Sales Way Down -- Best match??

[clarry100]

We operate two basic ebay stores both selling the same kind of items. One focusses more on bulk quantities while the other does more single quantities. All the same stuff, baby headbands & accessories.

Up until about mid December we were averaging 25-30 packages per day between both the stores. Then sales dropped in both stores, to be expected I guess. Since then one store has come back up to nearly where it was before Xmas while the other is now lucky to sell and languishing at maybe 1 item per day.

We check our best match results regularly by using the same keyword search. The one store that is doing badly now has dropped way off the bottom of the search result list, well below 500 ranking while the other has lots of items up inside the top 100. So good best match results is clearly where we sell most of our stuff.

We have not made any changes to the listings in either store. Our DSR's are 5's or very close to it in both accounts. All listings are 100% compliant with the new requirements. ie 30-days returns, FREE post, Express options etc etc. Premium Service on 100% of our listings.

All our listings are straight BIN. We rarely use auction format unless we get "freebies". Listing fees too high for us to recover.

I am at a loss to understand what we have done to deserve this treatment. We typically pay more than $1,000 each month in total fees to eBay and payPal. It will be less this month since sales are way down. This means eBay will lose about $500 from us this month because we are not selling as much. You would think they should want us to sell more for this reason alone.

Can the more experienced sellers here offer any opinions on what we might consider to improve this situation? Or what we might have unwittingly done, or not done for that matter?

[*sparklz*]

Best match is not very good and many buyers search by ending soonest or newly listed not best match.

I do not meet the requirements they want us do to supposedly be higher up in the best match search and I find my items are still on the first page of best match anyway when I look which is not that often anyway.

[clarry100]

Since we don't use auctions, ending soonest or new listings doesn't work for us.

Our items average about $10 each, so the listing fee is too high (15%) to recover the 4x losses for auctions that end without bids. We usually get no better than about 20% success rate on auctions. So $6.00 in listing fees lost to try and recover on the one that sells. Always lose out. So not worth using this format for us.

[*crikey*mate*]

Just because your sales are down does not mean that eBay have lost money on FVF's. It is a possibility that people who could not find your items just purchased from somebody else. So I doubt that coming from the angle "eBay is suffering a loss" is true. eBay still get their FVF's no matter who sells a product, and from a business sense, it would make more sense to allow an auction style listing greater exposure due ton the higher FVF's that eBay would receive.

I can't really comment more on sales being down until I know if it is your bulk store or individual one.

All I know is that the data you get from checking for Best Match is irrelevant because it is not the same for everyone. Different people get different best matches depending on an entire host of factors. Best Match doesn't actually define Best Match to what or for whom. That's where lots of people get hung up for no good reason. There is a whole hidden department that mines for data and then applies algorithyms that determine what is a Best Match "for you" (in their skewed opinion).

So don't get consumed with Best Match. Ring someone who lives in the next town and another who livers interstate to you. All of you search for an agreed upon item (not so sopecific that they could only get that item, but maybe "baby headbands" sort of a general term that people would use before refining their search), If you do that, I bet that all three of you will see different results in your best match.

The term is Best Match.

But eBay don't tell you for whom it is a best match, or to what it is a best match. Nor do they even say why they believe this is a best match.

[chameleon54]

I dont think to many people really understand how Best match works, ( Even ebay reps. )  One story that does the rounds is that if you cancel a long term unsold listing ( single item ) and relist the item it moves up the rankings as a new listing. ( many ebayers use freebie promotional offers to cancel and bulk re-list )The flip side to this is that with listings with multiple qty of the same item, you lose purchase history and watchers and drop ranking by re-listing. I have never tried it myself , but have been meaning to give it a go.  Some others may have experience with this technique. Any comments ?

[chameleon54]

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@crikey*mate wrote:

Just because your sales are down does not mean that eBay have lost money on FVF's. It is a possibility that people who could not find your items just purchased from somebody else. So I doubt that coming from the angle "eBay is suffering a loss" is true. eBay still get their FVF's no matter who sells a product, and from a business sense, it would make more sense to allow an auction style listing greater exposure due ton the higher FVF's that eBay would receive.

I can't really comment more on sales being down until I know if it is your bulk store or individual one.

All I know is that the data you get from checking for Best Match is irrelevant because it is not the same for everyone. Different people get different best matches depending on an entire host of factors. Best Match doesn't actually define Best Match to what or for whom. That's where lots of people get hung up for no good reason. There is a whole hidden department that mines for data and then applies algorithyms that determine what is a Best Match "for you" (in their skewed opinion).

So don't get consumed with Best Match. Ring someone who lives in the next town and another who livers interstate to you. All of you search for an agreed upon item (not so sopecific that they could only get that item, but maybe "baby headbands" sort of a general term that people would use before refining their search), If you do that, I bet that all three of you will see different results in your best match.

The term is Best Match.

But eBay don't tell you for whom it is a best match, or to what it is a best match. Nor do they even say why they believe this is a best match.

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Beat match for Ebay fees and commisions maybe

[*crikey*mate*]

I don't know about Best Match as I never use it as a seller, and v4ery occassionally as a buyer, but I do notice an increase in my sales after a relist/ new listing. So that does suggest that my item finds its way higher on somebody's list, but we don't know what search criteria they use if you want to be truly objective, Additionally, only one of my areas of sales has a lot of competition, so not much to sort through. But yes Chameleon, that theory does seem to work for me, and I do use that strategy on both store and auction accounts when it is economically feasible to do so.

