Using Sell Similar vs Relist. How it affects algorithm & is it the best way to go?

[bill.purvis2012]

I heard reports from someone who attended the Ebay open forum.  She specifically asked about the algorithym, what affects it.

Some takeaways: 

Listing everyday does not affect algorithym. 

New listings are favored as they are positioned higher. 

Sell Similar does treat the listing as a new listing. However, since the viewers and watchers are dropped, it may hurt since the algorithym takes those numbers into its use. The more activity, the more the algorithym favors the listing. 

Also, it takes some time for listings to show up in Google search, etc. If the listing ends too soon, it may never get there.

So, it's a balancing act.  I have found that it pays for me to do sell similar and keep my listings fresh. I don't let them get over a couple weeks old.  My sales reflect it. But, I'll keep my eyes on it. I do promote all my listings, it has proven to give me more sales $ even with the extra fees. 

There is a formula to higher sales. Always, trying to adjust it. I suppose we all are.

[dolcetreasures]

Sell similar used to have a direct impact on sales. No more, it doesn’t seem to have any positive impact anymore. 

[tulen_2000]

All those things are more superstitions then real facts. In fact no one here knows how exactly ebays algorithms work. All those conclusions are made empirically

[the_repurpose_life]

Old topic yes I know but the sell similar does have an absolute effect on sales. Every time I do it (I'm not a newb, been here since 1998) it works. 

[itsjustasprain]

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@bill.purvis2012 wrote:

New listings are favored as they are positioned higher. 

Sell Similar does treat the listing as a new listing.

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I think that is the key. Relisting puts the item back up with its original listing date (not the latest date) so it does not appear at the top of the listings in a Newly Listed search. If you scroll down a list of items you may occasionally see an auction that supposedly started last August sometime - did not get any bids back then - and the hapless seller has been banging the Relist button on it since then. That does not get it back up to the top.

In my selling account I am using Sell Similar if I want to put something back up for a second attempt. That way it comes up as a new listing and maybe will be seen by fresh eyes this time. (Another point I should mention about any auction of mine that get no bids is that I let it sit for at least 1-2 weeks before trying again. There is no point in immediately putting it back up in front of the same audience that didnt want it the first time.)

I wish Ebay would put up Relist items with the date that they were actually relisted and not the date from the past whenever they originally appeared.

[gurlcat]

All those things are true and I see them in action on a regular basis.  
One more thing: a listing goes 'stale" after 30 days, gets way less visibility even though it auto-relists at that time.  And according to at least one employee (this was at least a year ago), even one stale listing can drag down all your listings' visibility.  So what I do is stay ahead of it, by doing end/sell similar on several items each day, the oldest ones getting close to their 30th day.  It takes only a few minutes.  

[gurlcat]

Another thing that kills a listing's visibility: a failed seller-initiated offer cycle.  Next time you're about to send offers to watchers, scoot over to the item's current recommended promotion rate (%) write it down or take a screenshot if you think you'll forget it.  Now send the offers.  Check that suggested ad rate again 3 days later (the day after the offer's 48-hour window expired), see how much higher promotion the AI thinks the listing "needs" now?  LOL.   

That's a good time to end the listing, sell similar, and drop the price a bit, since it is probably overpriced.  Now NOTICE, while you have the creation page open, even as a sell similar listing, scroll down to the suggested ad rate -it will be the same HIGH one that it had risen to before you ended it.  -This started happening several months ago -they realized what we were doing and programmed in this thwarting trick.  So here's how you get around THAT.  -Switch the promotion to OFF completely, and list the item.  Now go to your active listings, see the newly-listed item, scroll over to the Promotions column, et voila, you will see it now has the old, lower, suggested ad rate, in fact it's the 'real' one for the item's category.  So now you can switch it 'on' and adjust the rate to whatever you want.  

Yes, you could have done that even when it had the offer-failure-inflated rate.   But it would treat your chosen rate as that much lower than suggested, and lower the listing's visibility accordingly.  

If I'm being unclear, please just ask what I can try to explain better. 
And anyone who thinks this is just supersition hasn't been following the carefully controlled experiments that many of us have done, and what eBay insiders have disclosed.  

[turtles-trading-post]

I hadn’t done “Sell Similar” prior to that revelation at the user conference.  I thought I’d give it a try since I had 4000 fixed price listings up to two years old. 

I started with the oldest in batches of 100 a day. I’d cancel the listings, do Sell Similar, check to make sure I had indeed listed them, then deleting the unsold listings. 

And it works!  Suddenly those old listings were up on top and selling!  Of the 100, maybe 10-15 would sell and that’s good enough!

Right now I’m doing this pretty much daily, and I’m down to relishing items that were a year old now.  

I also have a strategy for Sell Similar on Auctions in my Unsold folder.

In my categories there is no bad merchandise, just items the right person hadn’t seen yet.

[kh-jean]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread HERE if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.