eBay

jonbergfineart · ‎01-07-2024

Really unbelievable. And only about 100 of the 950 have had at least 10 hits in the past 30 days. The average listing has single digits number of hits in that period. I sell fine art, not the hottest commodity out there currently. But STILL. And, no, I am not keen on promoting, thereby cutting even more into my net proceeds, as if 17-19% I'm presently at isn't enough. Meanwhile I know of an art seller who routinely prices things at 10 times what they're actually worth, accepts best offers for about 1/4 of his asking price, or even less; and offers free shipping; he claims to have "figured out the ebay algorithm". And he seems to be selling a lot, and presumably getting a lot of hits. I guess, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em? I remember the good old days of 20 years ago when I routinely got 300 hits a week in a listing. I'm doing better on a minor site now than I am on ebay. The views situation is really atrocious, and unbelievable. I guess I'm not figuring out ebay's algorithm and they are suppressing my listings.

duncanvr · ‎01-07-2024

I'll say this again I don't care about hits and views what is important is my solds. What were your solds? I only promote at 4% I think 17-19% is too high. Obviously people are holding onto there money and don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on an art print. But if your still selling some then that's good. As long as you profit.

12345jamesstamps · ‎01-07-2024

I never look at hits...I am only concerned about purchases. The algorithms are so strange to me.

I get only International buyers 3 days and then only Domestic buyers the next 4 days. Its a strange cycle.

Thankfully, I have "repeat buyers" that keep me going.

stainlessenginecovers · ‎01-07-2024

You need to figure out what 'keywords' people will search for, because the titles you have will NOT bring too many to 'see/look' at your items.

Art in itself is a VERY TOUGH sell on a entity like eBay- for just that reason.

tobaccocardyahoo · ‎01-07-2024

I remember the good old days of 20 years ago when I routinely got 300 hits a week in a listing.

I also remember those days, when people were checking Ebay from their offices, driving home, at dinner in front of the computer, and spent the evening on Ebay.

Whatever mental health problems may exist today, that epidemic passed.

How many potential buyers do you think there are for most of your items?

How much time do you think they will spend looking for them each month?

What would they type in the search that would find them, if they did not know they were listed.

There were more buyer eyes 20 years ago and a lot fewer matching search results for someone who is looking for something, but does not know what it is.

It has been this way on most Internet sites.

I am back on Ebay after a long stretch on Amazon because the odds of the right buyer are better on Ebay.

That minor site just might have the right audience for what you sell.

janet9988 · ‎01-07-2024

@jonbergfineart wrote:
Really unbelievable. And only about 100 of the 950 have had at least 10 hits in the past 30 days. The average listing has single digits number of hits in that period. I sell fine art, not the hottest commodity out there currently. But STILL. And, no, I am not keen on promoting, thereby cutting even more into my net proceeds, as if 17-19% I'm presently at isn't enough. Meanwhile I know of an art seller who routinely prices things at 10 times what they're actually worth, accepts best offers for about 1/4 of his asking price, or even less; and offers free shipping; he claims to have "figured out the ebay algorithm". And he seems to be selling a lot, and presumably getting a lot of hits. I guess, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em? I remember the good old days of 20 years ago when I routinely got 300 hits a week in a listing. I'm doing better on a minor site now than I am on ebay. The views situation is really atrocious, and unbelievable. I guess I'm not figuring out ebay's algorithm and they are suppressing my listings.

Nothing wrong with testing that theory out . Go for it.

For some......It seems wisdom has been chasing you, but you have always been faster.

reallynicestamps · ‎01-07-2024

Most of my stock, on all my IDs , are long tail, so Views and Watchers are irrelevant.

Are your sales up or down over the past three months?

Is the difference in number of sales or in value of sales?

Note that is costs more to ship three $300 sales than to ship one $1000 sale.

How were your sales in Oct-Dec2022? 2019? 2018?

We ignore the pandemic surge in online buying as outliers, and not repeatable.

dreambooks · ‎01-07-2024

Today I just searched one of my listings using keywords in the title and my item did not show up. No wonder there is zero view on the listing.

slippinjimmy · ‎01-07-2024

@dreambooks wrote:
Today I just searched one of my listings using keywords in the title and my item did not show up. No wonder there is zero view on the listing.

Which Search sort were you using?

Where you logged in with your selling ID when you did the search?

When was the item listed?

Have you recently (last 24 hours) made any revisions to this listing?

What is the item that you could not find?

simba6 · ‎01-07-2024

You need to widen your range of items. Your selling into a very small market right now.

retro_entertainment_collectibles · ‎01-07-2024

@tobaccocardyahoo wrote:
I remember the good old days of 20 years ago when I routinely got 300 hits a week in a listing.

I also remember those days, when people were checking Ebay from their offices, driving home, at dinner in front of the computer, and spent the evening on Ebay.

Whatever mental health problems may exist today, that epidemic passed.

How many potential buyers do you think there are for most of your items?

How much time do you think they will spend looking for them each month?

What would they type in the search that would find them, if they did not know they were listed.

There were more buyer eyes 20 years ago and a lot fewer matching search results for someone who is looking for something, but does not know what it is.

It has been this way on most Internet sites.

I am back on Ebay after a long stretch on Amazon because the odds of the right buyer are better on Ebay.

