Confused about auction visibility when selling (because I'm not getting much at all)
Summary: minijunkie is experiencing issues with their Warhammer 40K miniatures auctions not getting enough views on eBay. They suspect visibility issues with cross-country listings and checked site preferences. marnotom! and msau4301 suggested improving shipping details and adjusting keywords. Participants discussed auction market trends, noting a decline in visibility due to external factors like tax season. femmefan1946 advised using fixed-price listings instead of auctions, considering shipping options and market behavior. Despite attempts to re-list and adjust settings, minijunkie continued to face issues with unpredictable eBay indexing.
Hi folks,
聽
I've noticed my auctions are not getting very many views despite matching the right keywords (I sell painted miniatures for Warhammer so I use things like "Warhammer 40K Painted Army" etc in the titles).聽
聽
I list on ebay.ca...I'm starting to wonder if my auctions aren't very visible on the US site or other countries. For example I opened an incognito window and I can't even find my latest auction listing when I search multiple ways.聽
聽
Is there like... a setting I'm not aware of that might be limiting my auction listing visibility on other ebay sites? One thing I noticed is when I tried to say "also list on ebay UK" (a checkbox) I couldn't post the listing. It said something about "because you are using managed payments". But I thought we all have to use managed payments via ebay these days?
聽
I'd love any assistance or experiences you guys have in dealing with this! Thanks!
minijunkie
OP3 years agoOK I spoke too soon. It was showing up and now it's not. I think Ebay is trying to drive me insane.聽
minijunkie
OP3 years agoLast update - I ended the listing and re-did it from scratch, trying to be careful to pick all the right options...and it worked. It appeared in search minutes later, like it always should have. Now, whether it will SELL is a whole other ball of wax 馃檪聽 Thanks everyone - must have just been a glitch of some sort.聽
femmefan1946
路3 years agoYou are an occasional seller and those tend not to get as much exposure.
You are selling in a high fraud category.
You are selling high value items, and the $1500 item is the highest price you have asked so far.
聽
Items listed on dotCOM do get more visibility on dotCOM than those listed elsewhere but available to the USA.
Overseas searchers look at dotCOM not at dotCA.
Auctions are basically obsolete.聽 Less than 15% of listings are auction, and most of those have either Buy It Now or Best Offer attached.
Auctions have only seven days of visibility and get most bids in the last few minutes.
Fixed Price listings have 30 days of visibility and the seller can add Immediate Payment Required, which leaves the listing visible and buyable until someone actually pays.
聽
Listing on dotCOM does get a larger audience.
And the price "seems" lower because the customer sees the price in USD, which is nearly $1.30 in loonies.
As long as you specify shipping to a country, customers in that country will see your listing. But eBay does seem to rotate listings so that we may or may not be visible in any given location on any given day.
Listing on dotCA does allow us to use Calculated Shipping, which is useful for anything travelling Parcel Rates.
聽
My suggestions.
Ditch auctions for FP/IPR.
Use Free Shipping, including your costs for shipping in the asking price.
Include the minimal cost of Signature Confirmation, even when eBay does not require it "for the buyer's protection".
If you add Best Offer to your Fixed Price listing , IPR no longer functions.
If you add Best Offer, set parameters to filter out the lowballing idiots.
聽
聽
聽
minijunkie
OP3 years agoThank you, that's fantastic info. I didn't realize Auctions are basically dead now - I'll follow your guidance!
minijunkie
OP3 years agoYikes I didn't know it was a "High fraud" category!
Anyway, I talked to a representative and yeah I just need to wait longer for it to Index. She said I'm not flagged and no restrictions. I guess I just am not used to it taking more than a few minutes to show up (which is usually how it goes).聽
minijunkie
OP3 years agoSomebody on Reddit says I was flagged for manual review...although I dont know how they know that and the listing is actually active. And if it was under review why wouldn't it say that in My Ebay. This is really bizarre. Maybe I'm just forced to use BIN instead of auctions.聽
minijunkie
OP3 years agominijunkie
OP3 years agoflipistics
路3 years agoDo you have a link to the higher priced one that isn't showing?
聽
minijunkie
OP3 years agohttps://www.ebay.com/itm/166064246793?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=nSlK_VaBR3W&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=nSlK_VaBR3W&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
msau4301
路3 years agoThe link worked and it let me add it to my watchlist and everything seems to look okay but you are right it doesn't show up in searches at all.
Not sure if the maximum selling limit you mentioned earlier ($5,000 per month) is a factor because of it being an auction? If that $5,000 is Canadian the item starts at $2,170 Canadian so maybe because if item was bid up (no way to know how high) that is a factor??聽
I see listing says you painted these yourself, amazing job! I had a boyfriend waaaaaay back in the 90's who used to buy and paint tiny Game Workshop pieces.
Hope you get it sorted out.
minijunkie
OP3 years agoMaybe I鈥檒l take it down and relist it again and see what happens (now that it鈥檚 May, my seller limit will have gone back up).
minijunkie
OP3 years agoI lowered my price under the threshhold (X amount remaining in April). Still not appearing in searches. So frustrating!
minijunkie
OP3 years agoI wonder if it has something to do with my "max selling limit per month". My max is 5000 per month right now, and I think my current price takes me over that. It didn't prevent me listing it though, like it used to.
minijunkie
OP3 years agoI just noticed my 150 one shows up on .ca
聽
What's weird though is: that one shows up on both sites properly. If I go to .com I can find it there too, with a US dollar price. So I'm confused why my other auction isn't working. Ill keep noodling on it and will look again at the shipping options.聽
minijunkie
OP3 years agoThanks everyone - I actually have two auctions listed. One is about 150 USD, and one is much bigger (2500 ish) but that one is the one not getting any views at all. I think I listed that one on .ca聽 聽 So now my confusion is if I should be listing on .com or .ca? Most of my buyers are American actually (historically anyways). Also I think I list all domestic and international shipping for a flat fee - if not then I messed up somehow.聽
ricarmic
路3 years agoI only see one item the $150.
