The shutter opened for three days
Summary: tools* expressed frustration over inconsistent sales patterns on an online marketplace, noting a burst of sales followed by weeks of inactivity. Several participants, including cyberontix and reallynicestamps, discussed potential algorithm-based reasons for this pattern, suggesting that new sellers might receive search boosts while veteran sellers do not. chapeau-noir highlighted alternative selling platforms, though some participants criticized these as less effective. babyers88 and others speculated about various market factors and buyer demographics affecting sales, reflecting diverse opinions on how the platform's visibility algorithms might work.
and I sold 7 things to 7 different people all over the country for a total of $2,275. It's been a few weeks of tumbleweed and dust since, even though I have much more of the same kinds of things listed. Seems perfectly organic.
babyers88
·2 days agothere are tons of reasons why something like that may happen
one just for instance.
a person on a forum or chat room or in a group, noticed or needed something that you have for sale and was talking it up
and walla now 3 people (from the same room/group/chat) have bought your stuff and then crickets.....
3 weeks later another person finds the same and walla more sales and crickets again,,,,,,
that's just one example of millions or trillions that could happen.
Then what can also happen is another seller see's the opportunity to sell the exact same thing at a lower price and bam yours goes dormant.
or vica-versa someone else was selling the same for less, they ran out and yours sold temporarily while the re-upped
it goes on and on in various possible scenario's
tools*
OP2 days agoThese aren't the sort of things that people discuss in chat rooms. They appeal to an older, wealthier demographic; buyers who move slowly and intentionally.
babyers88
·2 days agolike I said that's just one of trillions of scenarios. $2700 is hardly a niche demographic
tools*
OP19 hours agoIt was 7 items for $2,275, and it isn't really about the price. It's about who would buy these things.
gurlcat
·17 hours ago-Which we have no way to verify because we can't see "these things" you sell, because you use a posting i.d.
tools*
OP16 hours agoIt would be foolish of me to expose that much information on a public forum.
And it's a buying ID.
babyers88
·16 hours ago.....
tobaccocardyahoo
·18 hours ago · EditedCould be they are not a common Ebay demographic.
There are many older, wealthier people who would never buy on Ebay. They might never visit a chat room either.
My more prosperous customers usually make snap purchasing decisions. A three hundred dollar purchase is not a hard decision to make for the wealthy. I don't think very hard at that price, if I really want the item. But there are fewer and fewer items that I shop for on Ebay.
Since you are using a posting account, we cannot snoop into what your business is. A mixed blessing sometimes.
In any case, it was a nice sales burst.
gurlcat
·17 hours agoHonestly people who come to make claims like this but use a posting i.d. shouldn't get a fraction this much attention.
gurlcat
·3 days ago · EditedCongratulations that is awesome!! But for the record it's a spigot, not a shutter.
Thing is, I get why some people believe in conspiracy theories. And I get why some people use a posting I.D. here. But making claims that ostensibly support conspiracy theories while using a posting I.D. is pretty silly, sorry.
Is your goal for people to believe you? How can we? We can't even see what you sold, or when, or anything about the items. So we should just believe your reported sales history, and that there's no explanation for it other than eBay opening and closing something?
cyberontix
·2 days agoI'll laugh off the idea of "conspiracy theories" when eBay makes their search algorithm public. It hasn't made any sense since Donahoe wrecked the whole platform to please his hedge fund buddies and set the algorithm to favor brand new accounts over everything else.
gurlcat
·17 hours ago@cyberontix If they made the algorithm public, would you believe it's the one they actually use? Could you even understand the coding? Or would you go to social media to see if there are people there who understand it (or claim to), to find out what they say about it?
Be honest.
tools*
OP2 days ago · EditedI'm just sharing the facts.
I called it a shutter because as a photographer I picture a traditional focal plane shutter that when fired consists of a slit that travels across the frame, usually in a fraction of a second. That's how I picture eBay listing exposure, based on experience and results.
zzzz-0-zzzz
·3 days agoIMHO about sales being slow at this time: Sept/Oct are the worst time of the year for sales in general, especially if you're selling "Grandma's Attic" types of collectibles. Assuming you're a lot smarter than me, maybe someone could post a link to a chart that shows the "good" vs "bad" times of the year for sales. For me it's just guesswork. ALSO: The permanent "K" economy, "unprecedented" times, the general "bad mood" and the sense that total chaos is "the future" that starts sometime in Nov.
Search placement is a tricky business sort of like SEO. One thing I'm sure of is that ebay's AI determines the order of things. Sometimes you're at the top - then the next day you fall into the infinite abyss hole and totally disappear - not even appearing on the last page.
My sense is, that EVERYTHING matters to how an ad gets placed in searches. Some examples: Sales in past 90 days, New listings (and how many), higher priced item for the category (but not too high), feedback in 90 days, number of views, number of watchers, automated "rotations", etc. (You can also ask an AI about it!)
