Cannabis being advertised on eBay Sponsored Links

StaffsSW

I was searching for "weed seed" for my tortoise, and look what was showing from the "sponsored links"!!!



These sponsored links are a royal PITA - if I wanted a shopping comparison site, I'd use Kelkoo or similar. As far as tactical move from eBay goes, it's a not just a shot in the foot, it's removing it's own lower limbs!!

Leading buyers to off-ebay sites to make a purchase will not only harm sellers but also decrease the Final Value Fee revenue that ebay are earning. It's a pretty nasty trial to run in the lead up to Christmas, and I can't see how it "improves the buying experience" in any way.

It's hardly " a level playing field" that eBay seem to be striving towards...

GeologyRocks

hehe

Totally agree with you there.
It's like ebay are saying "thanks for all the fees sellers! Now, we don't actually give a damn whether you sell anything, and we will be sending buyers elsewhere"

COOLTRIKERCHICK

if i remember rightly..... selling and owning.. cannabis seeds is not ilegal.... but growing it is.....

hydroponics is also a choice growing system for indoor commercial growers.... there are no diesease in the earth etc ... as you are growing in water/rock ... with nutriants being added......and using mercury vapour lights to mimmick the d3 let out my sunlight.... this is what commercial growers of fruit/veg/flowers in our country use.. to gorw things out of season...... they use it for quick growing crops.... salad stuff..... and also to start crops early to get the first sales of the season......

so nothing ilegal going on there......


maybe i got the wrong end of the stick... i thought you were on about selling cannabis seeds..... sorry......

i dont thin ebay are going to be losing out by sending custom elsewhere..... its acting like when you go to a cashback site and you do the daily searches with the comparison sites.... you get paid for going onto the site so ebay are getting paid for the traffic hits... it send those sites...... so ebay are in a win/win situation..

StaffsSW

Oooh I dunno - feminized seeds, discretely packaged? They are hardly going to be kept as fish food or decoration, are they?

The fact remains that eBay would not allow a seller to advertise them, so why is a sponsor allowed to? eBay will be losing out on Final Value Fees - if you were searching for a Samsung Printer and saw this screen - would you pay £125 from an ebay seller, or £99 from a non-ebay seller?



This is a grossly unfair revenue raising tactic from eBay. Sellers are paying fees to eBay in order to receive exposure for their items, but now that exposure is being eroded by the onset of these links; as most sellers can not compete with the purchasing power of the large corporations who are featuring in these links, the eBay price can be much higher than a retail outlet which can afford to be using the product as a loss leader.

According to eBay, these are appearing as a test, and may or may not be a permanent feature. eBay also claim "The overall guiding principle for us is to see if we can more fully realise the advertising opportunity without hurting our sellers’ businesses so that we can lower insertion fees."

An official post on the eBay boards stated the following

What is happening with sponsored links on eBay.co.uk?
Since the beginning of 2007 eBay has started introducing “sponsored links” – links to third party websites that offer goods and services relevant to the search and browse activities performed by buyers.
Presence of these links has allowed eBay to expand the breadth of product and service offerings for buyers. It also gives buyers greater price transparency, and with that, confidence that the best deals on the web can be found on eBay – proving to buyers that eBay is always the best starting point for shopping online.

What about impact of sponsored links on eBay sellers’ businesses?
We monitor impact of sponsored links on the volume of trade conducted on eBay very closely. In fact ever since sponsored links were introduced we have maintained a “control group” of users that have never seen sponsored links. We closely monitor any differences in behaviour between users who see sponsored links and those who don’t. And the answer is that the behaviour of the two groups is virtually identical and remains so over time. So with a high degree of confidence we can say that sponsored links are not harming our sellers’ business as a whole. In other words though buyers do click to off-eBay sites through sponsored links (with a new browser window opening for each sponsored link) they come back and perform just as much activity on eBay as they would have done had sponsored links not been there.

