eBay say “complementary” offsite ads are success

November 7, 2008

eBay have announced that the off site adverts on Australian listings have been a success and are expanding to the Sport, Electronics, Computers, Toys, Motors and Home categories over the next few weeks.

eBay have had a rough ride in Australia with the Foxtel ads being pulled by Foxtel themselves in response to complaints from eBay users.

For eBay to continue with the adverts they must be successful which means that 1) eBay are making money and 2) Advertisers are making money. If users don’t click the adverts and sign up to the offers then there would be no value to advertising partners so we can take it as a given that they’re working.

The good news for sellers is that the adverts open in a new browser window so potential buyers may be diverted but they will still have your listing open in their browser to return to.

eBay say adverts will be “complementary” for example home and contents insurance offers in the home category. The big question is how long it be before the boundaries are marred and “complementary” becomes “competing”?

If adverts are expanded in Australia (and eBay’s advertising revenues are already up 127% on this time last year) it’s almost a certainty we’ll see adverts in more categories in the UK in the near future. It’s simply too much money for eBay to turn away.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.co.uk, eBay.com.au | 5 Comments 

eBay UK trials more View Item page ads

November 3, 2008

eBay UK has announced this morning that it is to trial more third party ad placements on view item pages. The ads will be shown to “less than 1%” of viewers, in the Musical Instruments, MP3 Players and Home Audio / HiFi categories. eBay add that

Goods and services promoted in this sponsored link will not compete with the item for sale on the View Item Page and will be complementary to the View Item Page item whenever possible.

This is not likely to reassure sellers very much: “non-competing” and “complementary” ads have a tendancy to be replaced with ads which do compete with eBay listings, as with the recent appearance of audio book ads on audio book search result pages, and competing off-site ads on ended listing pages.

If eBay is serious about selling ads, targetting is exactly what you’d expect the company to do. You have willing shoppers on a search results page, so why waste space advertising generic, “complementary” products when you know exactly what they’re looking for, and can advertise that to them? eBay is in a pretty unique position to sell advertising: not only does it know what people are looking for, but unlike, say, Google, it’s a pretty safe bet that eBay searches are specifically about looking to buy. If you were eBay, why would you waste the cash-generating potential of all those shoppers?

We can definitely expect the relentless spread of third party ads to continue across the site: eBay goes on to say:

Depending on the results of the test, we will expand the placement to View Item Pages in other categories.

And there’s always the possibility that eBay sellers themselves will be able to buy some of these ads: one of Sky’s banners links back to their BIN listing page: though equally, many sellers would balk at the idea of paying eBay more money for banner advertising when we’re already paying them to sell on the site.

What do you think? If you’re a seller in one of the affected categories, is this a step too far for you? or are you not worried so long as the ads don’t compete directly with you? Leave us a comment.

Updated to add: Click to see full screen shot

This text ad seems to have a picture in it… so much for that particular promise. Others link directly to itunes, so if you don’t have itunes installed on your computer, you get an error page.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Featured, News | 28 Comments 

eBay.com hides quantity available on multi-item listings

October 18, 2008

eBay.com have said they are to hide the quantity available on multiple item listings for more than ten items. Rather than saying “84 available”, the listing will now tell potential buyers “more than 10 available”. eBay say:

both research and the input we’ve received from sellers indicate that buyers tend to purchase less often when they see a large quantity of items available. This is most likely because they feel a lack of urgency to purchase, or they perceive that the item isn’t selling well.

This certainly mirrors my experience, and that of other TameBayers: buyers buy faster when they think they might miss out.

Depending on the item, of course, a quantity of ten is still too high. Right now I have a few items listed that, with a quantity of 3 or 4 available for 10 days, I get a dozen watchers and no sales; if I list them singly, I can sell a couple every day. In many categories - largely, the ones selling pretty non-essentials - multiple item listings just don’t work so well. So if this change rolls on other eBay sites, it would be very useful to have the facility to set our own maximum visible quantity for each item.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.com | 15 Comments 

eBay Australia bring back ads on view item page

September 26, 2008

eBay Australia have announced today that they will continue with their controversial third party adverts on view item pages. Earlier this week, ads beneath the bid box were removed after complaints by eBay members to the advertiser, digital television network Foxtel.

eBay have now said that the trial of these ads will continue, though they will be positioned lower on the page and “will be clearly marked as a sponsored link”. Sellers in the Sports, Movies and Electronics categories can expect to see “sponsored links” appearing on their listings.

eBay Australia add “similar advertisements are already running in a number of markets, including Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, and the UK.” Well, that’s alright then. Let me tell you, if I need to: the Austrians, the Swiss, the French, the Italians and the British don’t like the ads either.

