topic Re: eBay selling method comparison in Selling

eBay selling method comparison

savem0ney811 — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 02:10:47 GMT

For security purposes I will not use my primary ebay id on the discussion board.

As a 2 year seller, I noticed that people are more likely to buy a certain item from a listing with an existing selling history than a listing with fewer transactions. For example, if I already decided to buy an headphone, after the search result displayed in front of me once I type in the keywords, assuming the price between different listings are very similar, Im more likely to click on the advertisement with “xxx sold” under the title than others with “xx sold” or no such line at all(probably due to less than 10 existing transactions)

So what I did was just create such listing with high volume selling record in the first place and start doing real business afterwards. I only tried this method on a part of my listings so that I can compare the effectiveness. According to my selling record, once the listing evolved from “0-10 sold” to “400 sold”, the selling speed can increase 4-5 times instantly compare to their previous selling speed when I made no change at all, plus the speed will grow even faster with the selling record booming. My point is that there is a distinctive difference between creating popularity and doing nothing.

I admit that what I did seems a bit “unorthodox”, but given big players like futu online are also manipulating the system to lure as many customers as possible, I have to do something to take a cut from their share. So far this type of action didn’t raise any flag in ebay system so I guess legitimacy is not a problem, for now. Any advice is appreciated.

Re: eBay selling method comparison

digital*ghost — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 02:24:31 GMT

@savem0ney811 wrote:
Any advice is appreciated.

Advice about what, tho?

Listings that have high sales probably sell more because (aside from the increased Best Match ranking) it gives the impression the seller is reliable and can be trusted, and that the product is good quality due to having established a good record of selling that item with (presumably) no issues that are evident. In other words, the sales records act as a form of testimony, even though they only suggest something rather than outright claim it.

I don't have any advice because honestly, I can't condone manipulation of the site, or buyers, to get sales. I'm sure there are plenty of sellers who do so, but that's the difference between me and my competitors, and a lot of my buyers realise that.

Re: eBay selling method comparison

savem0ney811 — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 02:45:06 GMT

Tks for your reply digital ghost.

It was never my intention to manipulate the system or my customers. In fact, I got a lot of positive feedback from my customers because Im doing business for real.

I only tried to "promote" my items in the first place because it seems too long to wait for the selling record increase by itself.

Once the ball is rolling, my listing will "give the impression the seller is reliable and can be trusted" just like you mentioned.

Re: eBay selling method comparison

collect247 — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 03:00:03 GMT

Yep the rich get richer and the poor have to start from scratch

Re: eBay selling method comparison

aussie-picker — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 03:15:46 GMT

As a 2 year seller,

Whoopy Doo , Congrats Mate

Re: eBay selling method comparison

maranock — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 03:32:46 GMT

I have never looked at the number sold, let alone made a decision to buy based on that. Bit of a black sheep, me, lol

Re: eBay selling method comparison

k1ooo-slr-sales — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 04:29:21 GMT

@maranock wrote:
I have never looked at the number sold, let alone made a decision to buy based on that. Bit of a black sheep, me, lol

maranock, you are not alone.

I place more importance on seller feedback. What point is there buying an item with a large sale history if the seller has dozens of negs for the high selling item?

Re: eBay selling method comparison

k1ooo-slr-sales — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 04:48:23 GMT

@savem0ney811 wrote:
For security purposes I will not use my primary ebay id on the discussion board.
As a 2 year seller, I noticed that people are more likely to buy a certain item from a listing with an existing selling history than a listing with fewer transactions. For example, if I already decided to buy an headphone, after the search result displayed in front of me once I type in the keywords, assuming the price between different listings are very similar, Im more likely to click on the advertisement with “xxx sold” under the title than others with “xx sold” or no such line at all(probably due to less than 10 existing transactions)

So what I did was just create such listing with high volume selling record in the first place and start doing real business afterwards. I only tried this method on a part of my listings so that I can compare the effectiveness. According to my selling record, once the listing evolved from “0-10 sold” to “400 sold”, the selling speed can increase 4-5 times instantly compare to their previous selling speed when I made no change at all, plus the speed will grow even faster with the selling record booming. My point is that there is a distinctive difference between creating popularity and doing nothing.

I admit that what I did seems a bit “unorthodox”, but given big players like futu online are also manipulating the system to lure as many customers as possible, I have to do something to take a cut from their share. So far this type of action didn’t raise any flag in ebay system so I guess legitimacy is not a problem, for now. Any advice is appreciated.

So what I did was just create such listing with high volume selling record in the first place and start doing real business afterwards

This statement of yours is open to interpretation, so what I am going to say next is just supposition and NOT a judgement on you or your selling, especially since we don’t know your selling ID or what it is you are exactly alluding to have done.

