eBay

ricarmic · ‎05-25-2017

As notes, I list on .com and am a stamp guy.

I’ve been making good use of the promoted listings (paid ads which show up as “sponsored”, which isn’t available on .CA yet). I highly recommend their use when they become available on .CA. They’ve been generating decent relative sales during my quite slow times the last few weeks.

The interesting thing is that they’ve been giving me an interesting overview/inference to my overall visibility and resultant sales. (the promoted items listed have been consistent for a while now).

Whenever my promoted impressions volume goes up, almost every time, so does my actual sales of not promoted items (promoted items sold doesn’t always correspond). When the promoted impressions go down so does my overall sales.

This has been eerily consistent for a couple months now.

Last night I had a burst of sales in the evening and the promoted listings count was the highest it’s been in at least 3 months!

Why my visibility jumped so dramatically, I don’t know, I wish I did so I could do something to sustain it….

As long as it keeps corresponding it will give me a way to see if any of my experiments are impacting my overall visibility.

femmefan1946 · ‎05-25-2017

Many experienced sellers recommend that sellers list as much material as they have available, because if any customer finds one listing, it is likely they will stop and browse for a while.

Come for the Canada #3 Mint , stay for the Worldwide Butterfly CTO collection.

(But if you know someone who needs a #3, I can help.)

It's also a reasonable argument for a Store, if the seller has enough material. Not just browsing but organized browsing.

vintagenorth · ‎05-25-2017

Hi ric, excuse me for butting in, but I just wondered if the promoted listings are for only multiple listings or can they be for single listings too? Might be an alternative to markdown manager (I really dislike that term!) Thanks.

Wow, you had some nice sales! - now if you only had some Canada 12 cent for postage....

ricarmic · ‎05-25-2017

Hi Vintage!

They are only available for multiple listings. (for the promoted listings, you "pay" a portion of the sale to ebay, so for example if you say "I'll give ebay 10% of the sale price, that boosts the chances of your item being viewed by more people, the higher the % the more they boost you I suppose.)

Markdown manager is different (I use it as well, "on sale" items I believe also acquire better visibility).

Both of them have their faults, you can't let the promoted listings promotion you created expire as you can't restart it, you have to create it again.

Generally I apply the "discount" I would have given to the item instead to the promoted listing "fee"... and I get $25 worth back each quarter from the anchor store subscription "rebate".

hlmacdon · ‎05-25-2017

@ricarmic wrote:

The interesting thing is that they’ve been giving me an interesting overview/inference to my overall visibility and resultant sales. (the promoted items listed have been consistent for a while now).

Whenever my promoted impressions volume goes up, almost every time, so does my actual sales of not promoted items (promoted items sold doesn’t always correspond). When the promoted impressions go down so does my overall sales.

The correlation makes sense to the extent that you have a large store and the promoted listing gets your store noticed. I would dig into your actual conversion rates as well and see how they track before and after. I get similar patterns when I for example list new arrivals, which while not necessarily selling, cause a traffic spike that presumably leads viewers to browse other items available for sale. One of the problems sellers with a large amount of listings that renew regularly is the search algorithm penalizes the visibility of those items, which tend to have a lower conversion rate. Depending on what percentage of your inventory is slow moving, your overall visibility can be pretty **bleep** on site even if you have many listings. Tools like promoted listings or adding free inventory that will generate hits can be a way to counteract that.