sylviebee wrote:
Collectors do not organize the search by Best Match and buyers who are picking through used items won't be using that either unless they are new to eBay.
Also, anyone looking for a deal won't be using Best Match either once they catch onto the system.
I always use newly listed to organize the search and most collectors do the same.
That's why listing via GTCed is the kiss of death for those of us who sell used items.
I agree with you about Best Match. With all due respect to 'mj's' theories quoted in Post #2, it is far too simplistic to assume that Best Match alone drives most sales in this way, or that selling more will mean more sales. Any conclusions about eBay's search system are conjecture at worst or an educated guess at best, and are always only part of the picture. What little we've been told by eBay is clearly that the algorithms they use are far more sophisticated and complex than can be explained by one parameter.
Not only are numerous factors involved in what gets presented to buyers and in what order, but there are also many, many ways in which buyers can initiate and organize their searches. Sophisticated buyers (particularly, as you say, collectors) may use more than one method to search for the same type of item, or have a favourite system of searching that bypasses Best Match entirely.
Sellers have been trying for years to parse out eBay's methods of search placement and preference, all to spectacularly no avail. It can even be self-destructive to think that we have one aspect of the system figured out and act on that particular assumption, partly because eBay's programmers are no doubt forever busy in the background retooling the search/placement algorithms.
There are also many, many other factors completely outside of eBay's system that can influence dips and valleys of sales on eBay and elsewhere. I think many of us are aware of this. There is also just simple coincidence -- yes, that happens now and then. There may also be specific things that eBay does to "highlight" or promote certain types of items or target certain buyer markets at particular times (including its own advertising). There may also be enormous sellers coming online onto eBay all at once during a particular period that attract buyers away. There may be other online venues grabbing more attention at a given time.
Any of these factors, or all of them together, could account for bizarre clumps of sales to unusual places or sudden slumps in sales, for instance. The point is that no one really knows but eBay.
I think this statement (quoted in Post #2), is one example of trying too hard to ascribe a single factor on eBay to an observed phenomenon: "The fall-out form this is that when a seller hits a slump, they hit it hard. Best Match will continue to pass them over until their sales improve. But how can they improve if they are tracking low in Best Match? It becomes a vicious cycle or tailspin until the seller takes matters into their own hands and reaches out, for example, to past customers or drives new customers to their store. eBay Best Match won't help them until they do."
It's just not that simple, and to be honest I think it's a disservice to newer sellers to make conclusive statements about eBay's search/placement system. If it were this clear, a lot of sellers would have figured out long ago how to manipulate the system and make millions by now.
The bottom line is that not only Best Match, but all other aspects of eBay's search/placement system are deliberately kept obscure, complicated and multi-faceted for the very reason that eBay doesn't want them to be easy for sellers to puzzle out or deconstruct.
However -- and here 'Mr. Elmwood' hit the nail on the head -- we have been given some guidance by eBay. They've told us over and over again to optimize best practices. That means everything on the list, not just cherry-picking what seems to work one week or one month. And I'll bet, as 'Mr. E' says, that few sellers do that consistently.
Now, I do have to add that 'Mr. E' sells stuff that people need. Most of us sell what people merely want, or sell wholly discretionary, luxury items. With those items it's harder to maintain a constant, reliable sales volume. In times of economic or political stress people withhold spending on non-essentials.
I think too that if you sell on more than one online site, you see these trends or slumps as well. They aren't unique to eBay, nor even to online selling. Ask anybody who has worked in a B&M store -- you'll be playing solitaire on the counter, waiting for buyers, then there's a rush at no especially significant time of the day or week, and suddenly you have a line-up of 10 people at the cash, and maybe they're all wearing blue coats.
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