The way I read your statement is that you found a way to create or fast track the gaining of a selling history for an item. My first thought was buying Buy-Now listings from yourself using another ID. Whilst technically not shilling, it is manipulating the eBay system. Members are allowed to sell Buy-Now items to their family and friends, it is bidding at auction by family and friends that is a no-no on eBay.

Then, I read your statement as saying that once you built up that sales history you then did real business from then on i.e. stopped buying from yourself through family and friends or alternate IDs.

If I suspected a seller had manipulated the eBay process to inflate sales history on an item I wanted I would not buy from them. It is, in my opinion, unethical.

Edit: how does this happen?

Re: eBay selling method comparison

k1ooo-slr-sales — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 05:06:05 GMT

@savem0ney811 wrote:
Tks for your reply digital ghost.
It was never my intention to manipulate the system or my customers. In fact, I got a lot of positive feedback from my customers because Im doing business for real.
I only tried to "promote" my items in the first place because it seems too long to wait for the selling record increase by itself.
Once the ball is rolling, my listing will "give the impression the seller is reliable and can be trusted" just like you mentioned.

sounds a lot like what I discussed in my previous post.

About the NARU’d ID, maybe the OP just needed to use these boards as a confessional because they know that they have done something wrong.

Re: eBay selling method comparison

digital*ghost — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 05:27:08 GMT

@k1ooo-slr-sales wrote:

I place more importance on seller feedback. What point is there buying an item with a large sale history if the seller has dozens of negs for the high selling item?

That's what I meant by no issues being evident - i.e. the seller has 100% pos feedback, or near enough to it, possibly even a couple of good product reviews, and no negs for that specific item. Impressions can influence a purchase decsion subconsciously, IMHO. And so can the apparent experience of the seller. I mean, if I saw a seller had sold 1000 of something for example, and there was a newer seller who hadn't sold any, while there may be other factors that would influence my decision, I could choose the more experienced seller even if they are more expensive (and have done in the past). It's the same reason I buy from a particular seller I always buy from, even though they're not always the cheapest - I know they will post extremely fast and there will be 0 product issues, and that on the odd chance something goes wrong, they will provide optimum customer support. Sales history coupled with exemplary FB is suggestive (perhaps subconsciously) of these kinds of factors.

I hit 10k feedback last year, and eBay started putting "Experienced seller" as one of the slogans in the box at the top, and I won't lie - I am infinitely happier when that appears there rather than "over 50% sold" or some such, for similar reasons.

I do get how hard it is to become an established seller on eBay these days, a lot harder than it was for me several years ago, and even then it took me a long time to be where I am now, but I have always been a fan of the slow burn method anyway. Learning as you go, keeping pace with the business as it grows, and building a long-standing reputation that hopefully one day completely transcends eBay and all their little slogans etc.

Re: eBay selling method comparison

kopenhagen5 — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 05:52:59 GMT

OP probably won't be back as this ID was NARU'd today.

Pretty sure a NARU account can't post in community.

Re: eBay selling method comparison

gec2002 — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 05:53:41 GMT

While seller feedback is important, I do think that there is an impact from the number of items sold. I have a few items that have large numbers sold and these seemed to have gained a momentum of there own. Possibly due be ranking in best match.

Thinking about how to achieve this, and I don't know if this would work as I have never tried it.

List a BIN item at a very cheap price (Say a $5 item at $1) once you sell enough say 50 reword your listing with the expensive item and you have 50 sales to its name. Someone checking FB could tell you changed it but it would take some checking. The EAN may be an issue but I can think of ways around it.

Re: eBay selling method comparison

fr2243 — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 06:02:28 GMT

Funny thing about over 50% sold...

Actually slogans like "over XX% sold" literally means NOTHING after I finally realized what the figure actually represents. I used to think "over 50% sold" means "among all the selling history in this listing, more than 50% transactions were finalized.(buyer paid, item shipped, feedback received or no return request involved after 60 days which makes the transaction cancelled etc.)" until I overheard from an ebay cs rep that "the percentage is just 'the quantity of the remaining stock' divides 'the total quantity of sold+ remainning stock'."

For example, if a listing has sold 100 items already. The remaining quantity(stock level) will directly link to the "percentage of SOLD slogan". If I put "100" quantity in the listing, the slogan will display "50% sold". If I changed the quantity from 100 to 1, the slogan will display "more than 99% sold"....

Re: eBay selling method comparison

digital*ghost — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 06:10:14 GMT

@gec2002 wrote:

Thinking about how to achieve this, and I don't know if this would work as I have never tried it.
List a BIN item at a very cheap price (Say a $5 item at $1) once you sell enough say 50 reword your listing with the expensive item and you have 50 sales to its name. Someone checking FB could tell you changed it but it would take some checking. The EAN may be an issue but I can think of ways around it.

I've actually seen listings that have employed this strategy, it's easy to spot (for a little while, at least) if you can look at the sales history and see that the item was previously selling for $1

Occasionally the previous sales history on an item can't be viewed, and as soon as the newer version has 100+ sales, the older price can't be seen, either way, but as you mention a quick search of the item number via FB would tell the whole story.