What about placement of sponsored links above Shops listings?
As of the beginning of November we started testing placement of sponsored links further up results page, incl. above Shop listings. This is a test in which we are exploring ways to more fully realise the advertising opportunity while closely monitoring the impact on user experience and eBay sellers’ businesses. Again, this is a test and no decision has been made whether this configuration should stay or be reversed. We are measuring the impact very closely and will react quickly should we detect negative trends.

Can I advertise my eBay Shop or my off-eBay website in sponsored links?
We’re working on giving sellers such functionality and will be asking for input on this soon.

In the meantime you can try one of the following:

To feature eBay listings: promote listings with Listing Upgrades (http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/promoting_ov.html). Note that Gallery Featured for example gets your listing included in Featured items which appear on top of regular search results
To feature eBay Shop: upgrade your Shop to Featured or Anchor level (http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/specialtysites/store-subscription-levels.html)
To promote off-eBay website: become a Shopping.com merchant. Shopping.com is an online shopping comparison company and its merchants’ listings are often shown in search results on eBay.co.uk (under “sponsored links”) as well as on other sites (https://ukmerchant.shopping.com/enroll/app?service=page/PartnerWelcome)

What if a sponsored link is promoting items not allowed for sale on eBay, counterfeit items or VeRO infringing items?
As a general rule content on third party sites is the responsibility of site owners and not of eBay and is impossible for eBay to monitor or change. However, if you feel that a particular sponsored link is breaking any of the eBay rules please refer it to Customer Support.

Regards,

The suggestion that sellers may want to pay for listing upgrades in order to ensure they appear above the links is ludicrous. What they really mean is not only will we pay listing fees, Shop fees, SMP fees, Final Value Fee's, Paypal fees. THEN on top of that they want us to pay out more for links so people can find the sellers items they've hidden....

Claiming that it "gives buyers greater price transparency, and with that, confidence that the best deals on the web can be found on eBay – proving to buyers that eBay is always the best starting point for shopping online" is utter BS - look at the image above?! And I somehow doubt that eBay have sold the medium to advertisers with that line - "pay us to show your product, but it will not sell as others are cheaper"

Hang on... maybe that is the line they are about to feed sellers?!! :eek:

"We are measuring the impact very closely and will react quickly should we detect negative trends." An outcry of dismay from hundreds of ebay sellers on the message boards and forums is not considered to be a "negative trend" does it not? More and more volume sellers moving to other selling venes such as their own websites is not a "negative trend"?

"So with a high degree of confidence we can say that sponsored links are not harming our sellers’ business as a whole." - and absolutely no consideration for those that it is affecting? By their own definition, this is surely a "negative trend" for those sellers.

Of all the changes to "improve the buying experience" that eBay have introduced over the recent months, this has got to be one of the most offensive and punishing to sellers, especially by trialling it in the lead up to Christmas, the time when many sellers hope to maximise their sales.

It's hardly " a level playing field" that eBay seem to be striving towards...

COOLTRIKERCHICK

i dont want to go into the legal thing about cannabis seeds....etc... but as the law stands you can legally sell whatever cannabis seeds.. whether they are al female ...hybrid ..or from mars.... you can legally sell them...... this is the loophole in the goverments policy on the matter....

as for ebay..... doing these links..... ebay have got soo powerfull on the internet etc.. when you do a google search or use any search engine for something... ebay listings etc are allways on the top......

yes it is going to piddle people off.... everyone know that ebay is not allways the cheapest when to comes to buyng new items..... but people have got into the habbit of searching ebay if they want anything.....

in reality.....ebay are a powerful company on the internet..... and yes they are going to broaden their scope when to comes to people's shopping habbits on the internet....

at the end of the day... just because you have an item listed on ebay for sale.... doesnt mean that someone... who is looking for one on the internet should automatically buy it from ebay.... any savvy person would shop around themselves to see if they can get a better deal elsewhere.....

thats why we are all mse'rs isnt it.....

Badger_Lady

Firstly, I think I must be in the control group because I've never seen these!

But it does seem like a strange tactic from eBay - they will get revenue from anyone who clicks on these ads (even by mistake), and this might be what they're counting on... but their main source of income will always be the marketplace buyers and sellers, the same people who will be upset by this.