Foxtel’s online marketing manager left a comment on TameBay, expanding on the company’s position. He said:

being a reputable company we didn’t think they would place them in a way that would annoy their members. As soon as the complaint came in we looked at the placement in question and agreed it was intrusive to the sellers (who like us are online marketers)

Foxtel get it. Don’t annoy your users.

eBay, however, don’t get it. eBay see the ads as purely a revenue spinner, a source of extra cash. They need to look beyond this week’s balance sheet. The message of these ads, on the very page where sellers are trying to sell, is that eBay do not care about your sales. Even though you’ve paid eBay for that page, they still believe they have the right to siphon off your traffic for the sake of a few pence per click. And they do: it’s their site. But how much longer are sellers going to put up with a company that demonstrates its contempt for its paying customers quite so blatantly?

Sellers are already suffering from change fatigue after a year of constant policy, fee and listing strategy change on eBay. Telling us that our sales matter less than flogging their own advertising is really not what eBay should be doing right now.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.com.au | 26 Comments 

Third party ads removed from eBay Oz after member complaints

September 23, 2008

eBay.com.auLate yesterday, Australian eBayers began to notice third party ads appearing on their auction listings. A graphic and text link advert for Foxtel digital television was shown directly underneath the “your maximum bid” box on listings in some media and collectables categories: Auctionbytes has a screen shot.

As we might expect, the Australian community boards began to fill up with threads from members incensed that this had been foisted on them unannounced. Several sellers expressed a concern that buyers would assume that this “first month plus installation free” television package was included with the item they were selling, and that they would be left with the customer issues and the negative feedback when buyers discovered it was nothing to do with them.

eBay Support had no information to offer. Members contacting Live Help were told that they had received many complaints and were waiting to hear back from the business unit. Then they were told that the ads were “part of a test being done by our product development department”. Other support staff said they were “the result of a known eBay site issue”. New advertising space, test or glitch? Your guess is as good as mine.

And so some canny eBayers began to complain, not to eBay, but to Foxtel:

Send your complaint to Foxtel. If eBay stick their head in the sand about this, Foxtel certainly won’t, especially if they get lots of negative publicity about their product.

wrote one poster on the Australian PowerSellers Board. And that worked. Members who had complained directly to Foxtel received this email from their Corporate Affairs Co-ordinator:

These ads were placed on eBay by a third party, and it was never FOXTEL’s understanding that they would be placed in this way. We have asked that they be removed immediately.

I’ve got to applaud all those Australian eBayers who made their voices heard on this issue. It’s another appalling example of eBay’s inability to communicate, not only with its members, but internally: anyone could have predicted that 3P ads on the view item page would have resulted in an outcry from sellers, and Support should have been primed with correct information about just what was going on. Better still, eBay Australia should have announced the new ads ahead of time, so that sellers could make an informed decision about whether they wanted to pay for an eBay listing carrying someone else’s promotional material.

We’ve already seen adverts on eBay UK view item pages: I’m sure this won’t be the last time this happens. eBay’s belief is that they own the view item page, and can put what they like on it: but for sellers, it’s the page we’ve paid for and it should be all ours. The way this issue is resolved is going to shape the future of eBay: will it remain a marketplace where individual sellers can shine, or become Amazon Lite where you barely notice who you’re buying from? We’ve won a battle, but the conflict is nowhere near over.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Featured, Site Changes, eBay.com.au | 9 Comments 

Confusion available on new View Item page

August 29, 2008

A heads-up for eBay UK sellers about the new View Item page, which can now be viewed by clicking the link to “switch to the new version of this page” at the top of any of your own listings. There’s been a very small but significant change to the “quantity” section for multiple item listings. Here’s how it used to look:




However, on the new view, the crucial word “available” is missing:





Anyone who’s traded on eBay for a while will probably recognise the danger here: if buyers can interpret an ambiguity in their favour, they generally do, and this looks like “it said quantity four, I thought I was getting four” waiting to happen. So for those selling in multiple quantities, as eBay want us to do, it might be worth adding a note to your listings that the price is per single item.

It would be lovely if eBay could get this wording put back as it was, for the sake of the buyer experience.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.co.uk | 15 Comments 

Third party ads on eBay UK item pages

August 24, 2008

eBay are now putting adverts for third parties on “view item” pages:

Sky item page ad

Adverts for Sky TV seem to have appeared on all listings on eBay UK in the Consumer Electronics category. I haven’t yet been able to find any others, though it’s a pretty safe bet that they’ll be on their way; a rash of Googlers finding their way to TameBay from searches like “adverts on eBay” this weekend suggests that there are a few people spotting ads in new places.

One could of course take the sanguine approach: Sky TV aren’t competing with the battery charger or headphones you’re selling, so they shouldn’t distract your buyers. Indeed, if a buyer’s looking at battery chargers, they’re not looking for Sky TV so they’re never going to click the ad. Sky and eBay are wasting their time, right?

