eBay

ricarmic · ‎12-30-2022

I auction a lot of stuff at the same start price it will be if it doesn't sell and then goes BIN, but it has been a very very long time since I've run a 99c auction.

I've noticed that some of my "watchees" succeed in getting some very good results with 99c auctions but they also get some very BAD results as well. Examples would be something that I regularly get $9.99 BIN for that auctions for $1.25 to $1.50 (I'm tempted to contact the seller offering to buy in quantity!)

I've also noticed that when I list something that "takes off" once it has a couple bids the views go up quickly.

I do have some "guaranteed sale" items so I decided to list them starting at 99c. (final price should be in the $25 to $75 range depending on the item).

They immediately had a small number of views and within hours had bids. Once the bids started the views have risen quickly.

Since the "new" view counting system was implemented normally I'm getting in the range of 5 to 10 views for the "regular" stuff in the 7 day auction run.

The two 99c starters are about half way through their 7 day run and they're at 38 and 52 views which is 3 to 5 times the next highest item's view count out of 30 auctions running at the moment. The 52 views got more bids quicker (about 12 hours earlier) than the 38 item. Their current bid price is already at what I would have started them from using my normal listing style.

My hope was that the high views would bring folks to see the other stuff I have selling, but I do not see any other auction items with unnaturally high view counts, generally they are the usual low view numbers.

So my current thinking is that the 99c auctions don't generally pull people into the other auctions. I can't tell if it has any effect on the BINs, I don't see anything unusually better in sales volume at this point.

This leaves me to believe that 99c auctions are a good idea for something that has enough lookers/bidders to get early bids and a consistent enough value that it will generally naturally close close to what one expects bringing the hope that enough viewers/bidders show up that the realized price is higher than usual for that item.

I made enough of the 99c experimentals to last for 5 weeks.

I will now look to my other "regular" stuff to see if I have anything that is appropriate to try this way as well, the theory being that if I take the risk of starting something low that enough folks will see it because of the bidding that it goes at least for the regular price.

I'll probably post updates here from time to time as the experiment progresses.

I'm interested to hear of any other observations, experiments out there!

ricarmic · ‎01-11-2023

Wrap up of 3 experiments:

4 traditionally popular auction items started at 1c (Failed)

2 ended over traditional start price, other 2 closed below, one about half normal BIN
the ones over weren’t extraordinary
watcher count is a bit higher than previously I would say
NO affect on views of any other "unrelated" items in the auction group
Overall poor results, far better to follow the usual list at eventual BIN price.

Prior 2 lots 99c special, now started at 1c (Successful)

.CA item has reached a solid selling price views 99 (note final was 113 for 99c start)
.COM item has reached good selling price views 34 (note final was 62 for 99c start), same as 99c experiment it jumped in price quickly, views stagnated once it reached about selling price
NO affect on views for any other unrelated items in the group
these are generally quite predictable final results I think the auction way bears little risk and potentially better reward by bringing in more viewers

1c auction lowest value to bring viewers to larger sized BIN priced lots (Failed big)

views stagnated, even with prices low
.CA primary ended about half normal BIN price
.COM primary ended at 10% of normal BIN price!!!!
.CA 85 views primary, 5,4,11 on larger BIN priced
.COM 35 views primary (prior auction at BIN price 25 views), 8 views on larger BIN priced (26 last time auctioned at BIN price)
No BINs sold, which was the main purpose of the auctions
Good thing I compartmentalize “losses” as “advertising” cost, even so the 10% of normal price was hard to take, at least it went to a repeat customer!

Overall final observations:

Keep in mind there are limitations to the “value” these give, for other categories, even for me, auctions running do not run consistently, from week to week, and these were one offs as compared to others I see who have a host of regulars boosting some stuff up significantly. One offs might not appropriately compare.
The auctions with increased views appear to have NO effect on other items views nor selling
The auctions need to have a well established price to achieve consistent results
The auctions with only somewhat established prices are prone to poor to very poor results
I’ll only continue to run the ones that were successful above as 1cers going forward. I don’t have much that I can be “sure” will be a stabilized, so my 1c auctions will be very limited to non-existent over time.
Always good to try things out over time, one never knows what might work now that didn't work before!

ricarmic · ‎01-17-2023

The latest round of the 99c special behaved differently this time, both rose slowly over the week, and this increased the views significantly.

