Visitor not working

[pinetreecottage]

Just listed a quilt.  Right away, I looked at the listing, to make sure all was correct.  To my surprise, it showed 17 people had looked.  Obviously, that's not right, so here's a thought.  To all of us sellers, who may think nobody is looking at our stuff, just ignore the counters.  It's too discouraging.  The important thing is sales.  Hopefully with our sagging Can. $,  our sales will pick up soon.  Cheers all.

[inuk_the_polar_bear]

I have never had a problem with sales as I price competitively with my American counterparts. I have never, in 11 years, looked at a counter. Do I even have one?

[pinetreecottage]

You have been a member since Aug. 09 with 54 sales in 4 years(according to your stats).  So 11 years Hmm.  I'm not trying to dispute any ones success or lack thereof.  Are you not familiar with the counter #, that shows how many people have looked at your items?  That is surely a good indicator, showing traffic to your site.  What my point is, that the counter is not working, so those of us who use this tool to determine, if we have visitors, should disregard it for the time being.  That's all.

[pierrelebel]

"You have been a member since Aug. 09 with 54 sales"

It is not advisable to make jusgement based on a posting ID information.  That poster has been around for eleven years with thousands and thousands of positive feedback.

It is more important to discuss the message, the subject, the issue than to concentrate on the messenger.

[pinetreecottage]

Fair enough, however, if a member  wants to be part of the conversation, they should post with an active ID.  There should be no reason to hide.  Besides, my original question is still, if someone has been a long time seller, why are they not familiar with the visitor counter?  The post at issue here, as much as insulted me with the "do I even have one?" Like it's me who is nuts.  Bottom line, the counter does not work.  Since that is the only way to know if anyone is looking, I find it a helpful tool to dicide, if maybe changes to the listing is needed.

[ricarmic]

My own personal experience is:

I do closely watch the counters, especially for the first 30 days.

I do know that they are not an extremely reliable way to judge viewership.

I do know that they can be used (by me at least) to loosely identify if items are getting looked at.

(I know this because I have "popular" and "unpopular" items - the counts almost always go up "fast" on the "popular" items and not so much on the "unpopular")

Having said this, I really only pay close attention to them for the first 30 days after listing..... but in my world, I know that an item with under 5 views in a week or so is one of the "unpopular" and items with 10 or more are "popular" - that is of course if the "popular" ones are still unsold!

[pinetreecottage]

Cheers, thank you for that.  As I only ever use the 5 day auction format, the counter is somewhat helpful tool.

[73rhc]

"It is more important to discuss the message, the subject, the issue than to concentrate on the messenger."

When a reader sees a post from another user, they would like to know if they are credible. So, I don't believe one should hide behind a different user name. My opinion.

[pierrelebel]

"but in my world, I know that an item with under 5 views in a week or so is one of the "unpopular" and items with 10 or more are "popular""

I do not put much weight on the number of viewers as there is no way to determine how many of those are from competitors or would be competitors.  I have seen items with 100 viewers the first week go unsold and items with no or few viewers sell.  I have never been able to determine a direct relationship between viewers, watchers and sales.  My main concern has always been with sales.  Not enough time to worry about the "small stuff".

[bb_cool_stuff]

If you have a store subscription you can also check your traffic reports.

[pierrelebel]

"I don't believe one should hide behind a different user name. My opinion.'

In general terms I agree.  I resent unidentified posters with ZERO feedback giving advise.

However, most regular posters get to know the regular User ID of those low feedback posters.  It is quite different from the "zero" feedback posters hiding behing a posting ID, in fear of retribution.

Either way, while I agree credibility can be assessed on the basis of the posters experience, discussion should still be directed on the message, the subject, the issue, not the messenger.

[bb_cool_stuff]

Go with what Pierre mentioned in his previous post.

I check my competitors completed listings everday along with my traffic reports.

Other than that & some time on the forums, my time is better spent making adjustments in my store.

It is all about how i can maximize sales.