That minor site just might have the right audience for what you sell.

... and the people who were fifty were not seventy. The people who were forty not sixty. Those who were thirty were not fifty.

Whilst I can remember 9/11 as if it were yesterday twenty years is a long time a very long time albeit it may feel short. Twenty years before 9/11 (that's 1981 folks!) the World Wide Web didn't even exist.

laststopgeneralstore · ‎01-07-2024

Okay, please show us screenshots of 1,000 page views on ONLY 100 items in the past 30 days.

Now by "hits" I would assume you mean page views BUT "hits" in this sense would be impressions so if your screenshots show only 1000 impressions and/or 1000 page views over the past 30 days with 873 items, I would be very curious to see.

Other than that, you're right, you sell in a slow category so I don't see any issue. I'd like to see screenshots as well of the seller that you're referring to that is taking/accepting $25 offer(s) on a $100 item(s)(this is merely an example since we don't know who you're referring to or their prices) with free shipping.

Lastly, you say "I remember the good old days of 20 years ago when I routinely got 300 hits a week in a listing. I'm doing better on a minor site now than I am on ebay. The views situation is really atrocious, and unbelievable."

Yea I agree, lots of things have changed over the past 20 years. Gas has gone up, grocery's have gone up, the cost of a vehicle has gone up, the cost to purchase a house has gone up etc...

With that being said, if you go back to 2004, how many "reselling" platforms and/or websites(competition) were around then aside from eBay & amazon? I know theirs more but I was way to young to remember. Not to mention that the internet had just basically came out.

You can't be serious in saying that you think by doing the same thing back in 2004 getting the results that you did would garner the same results(doing the same thing) in 2024 right? If you started working a job back in 2004 making $25k/year and your boss still only paid you $25k/year in 2024 because that's what he's always done, would you be okay with that?

Adapt, change and move forward with the times. Clearly what you're doing now(in your own words), isn't working the way you want it to/back in 2004.

My advice would be to stop doing the same thing if it's not working like you want it too. I was doing the same thing for almost 3 years and it wasn't working. Then I realized it was time to rethink what I was doing and make changes then boom, my entire business changed.

Good Luck.

luckythewinner · ‎01-07-2024

I'm not figuring out ebay's algorithm and they are suppressing my listings.

What are your impression counts?

Impressions count how many times your listing is presented to buyers.

View count how many times buyers find your listing interesting enough to look at.

retro_entertainment_collectibles · ‎01-07-2024

@luckythewinner wrote:
I'm not figuring out ebay's algorithm and they are suppressing my listings.
What are your impression counts?

Impressions count how many times your listing is presented to buyers.

View count how many times buyers find your listing interesting enough to look at.

Not quite sure impressions are the number of times potential buyers see listings. Most operations have impressions in direct relation to database query result, doesn't mean its necessarily been seen by a human eye. More or less various spiders that crawl the web. In other words say my database query brings up 75 results per query... The buyer however on his mobile device or PC only looks at the first 10 yet still all 75 items score an "impression" that's pretty much the deal.

retro_entertainment_collectibles · ‎01-07-2024

@laststopgeneralstore wrote:

Lastly, you say "I remember the good old days of 20 years ago when I routinely got 300 hits a week in a listing. I'm doing better on a minor site now than I am on ebay. The views situation is really atrocious, and unbelievable."

Yea I agree, lots of things have changed over the past 20 years. Gas has gone up, grocery's have gone up, the cost of a vehicle has gone up, the cost to purchase a house has gone up etc...

With that being said, if you go back to 2004, how many "reselling" platforms and/or websites(competition) were around then aside from eBay & amazon? I know theirs more but I was way to young to remember. Not to mention that the internet had just basically came out.

You can't be serious in saying that you think by doing the same thing back in 2004 getting the results that you did would garner the same results(doing the same thing) in 2024 right? If you started working a job back in 2004 making $25k/year and your boss still only paid you $25k/year in 2024 because that's what he's always done, would you be okay with that?

Adapt, change and move forward with the times. Clearly what you're doing now(in your own words), isn't working the way you want it to/back in 2004.

My advice would be to stop doing the same thing if it's not working like you want it too. I was doing the same thing for almost 3 years and it wasn't working. Then I realized it was time to rethink what I was doing and make changes then boom, my entire business changed.

Good Luck.

Twenty years ago sellers didn't see the statistics unless sellers inserted a graphic hosted on a webserver someplace or a "Hit Counter" again hosted someplace pretty much at any commerce site. Then you could look at things and get an idea of how many people saw something.

From 1996 thereabouts through about mmm... 2006(?) there were literal plethora's of third party business to consumer (B2C) sites and open marketplaces (P2P Person to Person). Almost every search engine of any note and there were many had a auction site at one point. Few did very well in P2P but in the B2C there were many that did quite well. Several in time imploded, various reasons, others got out whilst the getting was good and the rest eBay and Amazon pretty much put under over time. I'd say Mammazon's model did the most damage, the price competitive listing and offers within environment which no doubt is still an impactor on eBay, Mercari, this/that one.

The Web came about around 1991, the Internet (ARPANET) was around for quite a time before that. Back then the beginnings of the WWW were fostered by client/server PC/MAC applications like America Online, Prodigy and others.