Listing Performance and Sales??

[turbometrics]

I have experienced a 80-90% drop in traffic to listings and a huge drop in sales, no ranking change on my account but listings are appearing 9 to 10 pages after the first one even with free postages and selling at prices where I make a loss, sales have dropped by at least half, any one else experiencing poor listing performance over the last few months ?

Please respond to the survey leave any helpful tips on improving listing performance if you have any clues.

[davewil1964]

I've increased my listings marginally and sales have proceeded apace.

Even though I sell in a category where a dropshipper usually has at least 10 identical items filling the 10 cheapest spots.

[flashback_deals]

I actually don't take much notice, I think if someone wants it, it might sell eventually

I am reopening a store after I take advantage of the 30 free listings tommorow, so will see how it goes 🙂

[turbometrics]

There is a lot of eBay measurement of Seller performance but funny there is no measure of eBay performance, such as daily, and monthly traffic stats, perhaps eBay does not think that sellers have a right to know the performance of the site that they are using and paying for, or perhaps the obvious down trend of traffic that would embarrassed them, as buyers leave eBay to use other auction sites rather then eBay.

Personally as a seller I think that eBay should provide a open unrestricted page of its Australian traffic stats , such as google analytics would provide on any given web site so that Sellers can see how eBay is really performing, while its good to be able to monitor your own listings that has very little relevance if you cant see general statistics of eBay, a drop in daily/monthly visitors could explain listing traffic changes.

I hope that makes sense.

Come on eBay measure your own Performance be accountable for your performance as much as you make sellers accountable to the buyers, after all your selling a service to the sellers, but eBay is a hypocrite to there own standards, As Sellers we dont get to leave eBay negative feedback that effects eBay revenues, perhaps if listing fees were based on eBay performance sellers ranking eBay and as eBay performance drops for your bad feedback we get cheaper listing or final value fees, encouraging eBay to up its game a bit.

Some thing to think about, seriously Sellers need a union or club to boycott eBay for its unfair policies.

[davewil1964]

Nobody's forcing you to sell here.

I cannot see how site statistics would help at all. If they don't come, they don't buy, but if they come and don't buy or if they buy but not from me it's all the same in the end.

I wouldn't have a clue about statistics for my shop. I've never looked, as I consider them irrelevant. Sales are my sole benchmark.

[bsal6160]

One option for eBay maybe to have a seller charged 50% of a non selling price for an item advertised or 5% of the final sale price. That would sort out the sellers just trying to make HUGE profits on cheap items.

I, for one, as a buyer, if looking to buy something here, look through every page for the cheapest item so its irrelevant what page your item shows up on the buyer will see it. Also, a niche market like the one you are trying to sell into only has a certain amount of buyers who after buying the item really have no need to look for another one.

[davewil1964]

It's easier if you just sort by "Price + Postage - Lowest First", bsal. Saves a lot of pages.

[bsal6160]

I sort by Finishing Soonest. I could sort by the way you suggest however, if by the second last page i see the one i want its too late. SOLD.

[digital*ghost]

I have experienced a 80-90% drop in traffic to listings and a huge drop in sales, no ranking change on my account but listings are appearing 9 to 10 pages after the first one even with free postages and selling at prices where I make a loss, sales have dropped by at least half, any one else experiencing poor listing performance over the last few months ?

Please respond to the survey leave any helpful tips on improving listing performance if you have any clues.

I think you'll find this is something that either is happening, or has happened, to a lot of sellers over the last year or so, with quite a number of factors that can affect listing performance (including - seemingly - the sheer whim of the eBay 'gods' :O). Best Match, which determines where your listing places in search results, is based primarily on sales, but there are a lot of unknown factors as to how one listing can outrank another when it has fewer sales, and the seller's feedback is worse than others. Auctions and discount sales can sometimes help, though I have always found that when things are quiet, they stay that way even with very attractive auction/sale prices.

More recently, some results for eBay listings returned in google searches has fallen in rank back a few pages, so that may be affecting sales if you were getting a lot of hits via google. Sometimes it lasts for a while, sometimes things go back to 'normal' (as normal as sales can be) relatively quickly.

Re: statistics in general, I use a few as a gauge - eg if someting I've listed is getting a lot of views but not even one watcher, I presume the title is ok, but there's something about the listing that's not particularly attractive (price, photos, description and so on). A revamp and/or price change can do wonders (and I don't always reduce when changing price). If something has only gotten a scant number of views in a couple of weeks, I'll give the title an overhaul.

Re: search results - I use ending soonest by default, then if nothing I want at a good price is ending anytime soon, switch to price + postage lowest first, usually filtering out auctions as well.

[davewil1964]

I sort by Finishing Soonest. I could sort by the way you suggest however, if by the second last page i see the one i want its too late. SOLD.

If you're looking for the cheapest, you won't have to go past the first page. That's where they all will be.