Of course, by keeping the control group, you can be assured that they will closely monitor any impact on sales... if people are going off to these third-party sites they'll shut it down.

I suspect that actually the impact is minimal because someone searching for an auction listing is unlikely to want to visit a third-party website (unless there are no results). They will instead click on it by mistake, not realising it's not a listing, earn eBay 5p, then go back to the item listings.

StaffsSW

I do know the in's and outs of selling seeds, but let's be brutally honest and ask who is going to pay $10-$20 per seed, just to keep it as a novelty item?! The point I am trying to make is that if I listed a load of F1 hybrid Afghan seeds on eBay, I'd by Naru'd by the time you could say "roll another fat one"... Yet eBay are happy to accept money off 3rd parties to show the same product that is not permitted on eBay.

As an ebay seller, there is very little choice of alternative markets that offer the same exposure, and before the eBid-propaganda merchants start jumping up and down, yes I do have an eBid account, and yes I have listed about 300 items in the last year and sold 2.

As an ebay buyer, I will browse ebay to look to buy an item from an ebay seller, not some tinpot far eastern tat-merchant with an advertising budget.

The problem with all the changes that ebay are making is that it will force sellers off the site, and on to their own websites, leaving it to be full of hobby sellers shifting tat on cheap listing days, and the usual crowd of scammers, frauds and fakers. Not the MSE'ers friend I'm sure you'll agree.

With less major sellers on the site paying £,000's in fees per month, guess who is going to have to pay higher fees to list on there?

Yep - the small sellers and MSE'ers.

eBay was founded on a community spirit, based on mutual trust and understanding. It is far from that today.

(is there a swear filter on this site - not that I've tried, but lots of posts are coming through with "..." or is this part of the technical thing that was going on yesterday?)

COOLTRIKERCHICK

i can totally see your point steve.... ebay started intentionally to sell secondhand unwanted items... and its just gone awall so to speak..... and one of the hottest sites on the internet market today....

all i can say is thats life ... things never stay the same, and people and companies will allways strieve to make more money.....

lets face it its not only ebay that change things to try and make more money...... and its the little guys that take the backlash of it all.....

all i can say is voice your opinion to ebay.... especially about the cannibis seeds... as they are breaking their own rules.... by advertising such sites.....

at the end of the day the site is owned by ebay..... and they can do what they like.... they could charge a £1 a listing if they want... ( for low cost items ) as at the end of the day, it is up to you if you list and try and sell items on ebay.... no one is forcing you/us and its not the only selling/auction site on the internet....

ElegantlyWasted

The only thing that I can think of is that as eBay is an international company, other countries have different laws. Whilst it is illegal to grow cannabis in the UK, this is not the same in the rest of the EU.

That said though, as it's eBay.co.uk, surely they should be adhering to UK laws. I agree that at current prices, people really aren't buying seeds just to look at them, and to be honest, if they were, they wouldn't be buying feminised. The only reason to buy them is so they will bud.

The sponsored links annoy me no end, I agree with the OP, if I wanted to price-compare, I'd go to Kelkoo.

StaffsSW

eBay is an international company, but the ads are appearing on eBay UK - it is legal to sell gun parts and accessories on the US site & it is legal to sell XXX videos on the US site, but neither on the UK site due to local laws.It is forbidden to sell used cosmetics on the German site as that breaks the law in that country.

The sponsored links are ONLY on the UK site at the moment, and all content on them is controlled by eBay, they are not appearing on any other international site.

It's nothing more than double standards, political spin and lack of commercial integrity.

peter999

I have just noticed Sponsored Links section within finished listings at the top.
I have never noticed them before, is this something new ??

Are these Sponsored Links within completed listings same as mentioned by OP in Nov-07 or is this something new ??

So now in finished listings you get 3 sections clogging it up:
-More items from Seller
-Sponsored Links
-Similiar items from all ebay Sellers

They are PITA, clogging up listings with ebay trying to push items to ebay users.

When will this ever stop ??

No wonder I hardly use ebay anymore !!

peter999