Re: eBay selling method comparison

digital*ghost — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 06:14:28 GMT

@fr2243 wrote:
Funny thing about over 50% sold...
Actually slogans like "over XX% sold" literally means NOTHING

They're actually really misleading, IMHO, at least on listings that are continually restocked.

I have listings that have a few hundred items available across a few variations, and I always keep a healthy amount of each variation in stock, but the listings are a couple of years old and have sold hundreds in that time, one even has over 1k sales, so it will always say things like almost gone, 99% sold etc.

I wish I could at least choose from a selection of available "spruiks" eBay wants to put there.

Re: eBay selling method comparison

shoppingbag* — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 08:50:22 GMT

I must admit I am hesitant to buy from someone with a feedback of (1) which is an item I just looked at a while ago. I would buy from someone else, even if it cost me more. However, if you seller had a higher feedback score and they were selling their very first item, I would probably judge them on the feedback they had received as a buyer. OK I know that buyers can only receive positive feedback, but there is feedback and then there is "glowing feedback" and this what I would look for. As for buying from someone with a huge feedback score, this makes no difference to me, as long as they have a few very positive feedbacks, I feel I can trust (or chance) that they are a decent human being who will do the right thing. Personally, I feel that manipulating the system is just dishonest, and this dishonestly will flow through to other areas of the transactions.

Re: eBay selling method comparison

k1ooo-slr-sales — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 10:29:57 GMT

@shoppingbag* wrote:
I must admit I am hesitant to buy from someone with a feedback of (1) which is an item I just looked at a while ago. I would buy from someone else, even if it cost me more. However, if you seller had a higher feedback score and they were selling their very first item, I would probably judge them on the feedback they had received as a buyer. OK I know that buyers can only receive positive feedback, but there is feedback and then there is "glowing feedback" and this what I would look for. As for buying from someone with a huge feedback score, this makes no difference to me, as long as they have a few very positive feedbacks, I feel I can trust (or chance) that they are a decent human being who will do the right thing. Personally, I feel that manipulating the system is just dishonest, and this dishonestly will flow through to other areas of the transactions.

the feedback I look at for new sellers who have mostly been buyers is the feedback they have left for their sellers. This, to me, is a much better indication of who the member is than feedback received from sellers . . . . . . which is generic in a lot of cases nowadays, especially from big sellers.

Feedback for me from a seller saying “excellent eBayer, fast payment, highly recommended” doesn’t mean much to me UNLESS I am a repeat customer or I know the seller . . . . . . in which case I know it is genuine feedback and not auto-feedback left in batches.

If you wish to test this you can. All you need to do is find a “glowing feedback” that has been left by a seller and then look at the feedback that seller leaves for their buyers. If it looks like this it is what I call generic

Now don’t anyone get me wrong, I have no problem with sellers leaving generic feedback in batches (once a month).

I just don’t see glowing feedback for a buyer who is now selling as a good indicator of that new seller as a member.

Re: eBay selling method comparison

chameleon54 — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 22:38:42 GMT

@gec2002 wrote:
While seller feedback is important, I do think that there is an impact from the number of items sold. I have a few items that have large numbers sold and these seemed to have gained a momentum of there own. Possibly due be ranking in best match.

Thinking about how to achieve this, and I don't know if this would work as I have never tried it.
List a BIN item at a very cheap price (Say a $5 item at $1) once you sell enough say 50 reword your listing with the expensive item and you have 50 sales to its name. Someone checking FB could tell you changed it but it would take some checking. The EAN may be an issue but I can think of ways around it.

I suspect the best match ranking is highly influenced by number of sales an item has and this has a huge impact on sales. I have a couple of specialised items that are always in first or second place in searches. They have been listed for several years, have thousands of views and sold 100+. The fact that they are the one of the first things to come up in searches has to help sales.

The other interesting thing is that these products establish themselves in other non - ebay related ways over time which help drive sales. If you do a simple google search for the products mentioned above its amazing where links to the listings end up. In google searches, they come up close to the top ( or at times first item ) in google images and google text. This has to help drive sales. They also appear in specialist forums on the topic, with links to the ebay listing.

I had a bit of a problem some years ago and did extensive searches of my items, trying to track down where the problem was coming from. Links to my items where in unusual places all around the world. I sell a lot of specialised items of interest to collectors and a lot of the listings appeared in club forums and information / newsletter pages, particularly in the U.K and U.S.A, but also in Japan and middle eastern countries. They had photos, taken from my listings as examples of products and where discussing the merits or otherwise of the item in general. ( not specifically my item )

This ability for people to share links for long established ebay products has to have a positive influence on sales, compared to a simple seven day listing and is an important, but often overlooked reason for keeping these established listings going at all cost.