like the last one.

In eBay's defense though, they go with whatever call center company has the lowest bid I'm sure.

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Classic CSR move - say anything to get the person off the phone - total bs

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

you do know, that sold listings don't all show up, right? If an item has multiple quantity good till cancelled?

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

You mean the number it shows in red from the search results? I've seen that # be off before, but never the sold quantity shown in red in this listing.

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Gladiator and I are doing fine. 8%-9% repeat customer rate on a quarter million. :boink:

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

An inbred rep did whack three good listings for link policy infringement, despite the links cross-selling to other items for sale ON ebay. That made me mad.

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Yes. I assumed the sold in search is what he was referring to. Was I mistaken?

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

No idea - he didn't say. :noidea:

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Quarter million what?

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Quarter pounder :) :focus:

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

Soooo, you think people NOT on the first page are getting all the sales?

Re: Anyway to fight against throttling?
 

What's it like being born before the internet?

Currently ~85 repeat customers / mo; linear based on sales volume. Point being, branding is profitable on top of the big perk expansive. I wouldn't dismiss it, nor avoid trying it because of ebay woes.