[73rhc]

"Either way, while I agree credibility can be assessed on the basis of the posters experience, discussion should still be directed on the message, the subject, the issue, not the messenger"

I think, for the most part we agree. Where I have small problem is when someone posts their resumé (part of the message!) and there is no way to verify this. So their credibility is and should be questioned.

[pierrelebel]

"So their credibility is and should be questioned."

Everyone has the right to assess everyone else's credibility.  That is fair.

Should credibility be challenged or questionned? That is not the purpose of these discussiuon boards which is to help and assist other members.

[73rhc]

"That is not the purpose of these discussiuon boards which is to help and assist other members"

If you going to give someone advice. Shouldn't the person on the receiving end know if this person knows what they are talking about. Otherwise, let's all change to a different name and chime in on issues we know nothing about!

[pocomocomputing]

eBay has another free tool for checking activity on your listings. It is called Listing Analytics. You have to subscribe to it.

It can show all of your active listings with the number of Impressions (how many times the listing showed in search), Click and click through (how many times the listing was viewed) and how many times the item sold.

You can only see data for active listings for fixed price and not auctions.  However, you can look up ended listings (sold or unsold) for auction or fixed price individually to see how they did.

One thing I noticed is that the data is not daily but every two days so the data graphs are not smooth but instead go down to zero every second day. Too bad since it gives a poor looking graph of the data.  It was not like this when I used this tool when I first looked at yeas ago when it came out.

If you wish to sign up for the application, you will see a tab for Applications in My eBay on the right in the list of tabs. The tab has "new" beside it but the tab and the listing application have been around for 3+ years.

[ricarmic]

I have a bit different view on the "competitors" aspect - I don't care whether the watchers are potential buyers or competitors. If I have 10 competitors interested enough to watch it, there is a reason that many competitors care - presumably at some point if that many competitors care, so will potential buyers.

My normal reason for watching the counts is when I introduce new "product lines" (in m world this is different styles of stamp packages, boxes etc) to see whether they are in the "popular" or "unpopular" categories.

[pierrelebel]

"Shouldn't the person on the receiving end know if this person knows what they are talking about."

If we lived in a perfect world.... But we do not.

The question becomes what to do with posters giving questionable information.

From my perspective, in most instances, the answer is to assess the message and dispute/question the message (not the poster) if it seems inappropriate.

After a while posters with little credibility are simply ignored.  There is nothing to gain in "attacking" them.

Once again: stick to the message, not the messenger. 

A lot of low feedback posters offer great and valuable answers to specific (and often technical) questions. Readers are free to access the value of the message whichever way they want.

[ricarmic]

My personal view:

Every hour I spend on this board costs me $$$ because I'm not selling while I'm reading/posting

When I am reading I am looking for any information that is of use to me/will help me sell more stuff or sell it more effectively.

When I am posting, I am doing it because I think it might help someone else.

A long time ago, I'm going to use INUK as an example, I also noticed he had little feedback and hadn't been selling for a while on that id - at that time I didn't think about "posting id's". However that didn't really matter, it was clear from somewhere he had experience and posted information that I could sometimes use/learn from which is why I'm spending time here. I've been selling for 35 years, there was no internet when I started, however I got experience then that is still useful now in the online world. Same will be true of other sellers regardless of how many feedbacks/items they have on ebay.

It is a bit frustrating the $$$ (as in my time) I lose reading the back and forth banter that doesn't allow me or anyone else to learn anything from it.

[pocomocomputing]

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@ricarmic wrote:

I have a bit different view on the "competitors" aspect - I don't care whether the watchers are potential buyers or competitors. If I have 10 competitors interested enough to watch it, there is a reason that many competitors care - presumably at some point if that many competitors care, so will potential buyers.

My normal reason for watching the counts is when I introduce new "product lines" (in m world this is different styles of stamp packages, boxes etc) to see whether they are in the "popular" or "unpopular" categories.

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You might want to look at Listing Analytics. Some items have a high impressions count (found in search) with no clicks (views). You have to ask yourself why. Clicks or views alone does not give enough information.

This assumes that the data given by Listing Analytics is reasonably accurate. Take a look at the Listing Analytics.