eBay Product & Price Research Changes Raise Concerns About Transparency & Relevancy

Recent changes eBay has made to its Product Research offering (formerly known as Terapeak) are raising questions and concerns about transparency and reliability of data provided to sellers on the platform.

First, eBay seems to have curtailed reporting on total number of items sold and total dollar figures of sales, a move that eBay SEO agency List Rank Seller rightfully calls out as troubling for transparency and openness.

Previously, Product Research showed Total sold and Total Item Sales

Now those figures are missing from the display, with no option to add them back in under any of the various filters presented.

Turning on the "Show sales trends" toggle does provide charts with some useful information, however the chart for pricing only shows daily averages, not actual totals, and the chart for total sold only gives daily numbers, requiring the user to do a bunch of manual math if they wanted to try to determine the total over a longer period of time.

Not only does this provide less transparency and truly useful, actionable data for sellers, it also conveniently makes it harder to track trends of problems on the platform like how many price gouging, recalled or unsafe products, and pre-sale or other policy violating listings eBay has allowed to be sold.

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Sellers noticed this change to Product Research last month, starting around the same time it was announced Product Research was finally also being made available in the eBay app experience, and are also lamenting the loss of data.

Product Research (Terapeak) Total Rev and Total Units sold?

Product Research (Terapeak) Total Rev and Total Units sold? Where did Total Rev and Number of Units sold go in the Product Research Summary Screen? That was super helpful data. Thanks

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Product Research (Terapeak) Total Rev and Total Units sold?

Where did Total Rev and Number of Units sold go in the Product Research Summary Screen? That was super helpful data.

Not seeing it anymore either. What is going on? It was one of the main reasons I used Terapeak in the first place. So much data not accessible anymore.

There has also been a bit of confusion around the appearance of a Research Prices option in Seller Hub Active listings, with many sellers noticing the option just recently for the first time while others have had this feature available for several years.

Research prices on my listings

why would research prices show up on my active listings that say buy it now only? I never put them here

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why would research prices show up on my active listings that say buy it now only? I never put them here

The option in Seller Hub appears to be "dynamic" just like the listing form, meaning it will appear for items where the category, title, and item specifics provide enough information for eBay to extrapolate keywords and data to match the item up to similar items with sold history via Product Research.

However, it may not appear for all items (for example if it's not able to find relevant keywords in the item details or is not available in a particular category) and variation listings are not eligible to show price research.

And of course it's possible the results may not be particularly helpful if the items eBay is comparing too are completely different.

The good news is it is only shown to the seller and is not at this time a buyer-facing feature, so if it's not relevant or helpful, it can simply be ignored.

So, why are sellers suddenly seeing this feature for the first time when it's been around since at least 2022?

It's possible that eBay may have expanded category availability or tweaked something with the dynamic systems that extrapolate data from listing information, resulting in more listings having the option offered and more sellers seeing it for the first time.

It's also possible eBay could be toying with the placement of the link in the Seller Hub Active Listings page, making it more visible and obvious in some scenarios.

Some sellers report that the link only appears toward the bottom of the Actions drop down menu.

Others say it's being prominently displayed as the default option under "Actions" without needing to click the dropdown menu at all.

It could be that eBay is also now dynamically adjusting the placement of the link, showing it more prominently in certain situations ( possibly to newer/casual sellers or maybe as a "nudge" on items where they believe the seller is priced too high).

If that is the case, a new increase in visibility could explain the sudden influx of sellers noticing the option for the first time.

What do you think of these changes to eBay Product and Price Research? Let us know in the comments below!