I'm sure there are sellers using various server scripts & possibly paying for SEO services which may or may not work well & probably are too expensive unless you're one of the bigger high-volume sellers. (From what I can tell, stamp sellers are one group that are good at ebay SEO. The stamp business seems to be one of the most "brutal", with ridiculously low prices & margins also).
zzzz-0-zzzz
·3 days ago@reallynicestamps I guess I'm dumb, but I'm wondering how did you find out that tools listings were high in searches in Ireland?
tools*
OP2 days agoI think he was just saying that because I had sales to Ireland, Florida, and Ireland. The sales to Ireland appeared to be unrelated to one another, even though they were part of the same small, sudden cluster.
chapeau-noir
·2 days agoFor a while I seemed to be clothing the entire town of Reston, VA, and another time Grapevine, TX.
reallynicestamps
·19 hours agoYeah. I once had two sales to Liechtenstein. Two different cities. While the items were philatelic, I don't recall the exact category.
Two sales in one week. I've been on eBay since 1998 and both those sales were in the same week. Never before and never since.
reallynicestamps
·3 days agoSales lead to sales and sales to a particular location lead to more sales in that location
What seems to happen is that the more sales you get the higher you are in Search. Since eBay rotates listings around the country (and the world) - so for example you may be seen by buyers in California today but not in New York and next week vice versa- when you get a sale in California, you move higher in Search in California and are more likely to get a sale there.
Looks like you are (relatively ) high in Ireland today .
And if the Florida sale is going to Doral and a freight forwarder, you may be (relatively) high on overseas sites today.
tools*
OP3 days ago · EditedThe 3 things sold were unique to eBay. They were the only examples available, and none have been sold by anyone else in the last year; so search placement didn't play much of a role.
gurlcat
·3 days agoOkay, so if not search placement, then WHAT is eBay doing when you're not getting sales?
zzzz-0-zzzz
·3 days ago"Placement" can be generalized by the AI: It's not just the singularly unique item itself - but whatever categories & types of items the AI connects to it (& to some degree the "Item Specifics" data) & how the AI ranks things based on a particular search (& the IP/Username of the potential buyer: their searches & purchase history).
ten_o_nine
·3 days agoIt's normal but kind of weird, it happens all the time for many products I sell. They come at once and they leave at once.
tools*
OP3 days agoI just sold 3 more things, that were not newly listed, in a cluster after two and a half weeks of nothing. The buyers are in Ireland, Florida, and Ireland.
sreu3058
·3 days agoWell you got your ration that keeps you just hanging on by a thread.
Just enough to keep the skill set intact.
Just enough to think, okay, I’ll get a few new things for my store.
I am trying a diet for October: no new purchases!
(after this morning)
tools*
OP3 days agoThe strangest thing is that when I buy with this buying ID, especially if I spend a lot of money, my selling ID of 28 years often suddenly has some sales out of the blue. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
itsjustasprain
·3 days agoWell... we know you are NOT sure it is just a coincidence - but it is. From your writing it is clear that you have difficulty accepting that some things in life (and on Ebay) really are random.
But just imagine that the opposite is happening as you wish it to be: regularly-spaced purchases with no irregular gaps. How exactly would that work in terms of getting buyers to purchase at properly-spaced intervals?
Try logging out of your selling account and then doing a standard search each and every day that should turn up your listings as part of the search results. It will be interesting to see if your listings only appear in the search results on days when you get a sale and are mysteriously not appearing on days when you do not get a sale. (It must be the same search every day and it must not be using your selling account.)
I have a set of searches that I run every day (ordered by Newest First) for buying items for resale and I have yet to see any listings from any sellers that are appearing and disappearing from day to day, except for those that are selling out and then restocking.
sreu3058
·3 days agoWell, there is some merit here: I also silently complain to myself about 1 sale a day turning into daily post office treks (I have another online store, too)
as opposed to all at once.
Okay, okay, ideally, I would like 5-10 sales a day.
Is it Q4 yet?
Oh. It is.
Happy sales everyone.
iamalwaysright
·3 days agoI think you may have just stumbled upon the answer right there. You know what that means. SHOPPING SPREE!
shire123
·3 days agoAnother reason is that the item that you sold has an appeal to only a limited number of people who buy on ebay. Maybe you have sold just about all of that item for the time being?
zzzz-0-zzzz
·3 days agoebay is a collection of micro-markets.
