Watchers % of listings

[do-ca66]

I've been tracking my items with at least 1 watcher, and it's always at about 40% of total number of listings.

I have too many items in the shop, for sure; pushing 1000.

I'm impressed, and encouraged by the consistant results in watchers and sales.

I wonder if you could check your % of watchers / listings and let me know.

Is 40% an average for most sellers ?

Thanks, 

;-Don Jamieson

[kawartha-ephemera]

I suppose that number will vary widely depending on both the type of merchandise offered and  the duration of the listings. Personally cannot recall ever seeing a number as high as you describe, more like 10% in my world.

[esclyons]

yes i run around 850-950  auctions at any one time, and i believe my watcher total is  at best 120-ish watchers. So if you are getting that many watchers good for you.. Hopefully it is translating into sales..

If it isn't, when you go to relist your items with lots of watchers, ebay will sell them a relist notice.. so if you drop the price a couple of bucks, they will receive a message that says you watched this item at xx, it has now been relisted at a lower xx..

[reallynicestamps]

I rarely see Watchers because most of my items are Fixed Price, and singles at that.

So if someone wants it, she buys it. No need to watch.

Much the same with Views. If a listing is accumulating a lot of Views it means it is not selling.

YMMV.

[do-ca66]

Thank you for responding,  Kawartha.

If I had to guess before counting; I would have said 15%-20%.

I feel very good about the 40% then, and sales have been swell.

In the last 6 months I've averaged between  .9 to 1.8 items sold per day, or 28 to 55 per month,

suffering shut-out days that have varied from 5 to 13 per month.

I look forward to no postal deadlines Saturdays and Sundays.

;-Don

ps: I worked at Kawartha TV in the Patch for years.

[do-ca66]

I see it exactly the opposite; nothing sells that isn't seen, nor seen and forgotton either.

Viewers and watchers are a sign my items are relative,  hitting the right search buttons, and getting noticed.

Priceless.

;-D.

[ricarmic]

I don't think one can draw too much from watcher % because there are too many variables.

I've never figured it out before, so I figured out the average out of 250 of my items (I have 3600ish running).

They are all currently GTC.

I let them run until they sell, some have been running almost 10 years.

My watchers % looks to be about 36%.

The only way I would know if this was good  would be to find someone else who sold stamps similar to me, and has a large number of GTC running "forever". Comparing to anything/anyone else wouldn't work.

Note femme's comments, part of her sales are in the same "field" as me...and her experience is very different.

The only thing I personally believe is that the more watchers an item has, the more likely it will sell. That's the only thing that seems to be derivable from observing watcher counts..... but that's just my opinion....

[kawartha-ephemera]

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@do-ca66 wrote:

I see it exactly the opposite; nothing sells that isn't seen, nor seen and forgotton either.

Viewers and watchers are a sign my items are relative,  hitting the right search buttons, and getting noticed.

Priceless.

;-D.

---

This has been my experience for many years as well. A single watcher means little, two watchers ... still not a sure thing by any means but better sell through rate, three watchers and above are highly likely to sell if not on that listing cycle then the next. 

[do-ca66]

The watcher quantity is visible to a viewer, indicating increased demand and value.
When I shop, an item with watchers boosts it's appeal, and makes my subconcious yearn more for it.
A consistant 40% is very pleasing and encouraging to me, as shop owner.
Does eBay have any numbers on this stat ?

[momcqueen]

“The watcher quantity is visible to a viewer, indicating increased demand and value.”

Not necessarily. This changed about a year ago; there were several threads on it.

[momcqueen]

Message 9 of ten https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Weekly-Chat-Session/April-25th-2018-Weekly-Session/m-p/400900/highlight...

For background, try a Community search.

Search the Community for other threads related to Watchers and their impact

[momcqueen]

If you search the term 'watchers not showing' you should see 44 results. 

[momcqueen]

One final word: you probably think we're all just trying to burst your bubble on this matter and that's really not quite it. A few of us 'regulars' on the discussion board have been around for as long as dirt. Watchers just don't give us the feels anymore.

For example.

I have two high-priced rare items with 52 watchers each that have had 30+ watchers for between two and three years now. Who are all these watchers? Ten are probably dreamers, another ten might be sellers, 20 are probably counterfeiters waiting for the right moment to start cranking out replicas on the black market, two might be potential buyers. 

Despite having 52 watchers, I'd probably faint from surprise if either actually sold. I used to have two each of each item, their counterparts sold three and four years ago. Since then, I've collected watchers but no buyers. And that's fine but I don't get excited to see people watching things anymore. A watcher is more likely to be a fellow seller than an actual buyer. In fact, if I want to keep an eye on which of my listings to monitor for photo theft, all I have to do is track which item has a new watcher for a week and then doesn't and, presto, my item has had its picture swiped by a would-be competitor. 

So that's what watchers are good at monitoring, in my experience: forecasting which of my items will have new competition on the marketplace, with or without my photos and Item Specifics and Description being swiped to generate them. 

[hlmacdon]

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@momcqueen wrote:

One final word: you probably think we're all just trying to burst your bubble on this matter and that's really not quite it. A few of us 'regulars' on the discussion board have been around for as long as dirt. Watchers just don't give us the feels anymore. 

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Pretty much. I have hundreds of watchers (GTC listings), some items with a very large number of watchers. Not much of a correlation with sales given the items with the highest number of watchers tend to be ones with the least amount of recent sales/total sales. A watcher is about as relevant as the bookmark you made in your browser for a website you visited 5 years ago. 

The more meaningful metric is how many of your items are sitting in a shopping cart. That is relevant as it at least tied to an ebay push notification in the form of an email which can trigger a purchase. Moreover, it is especially relevant as it is a wonderful tool with which enjoy a friendly bout of psychological warfare with tire kickers. Got ebay messages say you have items waiting in carts? Reduce your available quantity and/or increase price. Works great. In fact much better than lowering prices in my experience. That info should be passed to selling manager then I could have some real fun.