eBay unveiled the eBay Spring Seller Update 2022 this month. It is positively brimming with good news for sellers! There are also some not-so-good aspects, of course, particularly around category changes. You can find and read the entire Spring Speller Update for yourself at ebay.com/sellerupdate.
First, the really good news in the eBay Spring Seller Update 2022: a new Unpaid Item initiative!
For years, sellers have asked eBay to require immediate payment on Best Offer and auction listings. Too many such purchases end up as unpaid items, which is frustrating for sellers. eBay spoke about the coming of requiring payment from buyers when making offers in the eBay Winter Seller Update of 2022.
eBay has listened. In previous years, all monies went through PayPal, so eBay couldn’t implement an immediate payment requirement. But now that eBay holds the purse strings in the form of Managed Payments, it’s become a viable option. eBay is not setting a specific start date for this new policy, stating only, “Later this year, we’ll start asking buyers to pay when they accept a seller’s Offer to Buyer or a counteroffer.”
More good news in the eBay Spring Seller Update : bundle offers!
On Poshmark, buyers can put several items into a bundle and send an offer to the seller. eBay sellers familiar with this Poshmark option have asked for it to be made available on eBay as well.
eBay came through, saying, “We’ll also introduce a new feature that will let buyers request a bundled offer on multiple items. These multi-item offers can be completed in one transaction, saving you time and making it easier for buyers to purchase more of your items.”
Look for this to roll out later in the year.
Positive updates to seller-facing data!
eBay is changing the way it tallies listing views. You know how disconcerting it can be to see listings that have lots of views, but still haven’t sold. What you may not know, however, is that some items get viewed by AI (artificial intelligence) entities called bots as much if not more than they do by humans.
This typically happens to products with well-known brand names — such as Apple, Disney, or Barbie. Keyword terms like Mid-Century Modern or even “cell phone” may trigger bot activity, too.
Starting in April 2022, eBay will filter out bot views from the total number of impressions. This is good news for sellers. Views from human shoppers are of interest to sellers, not bots that crawl the internet harvesting information!
Furthermore, eBay has promised to add a new Listing Traffic History Report that will enable sellers to quickly and easily analyze traffic to their listings over the past 30 days.
eBay’s new messaging format is now live in the eBay Mobile app!
As promised in the 2022 Winter Seller Update, eBay has begun rolling out the beta version of their newly improved member-to-member messaging system. When you’re invited to opt in — if you haven’t already — I highly recommend you do so. eBay reports excellent feedback so far from both buyers and sellers, and I personally use and love it.
New look to eBay messages between buyers and sellers! (Photo courtesy of eBay)
More payout options plus a digital wallet!
eBay’s 2022 Spring Seller Update reiterates the newly expanded list of choices as to when you receive your funds from Managed Payments. The choices are daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly. eBay also reminds sellers that the company will soon be adding a digital wallet. Using the wallet sellers can use funds earned from selling to make eBay purchases.
Now for the sticking points: category changes and item specifics.
Possibly the most dreaded of all eBay changes are those to categories. But they are a part of every seller update, driven by buyer behavior, changes in available inventory, and changes in mandated information for global selling and shipping.
eBay Spring Seller Update 2022: Categories affected by changes coming May 17!
The eBay Spring Seller Update announced the following categories have changes coming May 17, 2022.
- Collectibles (Toys)
- Health & Beauty
- Home & Garden
- Parts & Accessories
Those are all very large categories. If you sell in any of them, pay close attention to any upcoming Required item specifics notifications you receive via Seller Hub or eBay’s My Messages. You’ll have until mid-July to add newly required attributes to your listings.
Remember: Item specifics feature terms eBay uses in search, so it’s beneficial to your listings’ ranking in search results to include newly required item specifics fast — it will help your items to get found by buyers! Read up on all the details of these upcoming category changes HERE.
Good things are coming…but not yet!
There’s plenty of good news in the 2022 Spring Seller Update. However, eBay is very vague on when these exciting new initiatives will go live. Still, on balance, there’s a lot of good stuff to unpack here. Think carefully about how the upcoming changes will impact you in your business on eBay.
You’ve got this seller!
eBay Spring Seller Update 2022 is here!