.CA item had 137 views (99, 113 last times) rose more slowly before
.COM item had 108 views (34, 62 last times) rose quickly before

Certainly the speed with which the item reaches the normal selling point has an effect, especially demonstrated on the .COM side, that's the first time the price rose slowly.

When all is said and done though, the closing price was normal, so over all the runs, the style hasn't really had any noticeable effect on the ending price.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎01-17-2023

@ricarmic wrote:
The latest round of the 99c special behaved differently this time, both rose slowly over the week, and this increased the views significantly.
.CA item had 137 views (99, 113 last times) rose more slowly before
.COM item had 108 views (34, 62 last times) rose quickly before
Certainly the speed with which the item reaches the normal selling point has an effect, especially demonstrated on the .COM side, that's the first time the price rose slowly.
When all is said and done though, the closing price was normal, so over all the runs, the style hasn't really had any noticeable effect on the ending price.

@ricarmic

I have no idea why this is happening. Just that it is. In doing some testing of multiple US sellers on dot com you will see a higher total of available listings vs checking the same seller on ca. You must use a US zip code. (Numbers/results will vary if they don't ship everything to Canada). I noticed this several months ago whenever I was researching dot com issues from the discussion forum by checking a sellers listings.

Listings should display the same way(equally/consistently) when you use the same criteria for search. If they are not this would affect the traffic you are seeing on your listings based on the site you are listing on.

-Lotz

Current US Seller listing example: Dot ca shows 15 listings. On dot com it shows 76. Both with shipping to 90210.

ricarmic · ‎01-17-2023

Hmm I think I confused things, mine are the actual end views of 3 different auction "runs" of the same style items.

My reason for including this latest result was that when the bids came in slowly, the views for the item over the course of the auction are higher as well.

That view number result was different in this last round, especially on .COM from the earlier experiments when the .COM item's price rose very fast, ie in the first 24 hours, this stagnated the views after that.

The sad news that it made little to no difference what the final price was....

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎01-17-2023

@ricarmic

Part B - Traffic comparison of my listings between the 2 sites: Jan 17, 2023

Dot ca listings = 1479

Dot com listings = 9

Majority of listings ship to both Canada & USA. Most internationally.

Dot Ca:

Dot com:

Interested to hear others reasons why this info would not mirror.

-Lotz

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎01-17-2023

@ricarmic wrote:
Hmm I think I confused things, mine are the actual end views of 3 different auction "runs" of the same style items.
My reason for including this latest result was that when the bids came in slowly, the views for the item over the course of the auction are higher as well.
That view number result was different in this last round, especially on .COM from the earlier experiments when the .COM item's price rose very fast, ie in the first 24 hours, this stagnated the views after that.
The sad news that it made little to no difference what the final price was....

@ricarmic

My (bizarre) takeaway is Canadian sellers listings are not getting the same number of eyes when a buyer searches using dot com vs ca. Very likely connected to your results. My previous conclusion was this was being caused by IS changes and categories not mirroring 100% between the 2 sites. It is very likely caused by a combination of both issues. When eBay constantly changes how items get seen it will have a direct correlation to traffic--->sales.

-Lotz

PS. I've never checked views based on a single item on both sites. Wayyy too much data to wrap my head around. 🙄

ricarmic · ‎01-17-2023

OK I understand better now.

My .CA item is very much more likely to be wanted and viewed by Canadians, the .COM one is much more likely to be wanted and viewed by US folks, that's why each is on it's respective site.

I can't say a lot about the .COM vs .CA viewing as my items are plunked on the site most likely to sell on so I wouldn't expect as high a views from the "other" site as a result.....

ricarmic · ‎02-17-2023

A final installment, I've been meaning to get around to updating this.

My continuing experience with 1c and 99c auctions even for "guaranteed sells" really wasn't producing above average returns in the end.

I returned to simply starting the auctions at the usual expected selling price. The guanteed sells regularly went above that amount, and generally ended higher in the end than they did when I started them at 1c or 99c.

So there's risk of a "low sell" for auctions starting at 1c or 99c and on average they weren't selling higher than they would if started at the "normal" price so there's really no benefit to the additional risk of starting very low.

Certainly there are far more views for the 1c/99c start items, but it doesn't seem to manifest in the end into higher realized prices on average.

So the final decision I've made is to simply resume starting auction items at what it would be if I put it up as a BIN, if it doesn't sell, it gets put up at the same price as a BIN.