READ & WEEP EBAY YOU ARE GETTING MORE "SPECIAL" BY THE DAY

[izzame]

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/2018/03/05/two-new-features-coming-ebay/

Kind of "special" how sellers are always bearing increasing fees etc. ebay is great at dishing out the medicine. How about for a change they take their own advise to sellers and start lowering costs for the seller in every area. It continuously amazes me how they continue to tell us what to do with the items we own. Believe me, the day will come when they are scratching, duh, what went wrong, were is everybody. 

Most testing comes to be. This time, because they have taken a lot of heat of not announcing testing they covered their back by announcing .

[ricarmic]

Personally I don't think the how fast one responds to offers will do much, however I did get the notification that reducing the price by 5% might stimulate watchers and I found that interesting.

At some point I will try it.

I run "sales" all the time, and promoted listings which also cost money - both are working for me.

This is simply another way to engage buyers if I so choose, and until now I did not have a way to know or reach "watchers" (on the presumption they are watchers with the intention to buy instead of just  a competitor watching to see what happens). 

Perhaps I'm being a glass half full kinda guy, but I did not see this as a bad thing....but instead another opportunity that I can partake of if I so choose.

[ricarmic]

For fun I went to do what they suggested, picked a likely item and:

The item that was being suggested was already 10% off under one of my sales.

I would have had to manually reduce the price by 5% or whatever (presumably more than 5% to be noticed).

So really the impact is no different than my sales.

(Because I run the sales for 1 to 4 weeks and restart them each month so any watchers are already getting the "this item went on sale" message)

At least now I know how it works, it isn't specific at all and generates the same results as a sale, as far as I can see....

[momcqueen]

Your post is about this?
Mon Mar 5 2018 23:01:13
eBay Indicates Seller Response Time to Best Offer

“eBay is running a test in which it displays a message inside listings showing how long it takes the seller to respond to Best Offers. For example: "Seller responds to offers in 1 hour." (It varies, sometimes it's more than 1 hour.) eBay hadn't announced the new feature, and the boards lit up with questions and concerns....”

Kijiji (owned by eBay) has been doing this for six months already. I don’t see it as a bad thing. Waiting around while someone decides to answer your message or not...? That’s annoying.

[momcqueen]

I’d be game to try that five per cent one ESPECIALLY if eBay could tell me whether the buyer was domestic or international. If my price includes free domestic postage, I can discount it nicely for an international buyer. I would guess this testing is for dotcom only at the point, however.

But neither of these tests sounds bad to me.

[pjcdn2005]

If your  listing says that seller (you) responds to offers within one hour, that wouldn’t bother you?  I certainly don’t want something on my listing that says at 3 am I will answer an offer within an hour, or even 3 hours.  It would be a good idea IF a seller had control of the amount of time stated and they could toggle it on and off but the sellers who have it on their listings now weren’t even told that their listings have that message.  It just appeared with no notice.

[momcqueen]

Like with kijiji, I would assume that message appears after an aggregate assessment of time based on how long they know it takes a particular seller to respond to messages.

And, yes, I would be 75 per cent to 90 pre cent likely respond in an hour of being notified at 3 am of a new Best Offer coming in on ebay. I have four children, so I sleep for like 45 minutes at a time.

With kijiji, the criteria is, going from memory, 'seller usually responds within two hours, six hours, 12 hours.' I cannot remember the rest, I know that I'm in the two-hour category. Even with kijiji queries which for me are most often time bandits, I have no trouble replying to messages which merely direct buyers to my store on ebay.

So, yeah. Send me an offer at 3 am, and you might be surprised that I'm countering it at 3:45 am. 

[momcqueen]

Four children AND I suffer from health-related insomnia. So. You need an answer at 3 am, I am your man. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

Regarding my previous post suggesting an email to customers watching a particular item. I sent that only as "throwing it out there".  Just as an idea. And not to offend. This new test variation appears to be something eBay was already considering and more than likely will be fully implemented, eventually.  Like all the other current variations that we receive in message form on here. As a buyer AND as a seller. Is it redundant to opt out out of opting out?

-CM

[ricarmic]

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@momcqueenwrote:
I’d be game to try that five per cent one ESPECIALLY if eBay could tell me whether the buyer was domestic or international. If my price includes free domestic postage, I can discount it nicely for an international buyer. I would guess this testing is for dotcom only at the point, however.

But neither of these tests sounds bad to me.

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It is unfortunate that it really isn't targeting anyone, as far as I know all watchers get the notification.

To my mind this is worse than putting something on sale, because in the sale scenario, the sale is over at some point and it reverts back to the original price. (and if one wants one can put the sale back on again later and the watchers get notified again)

Here one reduces the price "permanently", the only way to notify watchers again would be to reduce the price further.

