eBay is taking away the ability for sellers to control some of the cross-promotion options on their listings, the company told sellers this week. Sellers use eBay's cross-promotion tools to show buyers what other items they have for sale. According to the announcement, "these options simply haven't been as effective as eBay's default logic in driving bids and purchases."

Sellers have been able to create rules for what types of their own items should appear in the cross-promotion display area on Bid/Buy It Now Confirmation pages, and at the bottom of Stores sellers' item pages. When a seller does not specify cross-promotion rules, eBay's default logic populates the space with relevant items, choosing additional items from the seller based on the buyer's search.

eBay said it would begin removing the item-level Cross-Promotion options over the next few weeks. eBay cited low adoption rates and said they did not had a positive track record in increasing bids/purchases among buyers.

In June, eBay will also ban sellers from cross-promoting other selected sellers' listings on their item pages, as well as the Personalized Picks page in My eBay that makes recommendations for future purchases based on buying history. "By removing features like these that under-perform, we help simplify the site and free up available resources that can be better utilized elsewhere."

eBay said sellers will still be able to create Keyword to Keyword, Category to Category, and Store Category to Store Category rules.

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200705091451372.html

Seller reaction:
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000365847