eBay Sell Similar Goes MIA again. This Time for Good?

by: lessthanthreerecords

If eBay is worried about sellers copying over wrong information with "sell similar," why don't they care when they do it with their almighty catalog?

by: COVID-19

This should be permanent. It will prevent LAZY sellers from stealing the photos and original descriptions from the hard-working sellers. eBay's "catalog" is a disgusting idea to begin with. Ptui!

by: Tenoem

The problem with ebay's part fitment catalog is it only goes to trim level when it should allow you to enter a VIN number.   To make it simple, say you were ordering parts for a 2023 Suburban, you can get 3 engines at certain trim levels (5.3 Gas, 6.2 Gas, and then a 3.0L Diesel.  Ebay's part fitment cannot tell what engine you have, so you may order parts for your 6.2L Gas engine but receive parts for a 3.0L duramax Diesel.

Why would ebay care though, they just pay for return shipping.  The seller has to pay for the entire cost of the item when ebay's fitment is wrong, because no OEM manufacturer will take back any expensive electronic component once the item is opened.   Most of the items I sell say ''not returnable if opened'' right on the package.  Ebay just sticks the seller with that cost each and every time.  

You can easily get around the problem you are mentioning though by copying the title of the item you want to sell similar, click on sell, and then paste the title in when it asks you what you are selling, scroll down the results until you get to ''other sellers listed'' and the one you want to sell similar should be at the top.  

by: Chicago48

"which is frustrating as eBay already has the most labor intensive listing process of any of the online selling platforms!"
Labor intensive is right!  No other platform (exc Amazon) requires so much time entering  item specifics.

by: CT Bay

“Guaranteed Fit” what a crock! As if there was a problem with parts not fitting. If the part doesn’t fit it’s generally because the buyer ordered the wrong part. All this does is give the ever shrinking entitled buyer base the idea that they don’t have to verify part numbers or do any due diligence because its “Guaranteed Fit.” Thats not what it means but when has ebay ever had the sellers back when buyers misunderstand and misuse things? Never. I think they know it will be misunderstood and its intended to mislead.

by: Rexford

Reading through this article makes my head hurt.  It clearly shows anyone why you need your own website where YOU control updates and changes.  For decades eBay has made it more difficult and more time consuming to list.  Take a look at the number of item specifics required for listing a pair of cufflinks.  It's insane.

And it is clear to me that both eBay and Etsy have made some change in 2023 that has killed many sellers' sales. It's likely either AI related or "stifled by an algorithm" and since they can't get simple programming right who would ever trust them to implement or use this type of untested and "advanced"  technology.

And for those who respond crowing about how great their sales are in 2023 a simple reminder-- you are one technology change from having your business crushed.

by: pace306

ANOTHER MAGICAL innovation, brought to you by the DOPES in San Jose.

Rex and CT are both correct in their assessments of the state of ebay and how it treats/views sellers.

One one hand they BEG for sellers to list, but on the other hand try to do as little as possible to make it work, hide your items, AI buyers out of seeing your items, then pull a stunt like this when it comes to "Sell Similar".

Only the Mafia dopes in San Jose, who wish to control YOUR business, do things like this.

As for Q4 advertising .... its either the dopey commercial about misfitting windshield wipers (duh just bring in the old one and tell the clerk at Autozone etc what car you have) or the one about "guaranteed fit" for the category .... what about EVERYONE ELSE who sells on the site?

I guarantee that my CDs will fit ANY CD player, I guarantee ALL my "vintage" Disney VHS tapes will fit in any NTSC VCR and I guarantee that eBay will have another DOWN quarter and will continue to have them unless a GROWN UP steps in to help GROW the company.

by: Snapped

It’s not selling the left handed flangerators with 2mm too small mounting holes that’s the problem.  

It’s that eBay isn’t ‘fit’ anymore as the preferred place to try it.

by: toolguy

I still have sell similar on regular eBay & eBay Motors

This would be a HUGE deal to me as I use "sell similar" on almost all of my new listings!

eBay ~ DON'T DO IT

by: Frank Abagnale

"eBay will have another DOWN quarter."

Yes, but Iannone will state that ebay's 3rd quarter results were "better than expected".

And will probably state that ""Enthusiast buyers was stable at 16 million in Q2...spend per enthusiast grew modestly year-over-year, averaging roughly $3,000 annually." (that info courtesy of a Value Added Resource blog post).  

by: toolguy

Why I use "sell similar" instead of "relist"

When you list an item with "sell similar" it gets put right in que at the time of the listing.

If you hit relist your item will be buried where the original item your listing was in que which is usually about 10-100 pages back. . . It will NOT show up as "newly listed"

I NEVER use "relist"

by: toolguy

@Frank Abagnale

I sold more in Sept. then any other month this year.

I also bought more in Sept. then any other month.

I bet eBay's 3rd Q will be better then Wall Street's expectations, we'll see Nov. 7th

by: NYSteve

@Rexford, which leads to my unanswered question:
why do Marketplaces even exist?
free internet, dont we call  it, you should be able to search in your browser for what you are looking for and individual websites pop up...having them all in 1 marketplace (manipulating results and chargin fees and making random rules) saves little time, and leads to a MONOPOLY and a worse-than-a-bad-boss situation.

too bad google shopping doesnt take off, that is at least a step in the right direction

by: AddyUp

The couple of regular items I buy for my car from eBay never happened this year. The sellers were no longer there and the "search" only turned up items abroad.

So it was a high street shop for a few items and a google search showed one of the missing sellers had their own website.

So it was a bust for eBay and their guaranteed fit.

That's the only "sell similar" I use now. Items similar to what I once purchased on eBay now bought elsewhere.

by: NYSteve

Addyup- dont feel sorry for you, the site i found that buys Amazon accounts and then good riddance for me, no longer replies     lol

by: Rexford

NYSteve, I have pretty good luck finding what I want if I search in Google and then click on Google images.   I have one type of product in my online store (my website, not any of my third party stores) that sells very well and gets good visibility on Google.  I don't buy any advertising and those products still show up in Google's first page of search results. The more items that I add on my web site the more sales I make.  This is not the case on eBay, Etsy, Amazon, or Poshmark.  I kind of feel like all of those sites are throttling me, in fact I pretty much know it.  

I don't think that eCrater throttles me.  I like my own personal online website and my eCrater store best.   eCrater's search still works like it always has and I don't feel like they play in games with sellers and they are not greedy like some of the other sites.  eCrater has really accurate search.

by: NYSteve

Rexford- consider yourself lucky. even when i do google search most of the listings lead to Amazon site...does that serve any purpose other than Amazon's pocketbook?

too bad, i get so few sales on my own site, and ecrater.

and...i'd never pay for advertising SEO online ripoff

by: Rexford

NYSteve, believe me I do feel lucky.  It's all about having a niche product, that's for sure.  If you have one niche product that will bring buyers to your site and hopefully they will buy products on your site that are not niche.

by: Shanna

The eBay catalog is so flawed, almost every entry I come across has serious errors, errors that customers would note to take advantage of free return shipping. The biggest issue is when you input a UPC code and the catalog entry comes up and you select not to use it, because of all the errors, it doesn't matter, when you pull up the listing after it goes live, it has the catalog info included, you cannot guarantee your own listings anymore if eBay is going to force you to include wrong data.

by: RightbrainWoman

So far, for me, sell similar disappeared from "completed and sold" filter but is available for active listings.