Is the gimmick that they don’t take any pride in their products, so customers drop in to see how they’re trash-talking their own deals? meh-dot-com?
Is the idea that the sellers using the service can do their own advertising? And that the company’s branding not getting in the way makes it more appealing to those sellers?
Ebay.
Now, don’t google folks! You have a company name and the answer will come up immediately.
NO.
NO
It’s online sales, and eBay. Did they stop advertising because buyers using a search engine was the same as clicking an ad?
Were their ads focused on auctions of used goods, but when they stopped advertising they got a boost in new and “buy it now” goods that they hadn’t been advertising? i.e. they were advertising the part of their business that wasn’t going to grow?
NO
NO
Did they stop advertising because everyone had heard of them already?
A NO, but not a complete NO. This question is on the cusp of an aspect of the solution.
Your question is excellent. Right down the path I would pursue.
Did they have reason to expect that everyone would have heard of them in the near future?
Did not advertising somehow help them become more well known?
Did they somehow come to the conclusion that the advertising they were doing was ineffective, so why bother?
Yeppers
Yes…sort of. No to the why bother part. Ineffective is not the word they would choose.
Did they conclude that their advertising was detrimental to the business?
Did they think it was effective but not worth the money?
Did not advertising change customer perception of eBay?
Getting there.
Was the idea that the advertising as they were doing it was detrimental?
Or that any advertising at all would be detrimental?
Just figuring out why Ebay thought advertising may be detrimental is the final piece of the solution.
Does it have something to do with eBay no longer paying to be a sponsored link on Google?
Is eBay’s relationship with PayPal part of the solution?
Was the decision based on the idea that the public would misunderstand something when they saw the ads?
No
No.
Were customers turned off by the idea of auctions?