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@chapeau-noir wrote:Almost every week someone asks this...for like the last 15 years I've been here. You can safely say that sales will go up and down and be cyclic save for huge events like the pandemic. If you try to track this week by week, you'll drive yourself nuts. Take the long view - it's easier to spot trends and also see if you may want to do something different.
You are right about trends @chapeau-noir ... the one that has gotten me on a regular basis is the drop in sales the first week after a PL Standard Campaign ends. I run at least one per quarter for about 30 days and one of the nice things is that I see more long tail items sell during the Campaigns then at other times. I like selling higher value items Auction style so I just put all my fixed priced items on the Campaign at a set Ad rate and let 'er rip. The ad rate I pick is above all the trending rates eBay posts because the idea is to sell stuff. The sales charts have been pretty consistent, a big jump at the beginning, spikes on weekends with a slow gradual drop in impressions until the very end then a jump upwards again before it ends.
The most recent one ended last week and this week sales are slow ... BUT the sales chart is different this time in that the slow gradual decline in impressions in the middle of the campaign was more of an abrupt drop (pic below). We're talking in the 30,000 to 40,000 impressions range between the first and second weekends instead of smaller drops that I saw in the past.
What's interesting about this most recent one is the fact that the Item Specific mandate launch was on Feb 22, one week before the end of the Campaign. While this particular chart shows a surge at the end what is missing is the lack of activity in the middle of the Campaign ...
One thing I want to try is after the next one to End all listings on the Campaign and then use the Sell Similar to create all new listings PLUS strip off the 30 day carry over of Ad fees on items that sell after the Campaign ends. It a lot of work but might be worth the effort.
There is another trend I have noticed too in the last 6 months but I need to do a little more research before posting about it ...
@partfinds wrote:20% drop in impressions and views since February/winter seller update and continues to go down. I feel it is related to Ebay constantly tweaking and fixing something in the background as I have constant glitches .
@partfinds I think for my chart some of the drop in impressions was them preparing for the Item Specific roll out ... the amount of inventory I had throughout the Campaign period only increased yet impressions did not follow. I think what they may have been doing was taking "X" number of accounts and flipping the Item Specific switch to see what happened ... like did things crash or not LOL! Once they saw the programming was holding they probably started to roll more accounts in to the new I.S. system ...
So now we are facing a new crisis in Ukraine and Russia and I am wondering what the fallout of that will be with regard to eBay sales ...
@partfinds The other trend I was referring to is it seems the only items that get any traction after a PL Campaign is newer stuff ... so far in March the ONLY things that have sold have been from an inventory lot I acquired on Feb 15th and this past Tuesday Mar 1st ... yep, currently I have 7 items with bids from the Mar 1 inventory lot and all other sales this month were from the Feb 15 lot.
So I am thinking their algorithms bury PL Campaign items for a while until they can somehow work their way back up through the Search results. When I only had 5 items with bids I checked the Buyer IDs and 2 were repeat customers so that somehow factors in to the equation.
If eBay would reinstate Sellers being able to SEE who is Following us it would help track new Followers based on selling ... late last year I had around 190 and now that number is over 225 ... so I like to see what trend their is on who decides to follow and who doesn't based on what they purchase AND more importantly, WHAT categories they buy in and then follow. It is potentially important sales info ...
