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.

[5kazam]

I think you missed the jist of my OP.

It wasn't about counting views.  It was about NO views on 30 day listing, as opposed to SOME views when changed 7 days.

And as Stephy has noted - the 30 day listings after 2 weeks have less views than the 7 or 10 day listings.  Which by the way, thanks Stephy, that is the type of feedback that I'm after, as to whether for non-store, small sellers, is there any advantage in 30 day listings.

From my point of view, the answer is no.  As said in my OP,  listings will only be really visible in the last week of each month.  I can't see that is going to help sales at all.  

And to others who have talked about best match, newly listed, etc, etc., when there are 3976 listings under BIN in Australian Pottery (Other), what buyer is going to sit there and sift through 79 pages (where all the 30 day listings will be in the last 10 or so pages).  Not too many I would think.

And I too, Davewil, have had sales with no views - not often, but it has happened.

[englishrosegardens]

I meant to ask you what the other sellers in that category are using but I assume from what you've just said that they'll be on 7 or 10 days. I'm only competing with 1,700 other listings and a lot of them are variation listings (10 varations counts as 10 listings in the count in a category) so they're a lot easier to scroll through than what your category would be. That's the whole category I'm in but it's the relevant part after it's narrowed down with a few keywords.

In your situation, given that you're competing against almost 5,000 listings and that it's hard to sell at any time, the only time I'd use 30 days would be if you've got stock that never gets listed because they don't give out enough freebies to cover them, ie. if you get up to 190 free listings most months but you've got 300 items you'd like to list, I'd list the extra 110 whenever you get more freebies than usual (like last month when we got unlimited listings) and put them on 30 days - because 120 days with a few views is better than not listed & no views.

Edit:  Anything on 30 days will be seen both in newly listed and in ending soonest.  It's only gtc listings that are never seen in newly listed, apart from when they're initially listed.

[5kazam]

Thank you so much for understanding where I'm coming from.  And I'll keep in mind what you suggested.

But for non-store, small sellers the same sort of competition is going to be out there.  A huge amount of whatever's in the category they are listing in - so can you see any advantage in 30 days for them?  I can't.  Apart from what you have suggested, overload of items (and I'm drowning under them!! lol)

I personally think this is just  a smokescreen ploy put out by eBay - WOW we can list for 30 days x3 = 120 days.    No charges, whoopee!!  And at the end of the 120 days - no sales.  Thank you eBay, NOT.  

Maybe it's just the cynic in me that says you ain't gettin' something for nothing..

[englishrosegardens]

Categories can vary enormously. I look fairly regularly at a category that has 2,000+ items in it, mostly from small sellers just clearing out personal stuff. Other categories, like the one I use in my store, would be at least 90% stores and very few small sellers, but it's the sort of product/category where people would scroll through a LOT of the 13,000 listings.

In your category, and that's the only one that counts (for you), if your type of product is slow to sell then you need to have as many listed as you possibly can AND to have as much exposure as you can on any one day, or the best combination of the two that allows you to have more things listed.

As I see it, you've got three alternatives. There may be more but these are the basic ones if you've got more products than what you get free listings.

1. List on 7 or 10 days with AR so that everything runs for 28 or 40 days, then let them drop into unsold and sit there for a month while another batch has a turn. This means buyers don't see the same thing month after month and get turned off. It means you'll have listings sitting in unsold most of the time but at least they're there ready to relist any time you get a good freebie offer.

2. If you've got way more items than what you get freebies, putting them on 30 days will mean you can have up to four times as many listings as you can on 7 days. If you can use that many extra listings you could put everything on 30 days, but spread as many out over the month as possible so that you're seen in newly listed/ending soonest as much as is possible.. Because the extra freebies are for a restricted time you may only be able to spread 40 over the rest of the month, but if the extra freebie offer runs for 7 days you'll only need to spread the 40 over 23 days.

Just say you end up with 600 listings instead of 150 (by listing 150 different things each month for 4 months), you'll have a much higher percentage of the total listings in that category, so you'll be seen a lot more overall, and you MAY get more sales.

3. Have a combination of 7 & 30 day listings, and especially use your 40 listings to have your 30-day listings spread over the whole month.

It might help if I explain how I do this on my non-store ID. I have a listing limit of 120 items but so far I'm only up to 70 listings. I'm planning ahead though and every few days I put one listing on 30 days and the rest on 10 days. I don't have to do anything with the 30 day listings for 4 months unless they sell and I make another one. My goal is to eventually have one 30-day listing ending/starting every day. By just doing one each day I'll only use 30 of my regular freebies but I'll have 120 on 30 days, which will give me 90 more listings than if I had everything on only 7 days.

