On an earlier post, someone commented, "I strongly suspect it is indeed the beginning (or now, early middle) of the end" in regards to what is happening on eBay. I sense that it is now well within the middle of the end. Early next year may be the end.
Over the years, people have kicked and screamed over changes to eBay, saying that the site would fail. I never agreed with those people. I did not like some of the changes; after all, none of us like change. I did not like checkout when eBay first created it. I was used to personally emailing my buyers and did not like the impersonal approach. I became used to it, and even though checkout is impersonal, it is much easier. It is not such a bad thing.
Even last year when the dreaded DSR ratings began, I decided that it would be okay. So what if I now have four different ratings and they are not all five out of five? I didn't think it would hurt anything. Now that eBay is punishing me by reducing my search exposure due to my ratings of below 4.8, I have changed my mind. This is not good.
I listed 16 auctions this weekend. I relisted one lot of Nancy Drew paperbacks, hoping they would finally sell. They probably won't even be noticed by people using best match, so that listing may be doomed. My other listings are four Girl Scouts books by Lavell in dust jackets, six Vicki Barr picture covers, and five Judy Bolton picture covers. I selected all of my listings with the idea that eBay cannot easily bury them in best match. They can and have placed them at the very end of the best match results, but the number of listings in those searches is low enough that I feel most people will notice them.
The reason why it is so important to have at least standard exposure in best match is because eBay has now set best match as the default search. I have my searches set with ending soonest as my default, but eBay sometimes changes it back to best match. A couple months ago, I was doing a Nancy Drew search for ending soonest, and it was not until the second or third page that I finally noticed that my results were all out of order by the amount of time left. EBay had changed that search back to best match, so I had to save that search again as ending soonest and start over from page one. If I had not noticed that the sort had been changed, I would have missed some books of interest.
All new eBay buyers will use best match because it is the default. They will not know any better. After a while, it may occur to them to use a different sort, but we cannot depend on it. For a time, I had raised search exposure, and I remember one of my auctions that was placed as the number one listing in best match for the last 24 hours that it was active. That auction sold for higher than expected, and I am certain that it was because of the placement in best match. This means that it is very important for sellers to have either standard or raised search exposure rather than lowered search exposure. Additionally, if eBay eventually dumps all of us in its wicked Playground (see previous post), none of us will be able to find anything.
A comment that was made on my previous post states, "My advice is to start looking for another place to list your wares AND don't forget to tell your buyers where they can find you."
I have two choices: either remain on eBay or flee. I want to flee, but I am not quite ready to do so. Therefore, I have come up with a plan that will hopefully buy me some time on eBay.
I now have two primary eBay IDs: thebgs and the.bgs. The second one is the one I created nearly a week ago. I am using it as my buyer ID right now and hope to have some feedback soon. As soon as it has some feedback, if my primary ID is still stuck in lowered search exposure, I will switch to the secondary ID to sell books. I intend to switch back and forth between the two IDs as necessary in order to avoid the lowered search ranking.
I have already set up a selling account on my new ID, but since I haven't listed anything, eBay is trying to help get me started. They just sent me a message entitled "Get help selling on eBay--you can do it!" For some reason, this strikes me as extremely funny, probably because I'm not really new. Here is a screen capture of the message:

Somehow, I doubt most eBay sellers are as happy as that woman appears to be.
I have figured out that it is not a good idea to tell buyers to leave all fives. Some of them will get offended and may leave low ratings out of spite. I tried to inform a small group of buyers, and most of them did not leave the ratings. Of the ones who did, my ratings went down. The only solution is to make my buyers very happy so that perhaps they will consider leaving fives. Several sellers of Nancy Drew books already include freebies in their packages, and I plan to join them.
If my plan to stay on eBay fails, then I will leave. I think I can make it work just a little longer, but I will only know as more time passes. There is also always a chance that eBay may rethink some of these stupid changes after their stock falls even further.