eBay

ricarmic · ‎12-03-2016

I did an experiment last night.

I have recently had some very strong selling items, the one's you've seen in other threads breaking my fastest sales records. Normally one product line's items sell within minutes, the other similar product line's are within hours.

Last night I unleashed 19 items within an hour. 7 of the popular and 12 others, less popular and different product lines.

The 3 most popular sold out in minutes as usual (sadly that's about the end of them ;-() and the wee bit less popular 4 sold out over night.

Nothing else sales wise of consequence, sales were actually slower than normal last night and today so far.

One would think a 36% sell rate in less than 12 hours to have some sort of positive impact?

- I do have over 3,100 items so compared to the overall count maybe it doesn't have enough of an impact

-the store has some other similar items but they are much less popular. There was no impact on them as in no extra sales (no impact on them over the last few months though either and many of the popular items have sold). One would have thought that the similar items would have had increased exposure.

-certainly there hasn't been an overall impact as I mentioned above sales overall are slower than normal, although 7 out of 3100 is a negligible number. So perhaps that's the reason.

If I get up the gumption, probably not till January, I may try another experiment with a different product group that will have more similarity and popularity than the remaining items for this one. That experiment would cost me $$$ because I'll have to "give stuff away" to generate a number of quick successive sales. Based on what happened here, I haven't much hope that it would be successful and I far too Scottish to give stuff away if I don't have to!

Thought I'd share this experience anyway.....

rose-dee · ‎12-04-2016

Over the last 3 or 4 years, from numerous experiments, I found that listing a reasonable large number of items more or less at once usually generated a flurry of sales, after which came a gap. I had to conclude that if sales alone were the primary driver for better visibility and placement, those boosts should have created more sales, but usually that's not the case.

In one series of experiments I listed about 20 new items (and by that I mean totally new, fresh listings, not "Sell Similar" retreads) within 24 hours. That generated a significant uptick in sales within the week, most of which oddly weren't the items I'd listed. I then waited for the usual subsequent "slump" and repeated the experiment twice more. The same thing happened each time.

Since I tend to list multiples of many of my items, I don't always have large numbers of individual listings to add as brand new, so it's difficult to keep repeating this experiment. However it did tell me that -- all other things such as seller status, etc. remaining constant -- listing new items (in a group) seems to generate sales, at least in my category.

I think something else has been going on recently though. Like you, I think those of us who have been selling for quite some time know which of our items tend to be popular and get snapped up quickly. Remember, I sell mostly to the U.S. A few weeks ago I listed several of what are my traditionally popular/high demand items, and they've just been sitting. I can say that this, in my own experience, is completely unprecedented. Which is why, as I've hypothesized in another thread, I think external factors are involved, the main one of which is a certain brand of trouble spelled "Trump".

ricarmic · ‎12-04-2016

Hi Rose!

I have been listing 10 new items per day for the last couple weeks, generally 1 or 2 from each batch goes quickly.

Arghhh though, I just realized that my on sale items sales all stopped on December 1st, so that will also probably figure in as to why things have slowed down as well.

There are "so many moving parts" so to speak selling here, it is just too hard to try to translate the winning formula!

msmaggie060 · ‎12-04-2016

Rose, I too find that listing a group of "new" items (as in never before listed) promotes sales. I think it is the newly listed items rather than sales that causes a buying frenzy. At least that is what I have experienced.

cumos55 · ‎12-05-2016

New listings lots of views... many watchers.

I do remember re-listing a book, which stayed at the top of Best Match in History > Canada for three weeks

Right now I have a book with 63 views and 4 watchers.... all placed there since September 1 when the store was reopened.... Book was listed over the summer months during the Canada Post mess when the store was on vacation........ This book has been close to the top of Best Watch for History> Canada for months....

It may take a while but I do suspect it will sell "soon"... as I have seen with other books that were in a similar situation......

Out of the first 50 books listed in History > Canada, I will have about one-third of the listings from my store.... and sometimes I will have as many as 25 of 50 books showing on that first page in Best match... History> Canada.

Itis possible that my revision ... relisting...of all listings from US to Canadian dollars over May to June and then adding close to 350 new listings over the months since May 15... has really stimulated Best match ... and my sales and number of listings added to eBay continues to rise...

Could it be that the search engine is focussing on my listings for many reasons..... It helps to add the right inventory.

cumos55 · ‎12-05-2016

The store was on vacation from May 15 to June 15 for the US to Canadian dollar conversion........ Open for about a week with several sales... and then on vacation for July and August.

The store was taken off vacation on September. 1....Sales were good...

and then the door to my store was opened wide at about November 15..... 10 weeks... like somewhat of a limit on sales was removed... maybe...

It is my suspicion that eBay was watching me for 10 weeks to confirm my selling ability after being on vacation for several months..... and then the sales took off to a higher level...

ricarmic · ‎12-05-2016

I cut and pasted this from another thread as I think it is useful here as well.

@rose-dee wrote:
@msmaggie060 wrote:
Strange, I'm not selling as much to the US lately, more to Canada and Australia on that ID. I do list on dotCom in US$ so very strange. I wonder if located in Canada we are not being shown as much to the US buyers and more to Cdn buyers.
I've seen this phenomenon reported by quite a number of Canadian sellers lately, and it's certainly happening to me as well. I've had proportionately more Canadian and international buyers in the past few weeks than in all preceding years, and far, far fewer U.S. buyers than normal (U.S. buyers have always accounted for about 95% of my sales). They are so absent that it's not only noticeable, but bizarre.

I list mainly on .com as well. My theory is that it's the "Trump effect". U.S. buyers are nervous and avoiding any unnecessary discretionary spending until all the chips fall where they may, so to speak, come 2017. It could get even worse for all we know.

What I can say is that I have never, in all the years I've sold on eBay, had this kind of September through early December, which is historically my best time of year.

Hi Rose!

I actually have an additional "Trump effect" effect.... in my (stamps) world in the olden before internet days, it was very hard to get US buyers to buy stuff from outside the USA, it was a very hard market for me to crack at least.

With the internet, and my own from the original days focus on reaching American customers, my US customer base was strong, and they seem to be much more comfortable buying from sources outside the USA now than they were 10 or more years ago.

However, one of the big election campaign things was market protectionism, bringing things back to "made in USA" kind of mode. It is possible that has percolated into a renewed "buy from USA first" mentality (much like we want/expect Canadian customers to buy Canadian first).

This could be another thing affecting as well.......

rose-dee · ‎12-05-2016

@ricarmic wrote:

With the internet, and my own from the original days focus on reaching American customers, my US customer base was strong, and they seem to be much more comfortable buying from sources outside the USA now than they were 10 or more years ago.

However, one of the big election campaign things was market protectionism, bringing things back to "made in USA" kind of mode. It is possible that has percolated into a renewed "buy from USA first" mentality (much like we want/expect Canadian customers to buy Canadian first).

This could be another thing affecting as well.......

That could be part of it I suppose, although why would this phenomenon I'm seeing (my disappearing U.S. buyers) have just happened all at once, and so completely, immediately after the election? You'd think that a promotional idea like "Buy American" would meet with only partial success, and only over time.

Over 50% of U.S. voters didn't vote for the Trumpster at all, and probably half of those didn't subscribe to a word he said. But I can imagine that the just-under-50% who did vote for him might be worried he might not keep his promises, and the rest might be afraid he will. A sort of consumer paralysis? Except of course those big-box items that people can get at good deals and on excellent terms right now, before the changes that might be coming in 2017?