When I get extra freebies I'll do 10-day listings and spread them out as evenly as I can over the days they're offered. A lot of these listings will end/relist on the same days as the 30-day listings, so I'll have several items relist every day. If the extra freebies have to be done over 5 days, I'll use my remaining 10 (out of the 40) on different days of the week to when I used the extras. I tend to put the ones that are least likely to sell on 30 days, or ones that are likely to get found anyway when people use a keyword search.

I figure that the more I have listed, and the more they're spread out, the higher the chance that someone will like one of my items enough to click on my other items, thus negating the possible dead patch in the middle of the 30 days.

I honestly think the fact you had no views on 30 days but did soon after you changed to 7 days is just a coincidence, or a glitch in the system. If it can count views that never happened, I'm sure it could just as easily be delayed in showing views. The 30 day listings show in newly listed the same as any other. The only time they wouldn't show is if the site is extra busy and the listings aren't even showing in newly listed yet. Sometimes the site is slower at the start of the month because a lot of people use their 40 straight away, just as it slows a lot when they give out extra freebies and everyone is busy listing at the same time.

[digital*ghost]

---

@5kazam wrote:

And to others who have talked about best match, newly listed, etc, etc., when there are 3976 listings under BIN in Australian Pottery (Other), what buyer is going to sit there and sift through 79 pages (where all the 30 day listings will be in the last 10 or so pages).  Not too many I would think.

---

I think you missed the context of why I clarified those things....

And, of course someone who is looking for newly listed isn't going to go to the 79th page - unless they're actually looking for the oldest listings (that's the easiest way to find them now). 

The main point I was actually trying to make is that correlation doesn't equal causation (see also confirmation bias), and that choosing listing options for a particular sort order is problematic - the majority use best match, which is mostly an unknown quantity, most other things are unpredictable, which is not the same as saying that certain options won't garner consistent results, but it takes more than one instance to determine consitency. 

[5kazam]

Okay, I will bow to the superior eBay knowledge that you and DG have, and I do really appreciate your input.  I will give it a go and see what happens.  I will list a few that way when they retire this weekend.  Plus I'll keep a weekly record, and post back here in a months time.

(You know what - funnily enough I have watchers only on my auction items, and none on the BIN's.  Go figure buyers!!)

[englishrosegardens]

I don't know whether it's still the case but auctions often used to be better placed in best match than BINs.  A friend of mine kept an eye on it and ended up listing mostly as auctions because she felt she got more sales that way.  There could also be a buyer perception that sellers only stick things on BIN or longer rotations if they were old stock (hadn't sold on auctions).  I'm not saying they'd think that about all categories but they could think it about some.  There are sooooo many variables that you could try everything and still be none the wiser as to what works best and why.

[davidc4430]

i have watchers on both my auction items and my buy it nows, not many actually bidding or buying.

i myself am watching both auction items and buy it nows. mostly items i have that i'm not listing to see if they sell and for how much. some i'm interested in buying if i can afford it some day.

[5kazam]

This is probably going a little off topic, but I thought it  worth mentioning.  You made the comment about not relisting all unsold - ie space them out a bit over a couple of months as buyers don't want to see the same listings over and over.  The point was noted.

This morning I decided to bore myself silly by scrolling through Australian Pottery (other).  I wanted to see where my listings were (just using the default best match).  

I discovered that eBay are inflating the number of items listed by showing the same item 2 or 3 times or more. There was one 'promoted' listing (and not a very interesting one at that) which appeared on every page.  I even found one of my own on pages 33 and 38.  So of 4871 listings, probably near enough to 1000 or more of those are double/triple ups.  I only got to page 39 when I made a mistake and pressed the back arrow at the wrong time which closed eBay.

This could partly explain why sales are slower than they used to be.  Some may say that's great - extra exposure.  But I don't  I would think buyers would be turned off by seeing the exact same listings over and over, and probably wouldn't even get to page 30.

[englishrosegardens]

I think the order of the listings changes after you've looked at a few pages in best match, so if one item gets seen more it means something else doesn't get seen at all. I used to have this happen and it was what alerted me to the fact that my default search method (newly listed) had reverted to best match. I don't think they inflate the number of listings in the category, it just means some things get double exposure while others miss out altogether.