I’d love to be so calm about it, but I’m not. That £20 cashback offer is going to distract some buyers, for a start: the advertising isn’t necessarily well-targetted, but the offer is. And we’ve seen before how it goes with advertising on eBay: it starts with the likes of Sky and insurance firms, big companies who aren’t necessarily competing with eBay sellers, but it ends up with direct competition. I know I’m not the only person who’s seen my suppliers crop up in those search results’ ads. So how about if you could advertise your website on the eBay listings of all your competitors? How about if your competitors could advertise on yours?

It was just about plausible for eBay to claim that third party ads at the bottom of no-result searches were useful for buyers: if there’s nothing for them on eBay, giving them something else to look at isn’t unreasonable. But getting buyers through the process of “finding”, onto a page for something they might buy, only to send them off to buy Sky TV or home insurance, or a cheaper off-site version of what they were just looking at - I’m really not buying this as a process that’s good for anyone, including eBay.

Let’s not forget that eBay buyers are very, very loyal to the site. They come to eBay because they want to shop on eBay: they like getting feedback or they’ve bought into the security aspects or they like having many sellers’ goods aggregated in one place. Whatever the reason is, they’ve chosen to come to eBay rather than look at a search engine or a comparison shopping engine. As third-party ads proliferate on every page of the site, eBay undermine that. Buyers come to trust shopping on eBay, but when they can no longer tell the difference between an onsite and an offsite link, what happens to that trust? eBay becomes nothing more than an ugly cross between Shopping.com and Google, with nothing unique to offer. Is that a place any of us want to sell? More importantly, is it a place any of us will be bothered to try and buy?

What do you think? How will you feel when adverts crop up on your own listings? Leave us a comment.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.co.uk | 26 Comments 

eBay UK testing new view item page

August 15, 2008

Following yesterday’s announcement on .com, eBay UK have now announced testing of a new design for the view item page. From their description, it sounds very similar to the .com one; the promised “preview” function for sellers to see what their items will look like, however, seems to be missing as of time of writing. The test is promised to last for at least four weeks. More information as we discover it: if you’ve managed to get a preview on eBay.co.uk, let us know what you think.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.co.uk | 13 Comments 

eBay.com testing new view item page (still)

August 14, 2008

eBay.com have announced some changes to their proposed new “view item” page, and a further two months of testing. During that period, “a very small percentage of members will be randomly selected to see one of several new page variants” being tested.

Thanks to TameBay reader Seanie, we have a sneaky peek at one variant at least:

If you want to see how your own listings will appear, view one on eBay.com and click the link “switch to the new version of this page” at the top right. I’m pleased to say that my own slightly overcomplicated layouts don’t seem to be broken, but I’m extremely concerned that some essential elements are missing.

  • No About Me page link eBay may have given in to pressure from sellers to allow website links from Me pages, but if they’re not linked from listings any more, the links are practically useless.
  • No “listing frame” The current frame for eBay shop owners, with branding in the form of logo etc., and cross-promotion via list of category links down the left hand side, is gone. This is a great big blow to shop-owners, and for me, takes away one of the biggest points of having a shop in the first place.
  • No red door The “red door” highlight for the shop/store link is gone. Instead, a text link to the store front is given equal prominance with a “view seller’s other items”: this is much less useful for buyers *and* for sellers, and should be removed. (Weirdly, the red door does appear before the item title. I don’t see the point of this.)
  • Report item has moved to the top of the page I must admit, I’m ambivalent on this one. It will make reporting much easier, but it also slaps a great big “this might be dodgy” thought right under buyers’ noses. I don’t think I like it on such prime real estate.
  • Related items and services is empty I’m hoping I’ll be able to choose cross-promotions to go in this area, but I’m perhaps being a little optimistic. eBay are also testing a new “merchandising module with seller opt-out”, with various positionings on the page, which will show related items from the seller of the item you’re looking at, plus other sellers. Sellers will be able to opt out of this altogether if they wish, which will mean that their items don’t show on other seller’s pages either.
  • No button at the bottom The button to bid or buy from the bottom of the listing has been replaced with a not-very-visible text link. Buyers have to either click the button at the top without reading the whole listing, or scroll back up… did anyone usability-test this?

I think we can all see the way this one is going. The individual item page is no longer the seller’s sole domain: it’s slowly, and subtly, being de-branded back to a generic eBay page. Though sellers will still be able to do some branding within the description area, that no longer dominates the page. Instead, viewing an item is very much about eBay displaying the data that they want to present to buyers.

For sellers, I think this is a horrible step. The loss of the listing frame in particular is a massive blow to those who’ve built businesses upon selling multiple items to each buyer. And it’s a loss for buyers too: the variety of useful clicks-through to sellers’ shops have vanished, and that is only going to make shopping on eBay harder work. And that shouldn’t be what eBay want.

Asked if and when these changes will be coming to eBay UK, community manager James told the PS board that there is currently no date planned for changes in the UK: “I have been given assurances that any changes will be announced well in advance.” Let’s hope we can get through the spendy season without having to redo all our listings yet again.

What do you think? Love it or hate it? Leave us a comment.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.com | 29 Comments