聽
The $2500 one isn't showing, you maybe should check the shipping to make sure you haven't blocked Canada somehow (ie only have US shipping identified), that's often the case why it can't be seen here.
聽
Myself, when possible I list on the site I expect it to sell on, I sell about half and half .COM and .CA. IMO US folks prefer to buy on the ,COM site plus you can have a planned price like $149.99 if you list on .CA it ends up changing every day and is a weird number like $147.43 US$.
聽
The $149.99 one running looked ok for flat rate shipping to Canada and USA.
minijunkie
OP3 years agoThanks for taking a look at this for me. I never used to have a problem with this topic - I'd list an auction, get lots of views, and sell it almost always to the USA 馃檪聽 聽
I guess I'll try listing on .com instead of .ca and see if that helps. I just relisted the larger auction on .com and I still don't see it in search when I use an incognito window and look for "newly listed". I'm a little baffled. I'm definitely using all the right keywords (I saw someone suggested figures but most warhammer auctions don't use that term - still, I appreciate the suggestion!).聽
msau4301
路3 years agoAs ricarmic has said I only see the $150 item also. (When clicking on your name "view listings".)
minijunkie
OP3 years agoYeah. Same thing even for me 馃檪聽
It's confusing. It doesn't show up in newly listed even though I just posted it on ebay.com and it says it's active.聽
femmefan1946
路3 years agoeven though I just posted it
But more than the 24 hours eBay says it may take to appear right?
And with a high value figure, eBay tends to take all their time to index, even with reliable sellers.
And you are selling in a high fraud category.
minijunkie
OP3 years agoPS how do you know it's a high fraud category (honest question). Is that indicated somewhere in the system?
ricarmic
路3 years agoI'm assuming you know the way view shows changed a few months ago, which reduced the higher numbers we used to see. (in theory they got rid of non productive views)
聽
Generally for me, I have a lot of auctions closing with 5 or fewer views, generally only the stuff of wider interest or hot stuff is going above 10 views, something getting up into the 50 to 100 is awesome compared to what is happening for a normal item. Generally those only happen when something gets a lot of bids on it.
聽
Specialty stuff is often very small a couple views or so.
聽
The days of starting auctions for things like this for $1 IMO are behind us, at least in my world that's the case because there just aren't the number of competing bidders anymore (for a wide variety of reasons).
聽
My guess is your stuff is like my specialty stuff, but I'm a stamp guy and that could be an incorrect observation as I don't know your field at all....
聽
聽
lotzofuniquegoodies
路3 years ago聽
A recent dot com discussion (April 26 - 185 responses) + a youtube video on slow/low traffic (power seller as of April 2023). Does mention that many Canadian sellers have also been seeing similar.
聽
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Significant-Drops-in-eBay-Impressions-and-Organic-Page-Views-A/td-p/33709019
聽
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUVnwXLrBr8
聽
From a personal perspective, my traffic has seen a drastic drop from last month compared to earlier in the year. Expecting another major drop as my last run of promos just ended. Sales have gone from inconsistent to erratic. Unsure if those are the same thing any more. Pretty sure it's not all economy driven. More to do with recent eBay "improvements". (eBay perspective speak)
聽
-Lotz
msau4301
路3 years agoAs marnotom has said you are listed on .com not .ca. Not sure if you were chosing your pricing on Canadian dollars or US but you listed in US. I don't know anything about these figures but I think it would help if you actually had the word "figures" in your title. When I tried searching first Warhammer 40K figures you were no where to be seen. If I take the word figures out of the search you appear but I think more people would search with the word figures. To show you the extremes in search results if you just say Warhammer 40K there are 78,000 results, as soon as you say Warhammer 40K figures it drops down to 3,300. The more specifics will narrow you down but it may be important to have the word figures in there(?). When I tried "Warhammer 40K Painted" you came up near the top, but what about the people that add the word figure, as soon as 40K Painted Figures you are gone again. No experience in this category at all but just wanted to tell you what my untrained eye sees in search.
marnotom!
路3 years agoThe fact that you don't specify information on shipping costs to most of your preferred destinations may be pushing your visibility down pretty hard.聽 Do you usually post one of these offerings at a time, or do you usually have a few auctions on the go simultaneously to increase interest and visibility?
聽
Also, we do seem to be in an especially slow period right now.聽 My hypothesis is that it has something to do with it being tax time.
聽
And for what it's worth, from what I can see you're listing on .com, not .ca.
ricarmic
路3 years agoAs a note, I usually look forward to the "blow your tax refund time", that's when us sellers traditionally see larger discretionery purchases from buyers, I would think that would be the case for this type of material.
聽
Having said this, I haven't noticed that surge since COVID not last year and not really this year that I've noticed. Perhaps too many things for folks to worry about, or spend on inflationery impacted staples....聽
minijunkie
OP3 years agoUsually 1-3 at a time yeah.聽