I made a purchase  a few nights ago of 7 cheapish things (all between $14 and $20) in a cate4gory with hundreds of thousands of results and a lot of OS competition. Interesting that the seller I ended up trading with was an Aussie who had only listed a few hours before.
 But that was after a variety iof search and browse manipulations, not just reliant on Best Match.

OP, is it possible that your type of merchandise is the kind of thing that people buy for stocking stuffers or small "I didn't spend much but wanted to make the gesture" kind of gifts?

[digital*ghost]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

I dont think to many people really understand how Best match works, ( Even ebay reps. )  One story that does the rounds is that if you cancel a long term unsold listing ( single item ) and relist the item it moves up the rankings as a new listing. ( many ebayers use freebie promotional offers to cancel and bulk re-list )The flip side to this is that with listings with multiple qty of the same item, you lose purchase history and watchers and drop ranking by re-listing. I have never tried it myself , but have been meaning to give it a go.  Some others may have experience with this technique. Any comments ?

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I do that sometimes when things are slow. I was a likttle hesitant at first to do it with listings that had watchers and/or sales history (and I don't do it on listings that sell relatively consistently), but at the end of the day I'm looking for new buyers, not old watchers/past sales, so I decided to freshen up some of my older ones.

I have had a look at the watch count on ended / relisted items, and the ended listing maintains its watch count for the most part (if someone removes an ended listing from their watch count, the corresponding number drops in My eBay ended items). Which goes to show a lot of the watchers don't check back on the listing and probably wouldn't have purchased anyway - conversely, the new listing usually has a couple of watchers in the first day or two, when - for my items in particular - it can take a while to get any, so my point there would be if watch count is the only thing stopping someone from testing this, it doesn't mean much in regards to sales conversion.

That being said, I have notice items of mine that have a good view:watch ratio but no sales seem to have a bit of a boost in rankings. (I don't constantly check so take it with a grain of salt, but every now and then I run a quick search and have a look at things in BM rankings). That is, a listing with 20 views and 5 watchers is higher up than a listing with 100 views and 10 watchers - presumably because the "interest percentage" is higher. Perhaps a "watch" carries a similar bit of weight as a sale, who knows. 

A new listing will often be higher up in the ranks at first, though not necessarily on page 1, but GTC listings do have an end time for all intents and purposes of ending soonest search results. They have a 30 day duration before they tick over, and the tick over time is when they "end" for search results purposes.

Other things I try when things are a little slow - new photos, revised descriptions, revised titles (if possible), and occasionally a new variation. They don't have a noticably consistent effect, but I think using any spare time to improve things like presentation and available options is never a bad thing.

[*crikey*mate*]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

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@crikey*mate wrote:

Just because your sales are down does not mean that eBay have lost money on FVF's. It is a possibility that people who could not find your items just purchased from somebody else. So I doubt that coming from the angle "eBay is suffering a loss" is true. eBay still get their FVF's no matter who sells a product, and from a business sense, it would make more sense to allow an auction style listing greater exposure due ton the higher FVF's that eBay would receive.

I can't really comment more on sales being down until I know if it is your bulk store or individual one.

All I know is that the data you get from checking for Best Match is irrelevant because it is not the same for everyone. Different people get different best matches depending on an entire host of factors. Best Match doesn't actually define Best Match to what or for whom. That's where lots of people get hung up for no good reason. There is a whole hidden department that mines for data and then applies algorithyms that determine what is a Best Match "for you" (in their skewed opinion).

So don't get consumed with Best Match. Ring someone who lives in the next town and another who livers interstate to you. All of you search for an agreed upon item (not so sopecific that they could only get that item, but maybe "baby headbands" sort of a general term that people would use before refining their search), If you do that, I bet that all three of you will see different results in your best match.

The term is Best Match.

But eBay don't tell you for whom it is a best match, or to what it is a best match. Nor do they even say why they believe this is a best match.

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Beat match for Ebay fees and commisions maybe

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That, and apparently tailored to an individual's trading patterns. No different to how they make those whacky suggestions for you that "you might be interested in". But yes, I have no doubt if there are several similar items, that the most economically viable one for eBay will be the one that features higher on my list.

The other day I was looking for the DVD Tv series of M*A*S*H. My best Match threw up (no, no hangover) a $194 one at the top. However on refining to Aust only and lowest plus post, I got a $112 one.

[clarry100]

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@crikey*mate wrote:

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@crikey*mate wrote:

Just because your sales are down does not mean that eBay have lost money on FVF's. It is a possibility that people who could not find your items just purchased from somebody else. So I doubt that coming from the angle "eBay is suffering a loss" is true. eBay still get their FVF's no matter who sells a product, and from a business sense, it would make more sense to allow an auction style listing greater exposure due ton the higher FVF's that eBay would receive.

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Yeah good point Crikey. Agree with that.

And the search term we use is exactly as you state "baby headbands". Every time we notice sales slowing we use that search term. And every time sales are slow we see the result is much lower down the rankings. And the converse for that matter.

So we are convinced this BM is a very important factor. At least for us!

Yes the store we are talking about that is slow is the one you will see under this UserID.

Hmmm! Might give the cancel/relist option a try to see what happens. Never tried that one before.

Appreciate the many and varied thoughts on this. It's a complicated beast we are dealing with here no doubt.