What is tricky, of course, is how to "find" the .00001% of the population that want what you have & will actually pay the price you're selling it for - & they actually have to be actively looking for it - & right now also!
chapeau-noir
·2 days agoAnd in a month containing an "R".
zzzz-0-zzzz
·2 days agoIn a "normal" year, it seems that Sept-Oct is the worst for sales in general, but the later half of Nov to the first half of Dec is the best time of the year - assuming that buyers are buying "gifts". When it is a "gift", buyers are happy to pay relatively higher prices for common & ordinary things that merely "look nice".
inhawaii
·3 days agoHow can a seasoned seller like yourself not understand that sales are NOT consistant? My sales chart looks like a cross between a EKG ad the Grand Canyon. INCONSISTANCY IS NORMAL!
tools*
OP3 days agoYes, but they all arrived during a 3-day period with two weeks of nothing before and two weeks of nothing after. They were from all over the United States, and the items sold would appeal to three different unrelated categories of buyer.
cyberontix
·2 days agoMost of us don't pay any attention to anything Hawaii ever says, it's always cheerleading. You know your market and you know when something feels really off.
mozartbach1971
·2 days agoI remember many years ago I once had around 4 items sold to buyers in a country in Europe where I think I never previously sold to before. And then never sold anything to that location after as far as I can remember.
tools*
OP4 days agoDid I mention that the buyers were from Washington, DC, Florida, Montana, Tennessee, Minnesota, Texas, and California?
chapeau-noir
·3 days agoNot Wyoming? Well, that's the problem right there.
tools*
OP4 days agoYes, you can argue that the people who wanted the stuff -- expensive stuff -- came and bought it. But why only during a 3-day period surrounded by a desert of weeks before and weeks after?
cyberontix
·4 days agoProbably because eBay buries the listings of veteran sellers because they know we have no other alternative?
reallynicestamps
·3 days agoAnd eBay profits from burying high priced lisitings from reliable sellers how?
cyberontix
·2 days agoMore new accounts.
broto_64
·2 days ago · EditedI might go so far as to believe that ebay has a hidden system of metrics behind it all, which affects listing placement in the search results.
cyberontix
·2 days agoDefinitely, and it's stupid because it pays no attention to trends, seasonal trends etc. For example, Pokemon cards exploded this year, and if someone like me had a bunch of them listed that hadn't sold for years, I'd be way down in the algorithm unless I totally deleted the items and listed them again from total scratch.
reallynicestamps
·2 days agoNo one pays to open an account.
No one pays fees until they make a sale.
It is true that, because they do not qualify as Top Rated Sellers, newbies pay higher fees on the sales they do get.
And it has long been accepted that newbies get a tiny boost in Search for their first 30 days.
tools*
OP2 days agoPossibly because they make more of their money from ad placement? Of course, they have no real way of measuring people's frustration when they can't find anything, other than the fact that they leave the site.
zzzz-0-zzzz
·3 days ago · Edited(In regards to placement in searches)
ebay's AI is probably looking at the number of sales you have for a particular item variety/category in the last 90 days. My sense is that ebay tends to reward "success" with more "success". This would then cause "boom" and "bust" scenarios, and makes it difficult to get out out of the "bust" situation.
cyberontix
·2 days ago · EditedI used to think that. But most big-tech platforms value gaining new users over pleasing their current ones, so they boost newer sellers. All I know is that my newer backup account is doing a lot better than normal on the same sort of offerings, and Etsy is really starting to tick up on 1/200th of my main eBay account's listings, all while this one is basically invisible. They treat us veteran users like total dirt, so I've been moving more vintage stuff over to Etsy and filling up the spare account. I'd complain more about it on this board, but there's no supportive community at all here when times get rough, just cheerleaders who seem very suspicious according to people on Reddit/Facebook etc. Even Amazon's discussion boards aren't like that at all, it's super annoying.
zzzz-0-zzzz
·2 days ago · EditedI agree that new sellers get a boost for maybe 90 days? I think ebay does many things in a 90 day "window". I also notice that for the exact same item in a search the sellers (regardless of their account age) that get put at the top are either Top Rated or often have the most sales in general for the last month or so.
chapeau-noir
·2 days ago · EditedProbably because eBay buries the listings of veteran sellers because they know we have no other alternative?
Only we do have alternatives.
the-forgotten-vault
·2 days agoName one.
chapeau-noir
·2 days agoWow - you surprise me! Right now I'm on Mercari, Vinted, here and Poshmark. I've never sold just on eBay, even back in 2001 or whenever I started on here, I was selling on other sites. ??? Many people here sell multi-channel.
the-forgotten-vault
·2 days agoMercari and Vinted are low-traffic non-serious apps. Poshmark is clothes only.
broto_64
·2 days agoYeah Mercari is absolute crap, I tried it and sold one item in 3 months.
chapeau-noir
·2 days ago · EditedI've sold thousands on both sites. Poshmark is NOT clothes only - I've sold computer equipment and sports stuff there, as well (and a made a good amount of money there, as well). Where do you get this information?
grann-4629
·3 days agoYou are entering the Twilight Zone? It's totally random.