They're chasing after the so called "new Listing" and ignoring all the rest of the items.
I've sold about 60 listings on eBay in the past 3 months. At least 75% sold were put up in less than 2 weeks and a few after a couple of days even though I have over 300 listings. They're hunting for new listings and passing up the rest. Not so sure the phrase "new listing" helps sellers. Also, there is a dirty trick that can be used to put "new Listing" on items that have been up for over a year. I've never used it. Too unethical.
36 comments
coolections
·3 years agoI hope you know that many buyers use notifications to let them know that an item they have saved in search tells them there is a new listing. Sometimes I get a sale within a couple hours. ALL the other stuff either has very low demand, or non one wants it at your asking price. Try lowering the price on the non sale items until finally someone will be wiling to buy it. If no one buys even after that you can toss it in the trash or give to Salvation Army.
simba6
·3 years agoA lot of buyers also search be lowest price first. See if your prices are in line with others. Search for your items with price + shipping lowest first selected.
simply-the-best-for-you
·3 years agoI'm surprised so many people have an issue with ending/sell similar of old items. I thought everyone did that. So what else do you do when your long tail items become "stale" in the eyes of Ebay? I try to do it regularly to keep up with items not becoming stale & it's not much effort & it always results in sales for me. But I'm just curious what are the alternative methods people use? Just wait it out, even though they may be super-stale? Remove them from inventory? What do you do if you don't relist them?
sapphire_studio
·3 years agoIt depends on the type of inventory you have. If you had like a bulk lot of jewelry or Pokemon cards that would just get completely drowned out in search then I would promote it if it was stale. If it's a beauty product especially one that I don't have tons and tons of people to compete with, I don't worry about it I just wait for the person who wants that specific item to search for it. People will buy things that have been up for a year. You just have to wait for the right buyer.
simply-the-best-for-you
·3 years agoThanks for your input, I think it must depend on category. I already promote everything. Up to a year? LOL. I sell items that are 2-4 yrs old, all the time, but of course they have been relisted. I guess it just depends on category & I do sell in the most saturated category there is. I can't imagine running not relisting/sell similar items regularly. But also, my category is seasonal, so different than evergreen categories. Everything gets Sell Similared at least twice a year due to the seasonal aspect of clothing & that process regularly generates sales for me. Maybe it's cuz I primarily know clothing sellers that I thought everyone did this.
sapphire_studio
·3 years agoAs someone who has never once ended a listing and relisted it in an attempt to show up higher in search, all I can say to the people that do spend the time to do that more power to them for all of that effort.
slippinjimmy
·3 years agoThe problem for me with that practice is that up until very recently, eBay was not identifying them, the result was that my saved searches were continually sending me notices for the exact same item over and over again. One example was a listing that matched my search which the seller was ending and relisting every more than once a week, each one triggering a notification. I didn't want to buy the first time I was notified and that didn't change after 6 months of constant repeats.
I could turn off the notifications for that items but I've had that search going for close to 10 years in the hope that one day the right match would show up so I don't want miss it when it does.
I have successfully found items from a saved search that I had been waiting for years to appear, some things just don't show up that often.
yuzuha
·3 years agoThis is EXACTLY why I hate when people end and relist old stale items over and over again. I too have a few saved searches for things that don't show up very often, so I want to be able to see them whenever one DOES actually show up. I do not want to see the 50th relist of something I already saw and decided that I didn't want. It's not new, I didn't want it then, and relisting it over and over again is not going to suddenly make me decide that I want it.
ebeths_eclectic_collectibles
·3 years agoAnd all of sudden making it a promoting listing probably isn’t going make any more desirable
traditonalproducts
·3 years agoI get your point but a "dirty Trick"? Different platforms handle stagnate items different ways such as a re-post. Why is that unethical? If an item is new and has no expiration or best if used by date who cares? Its new used whatever and Ebay has defined the parameters of the classifications. In regard to classifying "a listing" again I don't care if it has been on someone's store for years as long as the item works and is presented with the right classification.
yuzuha
·3 years agoI don't see why that's a surprise-- a lot of buyers have saved searches for specific items that will alert them whenever someone lists something they're looking for. I've had things sell within half an hour of going up and I always just figured that they triggered someone's alert.
redlinear
·3 years agoThat's correct. New listings show up before Old listings. Something must come 1st.
