30 day listings – I’m interested to know what others think

[5kazam]

Yesterday I cancelled a few of my auction listings and re-listed them BIN for 30 days, incl. the 3 auto re-lists, thinking this is great, 120 days, yeah!!  I didn’t have any views at all in the next 24 hours.

Then I thought this morning, that as a lot of buyers sort by ‘ending soonest’, my listings are only going to get a foot in the door in the last week of each month.

So I popped in to revise those listings back to 7 days (incl auto re-lists).  Went out for a couple of hours, and when I came back all of those items had views on them.

The way I see it (now) is that no-one is going to scroll through hundreds of pages to finally get to something that is going to end in (say) 26 days.  And unless buyers type in a specific line in the search bar, those listings are not going to show up any time soon.

The 30 day listings may be great for some sellers, depending on what they sell and in which category, but this little black duck won’t be going down that track again.

Interested in others opinions on the 30 day listings.

[lane-ends]

i only do 30 day listings. Ending soon searchers are only looking for auctions not BINS.  

Buyers who are willing to BIN will either use best match or lowest price, in which case duration is irrelevent.new listings get a boost for a few days, but that boost is in order to test if it gets views or watchers, these then have a geater influence on best match placings,Of course type of product will affect search method eg, a specific spare part compared to say "size 12 evening dress".

Best match ranking plays a big part in the latter as there will be a lot of returns and buyer is just browsing till something catches their eye. Whereas when searching for a specific item lowest price search is important.

ebays "bots' may show up as page views on recent listings.

I have been surprised how many of my 30 day listing get almost immediate wathers, and sometimes sell straight away, as though someone is getting alerts when listed

[5kazam]

I hear where you are coming from.  I only have the 40 free plus occasional promo.

Do you have a store?  The liittle door thing isn't on your id here.  

I really would like to hear from non-store sellers to give feedback as to whether the 30 day listings have been beneficial to sales or not.  Given my (albeit) short foray into that area I was a tad stunned there were no views at all (not even bot views), which is why I changed the listings, and put my original post up.

[5kazam]

I think it's a lot different for store sellers, and particularly the ones who sell clothing.  I can see the benefits of 30 day listings in that scenario.  

You probably have 'followers' who do get alerts when you list something new.  Good luck to you, I think that's great.  And I mean that sincerely.

[digital*ghost]

Newly listed as a sort order will sort all items according to the date they were listed, so the longer something is listed, as a general rule the further it will go down the order, unless the category or search doesn't have many listings. For example, lets say I list an item and have it as a GTC, so it doesn't end at all, and then no one else lists anything else that matches those search words for 6 months - my item will be at the top of the list for 6 months.

In saying that, "newly listed" as a metric is a bit different and more affects best match rankings. That applies to brand new listings only (though includes ended > relisted / sell similar listings). That lasts for about 24-48 hours. 

Revising a listing often re-indexes it but in all honesty if there was less than a day between listing the items and revising the duration, you can't really be sure if that's what brought them in front of buyer's eyes. I'm not saying it wasn't or couldn't be, just that the results of updating are largely inconclusive. 

eBay reckon (and anytime a sentence starts with those two words, you know you have to take what follows with a grain, maybe a rock, of salt, especially when it involves stats that favour their own preferences), that about 30% of buyers switch from, or use a sort order other than, best match. Considering eBay's membership, even if that's true, while 30% is not an insignificant amount, it would still mean the majority use BM when searching.

[englishrosegardens]

I have a store with 600+ listings on 30 days but I also have a non-store ID with about 70 listings at the moment.  On the non-store ID I only started using 30 days just over a month ago and only on a handful of scattered listings so it's a bit too soon to know whether there are any advantages or disadvantages, and I'm not sure I'll ever really know.  I spread my listings out as much as possible but last time I checked a LOT of the listings in that category are listed in big clumps and run for 30 days so mine show in newly listed for a while, but that may depend on the way you search.  The category would be massive so buyers would have to put some keywords in when they browse.

I was ready to dismiss the idea that the number of initial viewers and watchers influences placement in best match, but then I checked my listings.  I happened to check the first 50 listings in my category in best match a couple of hours ago and I saw four of my items.  I remembered which ones they were so when I read this thread again I decided to check how many views those listings had had compared to my other listings.

Some of the other listings have had more views but what I found interesting was that those four listings are the only ones that have watchers on them.  I haven't sold a lot on this ID yet and I sell a fairly unique product that hasn't taken off yet and it's also in amongst about 1,700 other listings, plus it's not the main time of year for them, so they don't get a lot of watchers/views just yet.

Here's the details of watchers and viewers on those items that were in the first 50 in best match.  It includes how long since they were listed.  It starts with the one shown at the top and ends with the one that showed last.  The first two were shown together and the last two were together, with quite a gap between them.

1.  7 views, 2 watchers - has been listed for just over 6 days (since it auto relisted).

2.  3 views, 2 watchers - has been listed for 4 days 4 hours             "         "

3.  3 views, 1 watcher - has been listed for 4 days 10 hours             "         "

4.  8 views, 1 watcher - has been listed for 15 days                          "         "

The first three are on 10 days but the last one is on 30 days.

Moral of the story:  get your friends to put watches on heaps of your listings so they're more likely to show higher in best match.  It may be just coincidence but that's the way it looks to me.

[englishrosegardens]

A lot of buyers don't know how to change the default, and I remember before I changed mine to always sort by newly listed I used to find myself browsing by best match without realising it. I'd change as soon as I realised what was happening, but if others do the same thing they would see a page or two at the top of best match before they changed to newly listed (or whatever), which could explain why things right at the top of best match sell well, while a bit further down has no effect.

[englishrosegardens]

If having watchers on listings moves them higher in best match, it wouldn't pay to put watches on your opposition's items!

[davewil1964]

I have a store. 30 day with 3xrelists works for me.

This and my other non-store ID now list for 120 days pre-store instead of 40. Seems to work - I'm selling more prelist, so less I have to pay for in the store.

[heihachi_73]

I haven't noticed anything different yet, aside from an abysmal March where my "eBay lights" were turned off. Soon as it hit April 1, I was back to selling things again, and that was not an April Fools joke!

Items are still selling at the same rate as they were with 10-day BINs. On the up side, with the 30-day BINs I can list more things since I no longer have to relist the same things every 40 days while hoping 100 free listings comes my way so the older unsold items can also be relisted before they vanish.

I don't understand how changing a Buy It Now listing from 30 to 7 days would change the number of views. It works with auctions where everyone tries to snipe in the dying seconds (if it's a popular item like a signed footy card), but with a fixed price BIN it makes no sense in having them run for shorter periods - only for the fact that eBay gets more things relisted and any fees associated with listing items once the 40 has run out.

Why would anyone select "Ending Soonest" on a Buy It Now?

[davidc4430]

i'm trying a mix of buy it now with the 30 day listing with the free relistings and the 7 day auction listings with free relists. so far cant see a huge difference, sold a few items with buy it now. what i dont get is buyers who buy it now and dont pay soon after, got one now who bought on saturday morning but still hasnt paid. no messages. ive got the auto reminder set so they will get that after the allowed period passes. if i buy it now i pay imediately. i wouldnt buy if i couldnt pay.