July 24th, 2009 by Skip McGrath

Advertising banners that take users off of eBay are a long-standing sore spot for sellers

When eBay announces their new policy changes next week, part of the announcement will make sellers cheer.  I have confirmed with a source inside eBay that the advertising banners that appear at the top of search results will be curtailed beginning later this year –probably in the Fall.

eBay has always had strict policies to prevent driving traffic to non-eBay sites or engaging in any activity to take business off of eBay and direct it to other venues.  (Amazon has a similar policy). So sellers were understandably upset when eBay began placing large horizontal banner ads across the top of search results pages.

Although the banners were for services such as Quest telecommunications, Monster.com job seeking services and the Wall Street Journal, sellers have long felt that when someone is searching for something to buy –they don’t need to be distracted by these other offers. For example, if a buyer is searching for one of my items and a Monster.com ad comes up, he or she might click on it to check out the job market.  When they get there they see an interesting opportunity and forget that they were looking for something to buy.  OK, so a hour of so later they remember and go back to eBay, but my listing may have expired in that time.

eBay has not announced a specific date when the new policy announcements will be made, but the buzz is that it will come early next week. Part of the announcement will be details of the new Trusted Seller Program that was covered by AuctionBytes last week.

See Also

• Learn How To Start and Run an eBay Consignment Business
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