Seeking volunteers for experiment about item price notifications

[gurlcat]

EDIT: Volunteers, please make sure your buyer communication preference IS the default setting (check-marked) to receive notifications of price reductions.  Thank you @nobody*s_perfect for pointing this out.

Given eBay's changes to seller-initiated offers (auto-pay requirements for buyers, not sure if that's still rolling out or what, also more recently the unpopular practice of sending offers to people who merely looked at listings) ... and given the fact that if the buyer is NOT made to auto-pay, they have the ole option of keeping the item hostage, invisible to everyone else while not paying for 4 days and even failing to pay at all ..... I have gone back to thinking about something I've wondered about a lot in the past, and got mixed answers about it in the past, here in the Community.  Yes that was all one sentence.  OKAY, I'm talking about whether or not "interested" people receive a notification if the seller merely revises the listing to lower the item's price.  

Wouldn't that be great?  

So let's see where that stands as of now, May 2024.   I have this green frog brooch currently overpriced so that some innocent buyer won't come along and ruin everything by buying it, lol.  @dhbookds  is already watching it.  What would be great is if I could get more watchers AND some mere-lookers, to see what happens if I just lower the item price.  

So let's do it like this.  The "joining up" volunteer period will extend until 3 pm. Central time, tomorrow (Thursday).  Please either put the listing on 'watch' OR just click on the listing  and look at it.... either once or twice (please go ahead and scroll slowly down to the bottom of the listing, to give the software a sense that you really looked).  If you choose to look twice, probably a good idea to close out of eBay completely after the first look, then get back in and find the listing the second time in your 'recently viewed's, and repeat the slow-scroll.     

Then come back to this thread and post a reply, saying either "watched," "looked once" or "looked twice".  It would be best if we have a good sampling variety of these variables, so maybe scroll through replies to see which of those hasn't been done as many as the others, then do that one.   

Ugh, I hope that made sense, lemmie know if it didn't.  

THEN tomorrow at 3 PM or shortly thereafter, I will revise the item's price down.  I'll make a note of how many watchers it says the listing has, as well as how many "interested buyers" the popup window says the offer would go to IF I were doing it that way.  I will then immediately post here that I did the revision.  

Then the rest of the day/night, as each of you realizes you did or didn't get a notification, please come back and post that observation, and we'll tally up the numbers.  

https://www.ebay.com/itm/126482944261 

[wastingtime101]

I think it's worth noting @gurlcat :

For SIO and the shopping cart, an item has to be in a buyer's shopping cart for 2 days before you can send an offer to that buyer (link).

Even though this is about price reductions, not offers, it's possible similar time frames apply. So you may want to wait until Friday or Saturday to drop the price for more accurate results.

[very-nice-finds]

Looked once; scrolled through photos.

[gurlcat]

That is interesting.  Just for curiosity I took a sneak peek at how many would receiver the offer if I sent one right now.  Says 11 ... but there are only 10 watchers (also I don't know if all 10 of those watchers can receive offers, so the difference between receivers and watchers may be even greater than 1).  But even if it's just 1, who could they be?  

To be clear, I just posted the listing last night, and it didn't even have any views before dhbookds viewed it and put it on watch this morning.  

[wastingtime101]

I don't know, but perhaps the delay for people with item in their cart is eBay wants to give them a chance to pay full price 'cause eBay makes more money that way. Then if they don't follow through they can get a nudge in a couple days.

Watchers probably get offers sooner because, in theory, watch list shows a lesser level of interest than a shopper that adds the item to their cart.

But my point was since you want to test watchers, add-to-carts, and viewers - maybe wait the 2 days to see if the numbers change.

[gurlcat]

Yeah I'm really not worried about our experiment getting spoiled by a sale.  There's all the other (cheaper) listings of the same piece. Also, let's put it this way: There are some really amazing frog brooches out there.  -This aint one of 'em.  The Metropolitan Museum of Art has put out some really incredible pieces of jewelry.  -This aint one of 'em.    This is a piece for a frog or MMA collector who'll add it to their collection if it's at the right price.  -$49.95 aint it.   🤣
If it turns out I was wrong, I'll go out in my yard, grab one of the tree frogs screaming for mates right now, kiss it on camera, post it to Youtube, and post the link here.  

[gurlcat]

That's probably a good idea.  It's just going to be a little confusing for all the people who've stepped up to help, when I don't do the price drop tomorrow like I said I would, and no way to let everyone know that, other than if they happen to read all replies in the thread.   

[wastingtime101]

Post a reply saying when you'll drop the price and mark it as best answer to float it to the top. Or tag people. Or send out tomorrow as planned but keep in mind it might skew your results.

[a_c_green]

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@gurlcat wrote:

Yeah I'm really not worried about our experiment getting spoiled by a sale.  There's all the other (cheaper) listings of the same piece. Also, let's put it this way: There are some really amazing frog brooches out there.  -This aint one of 'em.

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Well, it's a frog. People who like frogs will like the frog. The rest of us will wonder why. No harm in that.

