eBay's Hugh Williams Explains Cassini Search, Part One
By Ina Steiner
EcommerceBytes.com
July 01, 2013
eBay rolled out a new search engine to users in North America this month, and sellers have lots of questions. What exactly is "Cassini"? Will shoppers notice a difference when searching for items? How will it impact the upcoming holiday shopping season, if at all? Vice President of Experience, Search and Platforms Hugh Williams joined EcommerceBytes Editor Ina Steiner to answer these questions and more.
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"We don't share our metrics publicly for obvious reasons. In my mind, our goal is really to make sure that we're successful in connecting buyers to sellers, and we look at that in lots of different ways to make sure we understand the full picture."
For more: http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y13/m07/i01/s01
@art-in-the-making wrote:
Rather than address all concerns at once, I'd like to throw out one specific question, to see if anyone has any knowledge about it. That is - if an item gets a larger number of hits but doesn't sell, what are the consequences?
a) Do you get a boost in search because the listing is popular?
b) Or, do you get held back in search because of low sales to views ration?
either way, you could see a geek coming up with a rationale
+ would these effects apply in general to all your listings, those particular items, or both?
In either case, is the effect changed when the views come from outside of or within eBay?
This is an intriguing issue, and one I've grappled with as a seller, yet I'm not sure eBay really wants any of us to know the answer to this particular conundrum.
I had an item that was an impressive and visually beautiful piece listed for over a year. It invariably showed up as "most popular listing" on my Omniture stats, and had thousands of hits during the time it was listed, yet never sold. Was it the price, the unusual nature of the item, or the fact that the visibility went down over time? I don't know for certain, but what I can tell you is that although it was a GTC item that continued to roll over every month, it still showed up always within the first 3 pages of a seach within the category I was selling. In retail shops, these sort of items are "loss leaders", or "window dressing". They serve a purpose, as long as they're connected with the other items for sale. The key is not to have too many of them! 
Recently, it garnered eBay's little "hint" on my selling page -- that line that says "Your item has had no sales in ___ months, please consider revising it". So I thought, all right, there's nothing to lose, I'll bite and see what the search results do. I ended the item, completely removed it from my listings, and thoroughly revised it, re-arrange the pictures (which were already high quality), new updated Auctiva frame, etc. I listed it at a somewhat reduced price, and waited. I checked with searches on a few occasions -- there it was, still in the top 3 pages.
My conclusion was that whatever eBay's computer search engines were doing, sales of the particular item did not seem to be an issue. I still had really good visibility, and I can say that was the same on .com. Ultimately I think computer programmes for such searches have become so sophisticated that they are beyond just putting 2 and 2 together -- in essence, they are coming close to having human-like judgment. I suspect this is the case with Cassini.
May I also suggest that as sellers, if you aren't already doing so, you conduct a bit of buying on eBay. You might find it illuminating to see what happens as a buyer. I've recently noticed my personal (buyer's) "Feed" on the eBay home page, as much as I reviled it at first, has become very attuned to my buying interests, and has helped me locate items I might not have found (or bothered looking for) otherwise. No doubt eBay knows this too.
Interestingly, since I sometimes purchase in the same category(ies) in which I sell, I noticed that immediately after listing new items they popped up on my personal "Feed" near the top. If you don't consider this is a powerful buyer incentive, think again! It's very much akin to what is happening everywhere on the internet -- information-gathering to personalize what you see.
My point is that this concept of the personal "Feed" may even override any real importance that deliberate searches on eBay have. In other words, if a buyer searches several times for particular types of articles, those items will soon show up on his/her "Feed". Hence the importance of just providing an overall good, professional merchandising experience for buyers. In this sense I don't think there is any "magic" set of parameters that will guarantee your items will come out on top, especially if other factors that have to do with your selling are not first-rate. This is the new world of eBay, and is, IMO, precisely where we are going. To quote "inuk" -
Cumos, what are you intimating, that buyers no longer have to check the description box as Cassini will intuitively look there? Yow!
Computers that think? That is an interesting perspective. Adds a whole new variable to keywords, aka, what is the buyer thinking.
Yes, and yes.
