eBay Stores Add Promos & Sales History, Remove Feedback
More store updates rolled out this week with mixed reaction from sellers.
eBay introduced clickable marketing banners for stores back in October, but some sellers were disappointed that the feature was limited to linking only a single category or item page, not to a promotion or sale event as had been promised in the Fall Seller Update.
Liz Morton
They've finally added the option to link to a promotion or markdown sale as well. Here's how to set it up and what it looks like in the store.
In Seller Hub, go to Edit Store and scroll down to Use a marketing banner.
Select the promotion and add your title and subtitle.
The banner will be displayed in your store and clicking through to "shop now" will lead to the promotion page where buyers will see all items included in your promotion or markdown sale.
eBay has also added in a stealth change to stores that was not included in any of the announcements or mockups previously - they are now displaying seller's total number of completed sales on the store page, right under their feedback percentage.
Sellers were initially caught off guard and confused because originally it just showed the number, but didn't say "items sold." eBay has since added a little clarity, but that doesn't address other seller concerns about the lack of communication and respect for privacy.
Sellers in this reddit thread were mixed - some are very upset about this change and others either see no problem or even like it.
eBay is now displaying seller's TOTAL ITEMS SOLD on store pages?!? from Ebay
My take - I'm not a fan of how eBay did this with zero communication, but I don't have a problem with the general concept of it.
For sellers who are concerned that this will allow competitors to track your sales, there are already several ways for competitors to do that on eBay, including checking your sold item history. The ability for buyers and competitors to see this information isn't new, but buyers who are not also sellers were probably less likely to know about advanced search methods to see it.
From the buyer perspective, I think it can act as an additional "trust signal" and that's not a bad thing.
One criticism I've seen that I think is fair is that without giving a timeframe, the number can be somewhat meaningless or possibly even give a false reflection of that user's history on the platform.
If you've had an account since 2010 you used for buying, but just started selling on it two months ago, a low number may turn off buyers if they think it represents 11 years of sales. Arguably I'm not sure how big of an issue this really is because I doubt buyers will really be putting that much thought into it, but eBay could easily address this by adding "since x date" or "date of first sale."
I'm far more upset about the fact that since the first round of store updates, the Feedback section only gives a percentage now, not the total number of feedback received, and is not a clickable link.
How many buyers are going to end up purchasing from a 100% feedback seller thinking that means something when really they are a brand new scam account with only 1 positive feedback as a buyer?
With the new store design, eBay has effectively made it so the only path to see the seller's feedback details is by clicking the "about tab", scrolling down, and clicking on the "seller profile" conveniently in smaller font all the way at the bottom.
In my opinion, this information is far more important to the buyer experience than just the percentage alone and sellers should be much more upset that buyers are no longer seeing their total number of feedback than the fact that they are seeing the total number of sales on the store page.
Why would eBay want to make it harder for buyers to see seller feedback?
