Three day guarantee.

whitmx
Community Member
Not being included in this scheme, my views and sales have diminished almost completely since this started. This is discrimination against non city sellers.
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Re: Three day guarantee.

I suppose I could be called a city seller. But I have not and will not subscribe to this particular initiative.

 

My sales don't seem to be affected, so it might be down to what you are selling, the amount of competition in your particular niche, the way the wind is blowing, how you hold your tongue....

Message 2 of 11
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Re: Three day guarantee.

If you try a few searches that contain your items you many find that when you select 3 day delivery little to no items show up atleast that is what I have found.

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Re: Three day guarantee.


@davewil1964 wrote:

[...] I have not and will not subscribe to this particular initiative.

 

[...] it might be down to what you are selling, the amount of competition in your particular niche, the way the wind is blowing, how you hold your tongue....


That's a stance I applaud. If sellers continually perform tricks and leap through flaming hoops as though eBay were an animal trainer in a circus, in the hopes of achieving better sales, I believe there's a high possibility that it's for nothing. Ebay do have sellers running around frantically, trying to meet every changing standard eBay sets, in a fruitless attempt to reach some sort of elusive (and illusive) target.

 

It really is sometimes just down to what sort of things one's selling, whitmx. Be a good and fair seller, providing a high standard of customer service, and - in my opinion - forget the rest.

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Re: Three day guarantee.

I've not searched for items by delivery guarantees and I have no intention of doing so.

 

Aust Post in my area (postie and parcel contractor) are fabulous but as long as sorting centres like Sunshine West and Chullora exist I might as well wish for a precise delivery date...like expecting to win Lotto without buying the ticket.

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Re: Three day guarantee.


@countessalmirena wrote:
That's a stance I applaud. If sellers continually perform tricks and leap through flaming hoops as though eBay were an animal trainer in a circus, in the hopes of achieving better sales, I believe there's a high possibility that it's for nothing. Ebay do have sellers running around frantically, trying to meet every changing standard eBay sets, in a fruitless attempt to reach some sort of elusive (and illusive) target.

 

 


It's a distraction from the cycle, which plays in to confirmation bias -  half the point of moving goal posts is to convince people scoring a goal is based on what they (the individual) does, or does not do, which in turn means it's not eBay's fault if buyers aren't seeing a seller's items in search results. 

 

This often leads to all sorts of things that people are convinced affect their visibility and sales* - the forums are full of "tricks" to get boosts in best match, or sales when things are slow (aside from the biggest ones eBay specifically push for). Just off the top of my head, some of the "greatest hits" over the years - make a cursory edit to the listing to re-index it, change photos, upload photos with specific keywords in the file name (before eBay stripped uploads of their metadata), alter the sequence of your keywords in the title, add a template, remove a template and just have text, end and relist, don't relist - use "sell similar", create SKUs for your items, even if you don't use them, upgrade your store, downgrade your store, don't have a store, pay your account fees, post in the forums, don't post in the forum, try free post, get rid of free post, only use short listing durations, use GTC and build sales history..... 

 

If you keep tweaking listings, and / or following all of ebay's advice, eventually you'll have an upswing, and that confirms it was the thing you just did that caused it.

 

Or so goes my working theory. 

 

 

*just acknolwedging that there are of course some things that affect visibility, what I question is how much control a seller truly has over that. 

 

Spoiler
i'll wear it with pride

 

 

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Re: Three day guarantee.

Lovin that list digi.............Smiley LOL

 

Three things I am convinced work in lifting search results are

 

* adding new listings - this appears to give all listings a boosts for a few days. Very handy when sales slowly grind to a halt through lack of account activity. I use this technique quite often when things are slow and are convinced it works.

 

 * recent sales history of a particular item. - When you sell something, quite often it is followed by more sales of that item or others with very similar description. Of course a seller has no control over selling the first item.

 

*  Sell through rate - the more you sell, the more you sell. Conversely, the less you sell, the lower your visibility and so the less you sell.

I believe ebay have designed the system this way to encourage popular and lower priced sellers and discourage those selling junk that no-one wants or who ask higher prices than the market is willing to pay..

 

As I sell very specific items only suited to a small number of buyers and I dont race to the bottom on price, I am placed lower in searches than some of my competitors who only sell less profitable, but more popular items and cut their prices and profit margins.

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Re: Three day guarantee.

Always good to start the day off with a laugh!

 

One way to get yourself up the top in best match is to use keyword spamming - make sure you mention in every item description all the other things you sell.  I haven't got a hope against one of my competitors who does this.

Message 8 of 11
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Re: Three day guarantee.

To add to the list, when sales slow down a lot I'll reduce the price on a few things to try and get my sales going again. I should know better by now because it's always when I put my prices back up again that I get more sales, not when I reduce them. Reducing prices seems to almost guarantee less sales.  I find it quite surprising because ebay seems to always want us to reduce prices.

Message 9 of 11
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Re: Three day guarantee.

I'm actually guilty of a few of those things in the list, TBH - they sounded so logical, or...most of them did at the time. Smiley Embarassed Smiley LOL

 

eg With SKUs and images with keywords in the file name, that was all related to bot crawls and eBay favouring new items (bigger businesses with large inventory of new items are more likely to need SKUs).

 

The payment of fees was one I theorised about, the thinking behind it was if you make regular payments through the month, or even have an account in credit, your eBay "credit rating" would be better and maybe they won't apply some of their invisible limits, or raise thresholds for them, but that's been debunked. 

 

 

However, I know for a fact that posting in the forums gives me a boost in sales, on my other account, that never posts in the forums. If I don't post here for a while, sales will slow down, so then I come back and make a few posts and things pick up again. Smiley Very Happy Smiley Very Happy

 

 

 

I know what people would be thinking - it's more likely that if you're busy, you don't have much time to read or post, then when things go quiet you do get the time, so you remain occupied until things pick up again and just correlate the two things for no logical reason at all, but it happens every. single. most of the time. Eventually. Ergo it has to mean something. Smiley LOL

 

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