eBay has begun adding Store Inventory listings to its main eBay.com search results pages. However, sellers have begun complaining that the added exposure isn't what they thought it would be. Two main concerns are a significantly higher number of items that may come back on a search, potentially overwhelming shoppers; and the lack of gallery images so shoppers can see thumbnail photos of the items.
Previously, the main eBay.com search tool would only display auction and fixed-price listings, and would only show up to 30 Store items when there were fewer than 21 search results. Beginning this week, search results pages display all eBay.com and all eBay Store items.
A post on eBay's Announcement Board on Monday stated that listing upgrades such as Gallery and Bold will not be shown for Store Inventory listings, unless no auction or Fixed Price items are found - then the upgrades will be shown (http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200602131503442.html).
It also stated that Store Inventory listings might appear off and on for a few days. "This is a large, technologically-complicated launch, and it might take some time for these extra results to appear consistently.
Sellers are discussing "disappearing listings" on several discussion boards this week (http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?messageID=2001182624 and http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?messageID=2001182624). It's not clear whether this problem is related to the new method of Store items being displayed in search results.