In both cases all the "watchers" get notifications as far as I know.

[pjcdn2005]

That’s great that it would work for you but I don’t think it is a good idea to implement a plan that only works for a small amount of sellers that dont sleep through the night.

Supposedly it is based on the sellers previous response time but the only times seen so far are for 1 and 3 ( or 4?) hours and the sellers on the boards yesterday who had that on their listings did not feel that that they could meet those requirements at all times.

Ebay tends to over promise things to buyers such as this and delivery times and then sellers are the ones that buyers get upset with if those promises are not met.

[ricarmic]

Personally in my world, I can't imagine many if any buyers would care about the time to respond to offers, but I could be wrong.

Then again I don't care how long they say I take to respond to offers because I'll respond when I respond, I can't imagine I will lose many if any sales because of it. But I could be wrong....

[reallynicestamps]

Here one reduces the price "permanently", the only way to notify watchers again would be to reduce the price further.

The things I'm watching occasionally end. But I am notified when they are re-listed.

So possibly, ending the watched item, then re-listing it at a higher price would be seen on the watchers' lists?

Sometimes I get an email, but like most watchers, I'm not buying, just window shopping.

[momcqueen]

Hmm. True. Plus, part of the impetus to Buy It Now versus Make An Offer is that if you just Buy It Now, you've got it now and it's a done deal, mailed in a day and it's yours. Telling buyers that the seller won't hem and haw over an offer price just encourages people to make offers when they might otherwise be impatient enough to just BIN already. I have BIN and BO on virtually every listing, and items still sell BIN more than 70 per cent of the time because I assume those people aren't here to dicker but just want their item to-go. 

[hlmacdon]

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@ricarmicwrote:
Personally in my world, I can't imagine many if any buyers would care about the time to respond to offers, but I could be wrong.

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They are aiming for millennials, having cribbed this feature from facebook. Nice to see they have branched out past Amazon for inspiration.

[recped]

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@ricarmicwrote:
Personally in my world, I can't imagine many if any buyers would care about the time to respond to offers, but I could be wrong.

Then again I don't care how long they say I take to respond to offers because I'll respond when I respond, I can't imagine I will lose many if any sales because of it. But I could be wrong....

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Of course buyers care! Once they have made an offer their hands are tied until the get an answer (accept or decline). While they wait for an answer they may find something else similar to buy or make an offer on but can't because if the seller accepts their offer 36 hours later they are committed to purchase (this is why BO's get more UPI's and buyer requested cancellations).

What if you make an offer and the seller waits two days to decline the offer, perhaps that other item the buyer was considering has been sold in the interim.

I'm far from a Millennial but I expect a Seller who adds BO to their listings to respond quickly.

According to what one of the "blues" on the US boards the time frame is based on the normal response times of the past 12 months, certainly enough to establish a pattern.

The other thing to remember is that this is a TEST, it may not produce results, it may cause issues for some sellers OR it might be a great thing, nobody knows without testing and a common complaint here is that eBay never tests anything before going live with a new "feature".

I don't use BO as a Seller and have almost never use it as a buyer so to me it's much ado about nothing. I do understand that it may be different for others, if it's a problem then stop using BO.

[ricarmic]

I did say in my (stamp) world.... often if I counter offer it is a long time before I hear back.

From what I've seen, I think oftentimes the (stamp) person puts their offer in when they are having morning coffee, or leaving for work or whatever and don't even check back for quite a while/next day at the same time....

But I could be wrong....

[silverpinups]

You need an answer at 3 am, I am your man. 

Don't you mean, I am your woman?  

[kawartha-ephemera]

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@hlmacdonwrote:

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@ricarmicwrote:
Personally in my world, I can't imagine many if any buyers would care about the time to respond to offers, but I could be wrong.

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They are aiming for millennials, having cribbed this feature from facebook. Nice to see they have branched out past Amazon for inspiration.

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Yes. Facebook does something similar on their business pages but if I remember right the page administrator has the option to set their business hours which are displayed for all to see.

[hlmacdon]

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@kawartha-ephemerawrote:

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@hlmacdonwrote:

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@ricarmicwrote:
Personally in my world, I can't imagine many if any buyers would care about the time to respond to offers, but I could be wrong.

---

They are aiming for millennials, having cribbed this feature from facebook. Nice to see they have branched out past Amazon for inspiration.

---

Yes. Facebook does something similar on their business pages but if I remember right the page administrator has the option to set their business hours which are displayed for all to see.

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Rightt. I'm less concerned with the feature as it is currently being tested as opposed to the underlying reason for it and the natural extension to it, which is to measure the effect of average seller response time on conversion rates.