Today is 60 days from the eBay UK fee changes on the 25th September and is the first time it’s been possible to have a maximum 60-days Recent Sales score on listings. It won’t last long though, those with Good Til Canceled listings will see their relisted items drop from 60-days to 30-days Recent Sales, which in truth shouldn’t affect them too much as the most significant sales are those in the last few days.
The drop is because Recent Sales only carry over to relisted items once, current 30-day listings have benefited from sales from the 25th September. Items relisted today (the second relist) will lose Recent Sales boost from September and early October sales (the original listing).
It may however assist those sellers who have the 2nd, 3rd and 4th spot in search results especially if they’ve been trying to dislodge someone from the top spot of search results. If they listed their original listing a few days later in the short term they’ll have a long tail of 40 or 50 days of Recent Sales score.
For sellers who have 30 day listings ending, the best practice is to relist as quickly as possible to regain their spot in search results. A delay of even a few hours gives competitors an opportunity to gain sales and each sale gained while your listing is off the site increases your competitors Recent Sales score in comparison to yours.
18 Responses
Sticking with Norf’s listing strategy here,,
‘List and Hope’
It’s been working a treat.
too right whirly
you can get bogged down in the detail
if its not on the shelf it cant be seen ,and it wont be bought
you can waste hours tweaking and anoraking
could you imagine walking into tescos and having to spend 20mins searching for a tin of peas you would just diddle off to the corner shop or ask the sales assistant where it was,
ebay needs to make search less complicated, and offer a search and find service to buyers that does not entail a university degree in IT skills
Gotta say, Norf’s strategy largely works here too. Switching some items to multiple listing rather than single has saved me a few 15c…. gonna take a lot of those before I get rich though.
My biggest saving to be honest is the reduction in the insertion fees of multiple item listings from a high of £3.00 down to £1.90 and now 5p (with featured shop).
Quite frankly (although someone’ll tell me I’m wrong – probably an auction based seller) we ain’t ever had it so good (or at least high ASP mulitple item sellers haven’t).
#5 “we ain’t ever had it so good”
Yep, same here but being totally honest I have no idea why or how 😆
The best match thingy seems to be helping my jewellery sales, in October and November some items where I can do multiple item listings have had really good sales and I’ve checked using generic type searches like “hematite earrings” or “Turquoise earrings” adn found my stuff on the first page (being on page one when there are 3000+ listings seems to help loads – I really don’t care that I’m not at the top of the page, especially as we are not talking about identical items in this category).
I have noticed though that in the last few weeks while my sales are going up overall the number of listings in the jewellery cats seem to be dropping – would this be as those 90 day listings fall away do you think?
I’ve also noticed that it’s only certain items that are selling well – it doesn’t seem to have much of a knock on effect on other items.
Getting to the top of Best Match is starting to be like getting the ‘Buy Box’ on Amazon.
North #3 – good idea that, think whenever I want to buy something on eBay I’ll email CS or PSS and ask them to provide the URL to the listing coz I can’t find it on search or Best Match 😉 :))
#5, #6, #7 – good to hear some of you are benefiting – over at SEAS (South East Asian Sellers) everyone, and I do mean everyone, who is using a correct residential address is saying their sales have completely bombed.
However the few who have left their home country addresses in place (seller location misrepresentation, as opposed to item location misrepresentation) are saying they are selling well in the UK.
I guess the lesson there is that something within Best Match and New Search is most definitely disadvantaging those who are not in the country where the item is listed?
Starting to say to myself a lot, “If you can’t beat them, join them” with regard to also misrepresenting my own address on eBay … and I know I’m not alone.
Ed
Chris,
How does the “Moving Window” (https://ebaydeveloper.typepad.com/dev/) fit into all this? Sadly I have a listing that hasn’t made any sales in two lists (one week) yet it still ranks #2 in best match just like it did two weeks ago. I only run 3 day listings because FP30 never make me any sales.
Are the rules different for .com or is something else going on here?
#10 eBay.com is very different as they still have SIF and it’s a bigger market, however the moving window still applies but there are three of em, a short (normally around 3 days) a medium (normally around 7 days) and a long (up to 60 days max if you relist 30 day listings, as little as 2 days 😯 for 1 day listings).
If you run back to back fixed price short duration listings you’ll never even get maximum from the short and medium windows let along the long tail 60 day window from relisting a 30 day.
As for sales if you’re #2 in best match with no sales then either the price or offer isn’t attractive and it has to be a slow moving product. There are reasons short listings sell more often – there’s a compulsion to buy because a listing is about to end and you might miss out, and also eBay send item about to end emails to anyone who’s watching your item.
Having said that if no one much is buying that product maybe it’d be better off as SIF to save you fees? How many is the #1 listing in search selling?
# 1 is always some auction that never sells, is higher priced, and isn’t always from the same person. The item was moving nicely until about a week ago then everything stopped. I’m not sure what happened but my placement hasn’t changed as a result of fewer sales. I did however watch it slowly climb in ranking with each sale.
#12 Maybe demand has simply stopped, you need to look further than simply why you’re not #1
@ # 13
I was never wondering why I’m not #1. I’m wondering why I’m still #2. My listing hasn’t been lowered in search but shouldn’t it be? Everything says my recent sales score should be 0 and recent sales is the primary gauge for sorting in best match.
You dont want to be me, trust me 😆
#14 If you’re not selling maybe no one else is either…. To be honest it’s impossible to even guess without seeing the listing and specific search terms used.
have noticed though that in the last few weeks while my sales are going up overall the number of listings in the jewellery cats seem to be dropping – would this be as those 90 day listings fall away do you think?”
number of listings are dropping, cos you cant sell the bugger unless you give it away
#17 North I don’t think people are buying expensive jewellery at all but I’m doing quite well with the under £5 stuff that I make and sell – I seem to be spending every evening at the moment making earrings and packing them up. Still I suppose it will all die the death in a few weeks time so I’m making the most of it.