However, THAT is always at odds with many other factors eBay has implemented in order to make you think you'll get that top spot (or somewhere near).
johnson_junk_company
·3 years agoI’m not sure you understand how eBay currently works (it’s not very good btw)! Listings roll over every 30 days so they appear to be “new†listings but they actually aren’t. These listing do not show up in “newly listed†searches. This is why it’s important to end your listings between 30-90 days and do a “sell similar†creating a new listing with a new item number. This will make the listing appear in “newly listed†searches. Yes, customers look for newly listed stuff, we all do it! It’s not unethical to repackage your item in a new listing to get it in front of fresh buyers. Remember the people viewing your newly listed items aren’t always the people who passed it by the first time! Plus there is just so much stuff to choose from on eBay currently that you must do everything possible to get your items seen by any potential buyers.
vintagecraze50
·3 years agoIt is not a dirty trick. When you see that your listing has been on here for a century you need to do something to it to help it sell. Your price might be out of wack, your pictures look like doo doo etc. Tweek it.
cardxcraft
·3 years agoWhen you state a dirty trick, do you meaning selling similar in bulk listings of 200, adding or subtracting 1 cent or a selected value and adding a period period to the end of the item description? lol. My view is it doesn't cause the algorithm to identify said items as new.
I'm don't have the technical knowledge: but, in laymans terms, I think Ebay has embedded values within a listing, that no matter how many times you sell similar, Ebay knows that listing is not new.
Does anyone with advanced knowledge of programming code know if this is even possible....
slippinjimmy
·3 years agoI don't have advanced knowledge but I can tell you that eBay embeds a UUID within listings that you cannot see but eBay can detect.
https://www.techtarget.com/searchapparchitecture/definition/UUID-Universal-Unique-Identifier
vintagecraze50
·3 years agoWhy would ebay do that? Makes no sense at all. All they care about is the item gets sold and maybe quicker if you lower the price change something for the better in the listing and then get it up front again.
vintagecraze50
·3 years agoAlso, there is a drawback to sell similar. It gets taken down from the google search which prefers long tail listings.
selsa84
·3 years agoWhat exactly do you mean when you say long tail?
reallynicestamps
·3 years ago@selsa84
A longtail item is one that is not expected to sell fast.
Many collectibles are like that.
I sell books on another ID and have sold items that have been listed since 2014-- some of which actually predate my temporary closedown that year when we moved across country. I've sold books in the past year that have been listed off and on since 2008. (I started selling here in 1998.)
It's the expectation and acceptance of longterm listing that makes it longtail, instead of a slow seller or deadstock.
selsa84
·3 years agoI agree. Even if you move the pics around they know it's that same item you've been relisting for 11 years.
toomuchstuffagain35
·3 years agoSo what happens if you use sell similar to actually do a NEW listing? ebay then sees it's the 'same' as the original and doesn't classify it as a new listing even though it is?
I for one, don't have the time to do every new listing from scratch.
selsa84
·3 years agoNew pics. Each pic uploaded has a code or id type o thing. And the system recognizes it.
vintagecraze50
·3 years agoI have no knowledge of a code but it seems to get the item sold when you do that.
vintagecraze50
·3 years agoIt gets put up in new listing every time. What would they care EXCEPT for the people paying for promoted listings which stay at the top in best match.
simply-the-best-for-you
·3 years agoYes, it's absolutely possible & it's been clear for a long time (many years) that they can tell the difference between true new listings & Sell Similars. I always thought they were using the various embedded dates of photos (there are 3) & was even at one point testing this, but the results were never conclusive. Perhaps it's the UUID that @slippinjimmy mentioned.
