I've posted before about changes coming to search and shipping so this is another "you've probaly seen this before but just in case you haven't... "
In Autumn (I'm British) when the new eBay search system is hoped to be rolled out there may also be a new option on search results, one that sorts by price INCLUDING shipping.
The eBay software developer documentation released in July says..
To prepare for this feature, eBay sellers are encouraged to include at least one valid ShippingServiceOption in listings. Items that do not specify shipping information using the ShippingServiceOption feature may sorted lower than expected in eBay search results
and says (about the lowest price first sort)......
Items will appear in the order of lowest-total-cost (for items where shipping was properly specified), then freight-shipping items, then items for which shipping was not specified (sorted by price).
Just about everyone includes shipping costs (it's crazy not to), but the message is that it must now be done using the eBay fields rather than in the description text (I've never understood why sellers don't use the eBay fields but am prepared to be enlightened).
I suspect there are two issues, one simple the other harder. The simple one; lots of ebay sellers offer worldwide availability but state only the local shipping cost, to keep their items in their right place in search results those sellers need to specify the shipping for each part of the world you might ship to. The harder one; what do sellers with variable weight items and who consolidate for post do ?
Just to add to the fun the auctionbytes web site is #speculating# that the current default 'ending soonest' might be changed to offer 'best match' results instead. From their site "....the company will begin serving up Best Match results by seller quality (PowerSeller status and selling track record) instead of strictly by relevance. eBay did not explain what selling track record meant, but it seems likely to be based on Detailed Seller Ratings that were rolled out recently in Feedback 2.0......"
My own view is that these could be positive changes for the buyer and therefor good for the seller, however I do think ebay could do more to publicise and explain the detail of such changes before they are implemented.
Linda