Here at home, the spouse likes elephants. There is an elephant coffee mug (yes, of course, the trunk is the handle). There are miniature elephants on shelves around here. One of them has a quartz clock in its belly. I don't question the decorating scheme. You pick your battles...

[melkit_5911]

Viewed once (as I didn't see anyone else had done so). I went through all of the photos, viewed shipping information, and scrolled all the way down to the bottom of the page, then clicked the return to top button.  I made sure my notification settings were checked marked. So I think I did everything correctly, and will comment if I get a notification after you revise the listing!!

As a side note, I have many of these experiments that I have wanted to do, so let me know how participation and results go. I see that many people have told you what the settings and everything are supposed to do, but I am curious as to what they actually do. 

-Mel 

[gurlcat]

Thanks so much for taking the time to read all that and participate.  I'm super curious too.  -But I actually will be doing the price drop Friday instead of tomorrow, because of a thing I didn't know about where eBay has a 2-day delay for shopping cart holders. -So just keep an eye out for a reply here by me on Friday.

[1800barb]

Add to my watch list tonight.

[lacemaker3]

I looked once. My notification setting is "on" for price changes.

You might want to consider raising the price first, to find out if notifications are sent for price increases as well as reductions*. (And to ensure that the experiment won't end prematurely due to a purchase).

Then you can reduce it a few days later.

* I suspect that notifications are not sent for price increases, because several times I have received an SIO for more than the original price had been when I viewed/watched a listing. It turned out that the seller had increased the price before sending the SIO. I don't recall ever receiving a notification for a price change, even though its on, but I might simply not have noticed it.

Edit:  OK, I looked at the notifications page again, and the check box is for "Price Reduced On Item". Duh. OK, I got it now.

[itsjustasprain]

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@gurlcat wrote:

Thanks so much for taking the time to read all that and participate.  I'm super curious too.  -But I actually will be doing the price drop Friday instead of tomorrow, because of a thing I didn't know about where eBay has a 2-day delay for shopping cart holders.

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So I have an early update here. Not for your test listing but for the item that was linked in another article about a task scam that was active yesterday which we were talking about in this thread here: 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Scam/m-p/34464367#M2400046

The scammer text that was quoted there contains a link to an Ebay item (which I dont think has any connection to the scammer but is just a Fitbit listing from some seller in Texas). It showed a price of $299.98 yesterday (which someone else pointed out was a ridiculous price for a used Fitbit but I am seeing a strategy that I will get into below) when I looked at it once or twice. 

So late yesterday that seller dropped the price by 50% to $149.99. When I looked at my account using the mobile app this morning I had a notification (which seems to be on mobile only) about that price drop. I was not watching the listing but I got the price drop notification anyway. My account is set up to accept those notifications so it seems to be working as advertised. I am working on my desktop to post this but I do not see any similar notifications in the desktop view.

In looking at sold items from that seller (and again I am NOT saying that they are connected to the task scammer) it looks like the seller of those listings posts a ludicrous price for a while and then drops it to some more realistic price a while later. A lot of their sales occur after their extreme discount - anywhere from 30% off to 70% off their excessive starting price - and I think they are using these price drop notifications as part of their pricing strategy. Seems to work for them.

[lacemaker3]

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@itsjustasprain wrote:

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@gurlcat wrote:

Thanks so much for taking the time to read all that and participate.  I'm super curious too.  -But I actually will be doing the price drop Friday instead of tomorrow, because of a thing I didn't know about where eBay has a 2-day delay for shopping cart holders.

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So I have an early update here. Not for your test listing but for the item that was linked in another article about a task scam that was active yesterday which we were talking about in this thread here: 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Scam/m-p/34464367#M2400046

...

... A lot of their sales occur after their extreme discount - anywhere from 30% off to 70% off their excessive starting price - and I think they are using these price drop notifications as part of their pricing strategy. Seems to work for them.

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This might have something to do with the way Bing/Edge will display a little popup from Microsoft shopping when you open a listing, which usually says something about the price ... usually that this is a good price, or the price has dropped x% ... there's an option there to be notified if the price drops as well.

An example of how price drop notifications can be effective marketing tools. It apparently works both on and off eBay.

[gurlcat]

Here was something pertinent that I noticed just last night.  I received a notification about a "PRICE DROP".  It was for an item I definitely did NOT put on watch (pretty sure I only viewed the listing once too).  And this is interesting -I only received it on my phone.  When I went to the website on my laptop, it's not in my notifications there, only SIO's.  

So this is kinda weird in multiple ways.  Like not only potentially annoying because it's for look-only, but also on a device that makes an intrusive sound, unlike a computer where the notification would only be there (and silently so) if you went to the website.  By the way, this "price drop" appears to be a simple price revision like what I intend to test, not a markdown "sale" (on the listing there's no red text indicating a temporary sale).  

So basically this also makes the experiment more complicated.  Volunteers might (?) need to check both the website and the app, and some may not even use the app.