Whatever it is, it's real & Ebay employees (several) have confirmed to me that it's true, but none knew (or claimed not to know) the specific data that they are using to determine it.
ETA: While I know this part is true, I don't agree with the basic premise of the thread. Mine go in streaks, sometimes I sell all newly listed, other times I go for a week selling only REALLY old items (over 4 years), there has never been a pattern to me, other than these 'streaks'. Other times it's mixed. I rarely sell just 'newly listed' items & most of my newly listed stuff does NOT sell in the first 2 weeks.
cardxcraft
·3 years agoThanks for the info...Definitely intriguing.
downunder-61
·3 years agoAdvertising not working on the collectibles board? 😂😂😂😂😂
reallynicestamps
·3 years agoNot so sure the phrase "new listing" helps sellers.
There is a popular Search called Newly Listed.
Look at Search and notice that it is a drop down menu.
Other popular Searches are Lowest Price and About to Close.
Using your free keystrokes to add "new listing" is pointless since within hours or days it will no longer be new. Those are not keywords used by buyers.
a dirty trick that can be used to put "new Listing" on items
You mean closing a long running listing and then relisting a few days or weeks later?
Sometimes but not always with updates or corrections.
Considering that buyers far out-number sellers and there are new buyers joining every day, that long -running listing will be new to them.
toomuchstuffagain35
·3 years agoI doubt the OP (or anyone else) is adding New Listing to their titles.
More likely they're referring to the 'new listing' label ebay adds to listings, much as they also add 'great price' (even when it blatantly isn't).
vintagecraze50
·3 years agoYeah a lot of it is just luck of the draw when the customer does an ordinary search for something here organically. Most people go to ebay first then look rather than go there from Google. So, the promoted listings help to be seen organically within the site and the sell similar can help or the tweaking of an old listing that get’s it in the new listings. So tweek em, lower the price, revise the listing when it gets stale.
ms.rodriguez*
·3 years agoDo you mean to end a listing and start it as new? It's NOT ethical. Unethical is having to pay money to promote your listings and put it in front of others after you have been paying fees for years. Maybe unethincal is too strong of a word since stores do this to promote their items in a supermarket. Anyway, not everyone can afford to pay extra in fees. I say do the same thing and some of your older listings will be "new " again. I also change the photos. I always take extra photos and I can easily switch out the main photo making the listing look new. I can also tweak the title and sometimes, I will change the category. Some items, like Star Wars stuff, has at least 10 categories. So I will switch them around if they do not sell under 1 category.
I will tell you from experience on my main seller account with over 10,000+ feedbacks, sometimes an item will not sell no matter what you do. So sometimes, it's best to give it a month off and then restart it. I will NOT let my ads continue and relist at the same time. I decide when I start them.
vintagecraze50
·3 years agoGOOD idea about taking the listing off and waiting a week or so then sell similar
inhawaii
·3 years agoI'm not sure who you're calling "they"?
I don't find what you're saying applies to me.
My sales are steady regardless if the listing is new or not.
As a buyer, I couldn't care less if it's a new listing or not.
If it is the item i'm looking for at the price I want to pay, I buy it.
tobaccocardyahoo
·3 years agoI have repeat buyers. They add my existing listings to their watchlist, and visit my store to see newly listed items.
They do not have unlimited funds and are more likely to buy a new listing for fear someone else will buy it if they do not act fast.
Like you, I have only one of many of my items.
Like you, many of my offerings are targeted to a narrow group of collectors. If they needed an item for their collection which has been listed for a long time, they would have bought it already.
Many times of collecting have far fewer collectors than in the past, and much of what is listed on this site, including some of my listings is only of interest to beginning collectors.
Hundreds of my satisfied customers have outgrown me and the items I sell and are now advanced collectors looking for things I cannot find.
dirk12955
·3 years agoWho's "They"?
New listings have always sold better than not-new listings.