Are longer listings a negative?

[jason_incognito]

If something is on buy it now, 30 day listing or  GTC, is that sending a message to buyers that it will always be there?

I have dozens of things on my watch list and for the most part, they just sit there, I can wait until payday three weeks from now to buy any of it, and it will likely still be there.

Would there be a stronger incentive for someone to buy if it was on a 7 day listing? It just seems that ebay has become a waiting game. Buyers waiting for sellers to drop the price....

[retrose1]

If an item is new or common, I know that the are hundreds just like it on ebay, ebay just has to decide to show them to me.

Most of the items on my watch list are reminders.  Like a seller's name, an item I want to search for more of, ect.  I have a item that is representative of a genre I am searching for that the seller has upped and lowered the price 3 times in less than a month trying to get me to buy it.  Their ship cost is way too high.

There are millions of items listed on ebay and a lot less number of buyers interested in them.   Buyers that are impulsive have more problems than a buyer that takes the time to research, so i would rather a buyer not buy because something tripped their trigger. 

[duggmills]

I'm no expert on selling or marketing however I use 7 day listings with the thought that time frame encourages more immediate action on the part of buyers. I have had several if not many items i've had to list several times,  maybe six or more times.   I usually wait a week between re-lists. I do sharpen the pencil on some items but not often. Additionally, I have had  to lower the price to below my cost after eBay's fees meaning I had too much in it and misjudged the market value.

I subscribe to the idea you win a few and you lose a few - wouldn't that be nice.

At some point I have to analyze my stuff and decide if it's going to sell or do I scrap it or toss it out.   We recently went through the parts area of the hangar and dumped a bunch of stuff in the parking lot with the idea we'd take it to a scrap yard. Instead I put out a sign saying free stuff. The next morning it was all gone - even some pieces of lumber.  

When I see listings that are several weeks old, I get the impression no one else wanted these items either or they would have been sold.

You might try 7 days even if you have to relist a few times  Fresh pictures each time from different angles and enhanced descriptions  help make it look like a new item.

[ersatz_sobriquet]

7 day listings will certainly get the item into the forefront of "time ending soonest" or "time newly listed". 

The waiting game depends on the item. If you are selling a certain pattern of dishes for example, 30 day listings make sense because buyers don't come along as often on those items, but when they do, they are far more likely to miss auctions that happened in the last month that have expired (assuming the pattern is not extremely rare nor extremely desirable). 

Yes, some buyers will assume they don't need to hit that BIN if it's 30 days, but I know from my experience as a buyer that strategy is not a good one....I go back and see somebody else snatched up what I wanted. 

[castlemagicmemories]

I think there can be a tendency to put a 30 day listing on the back burner, thinking there is no sense of urgency connected to it.

Then another buyer swoops in and bags it, and they wish they had not waited.

[sockmonkeydave]

@jason_incognito

I have things on ebay that have been listed for over 5 years, with never a break.

But it depends on what you sell.

[flyinhawaiiangirl]

When I find something I'm still on the fence about purchasing for whatever the reason, sometimes it stays on the list for months. Those I am waiting for the price to drop. I've been watching a pair of jeans for at least two years that the seller wants $53 for. I'm willing to pay $35-40, so a $13-18 difference. Sometimes I think if I come by one day and they're gone, I'm going to be really sad and regretful. But, if that were to be true, I'd have purchased them by now. So really, it just means someone else paid more than I've been willing to the entire time I've been watching them. But I still like them enough to keep in on the list, just in case.

Sometimes the item is on the list a short time, and that could be I'm waiting for the auction to get closer to ending, I'm waiting on some funds to cover a luxury purchase, or I'm tracking the item for my own personal research. Some of those cause me some true disappointment.

What will prompt me to purchase something that may be a little out of my comfort zone is how many watchers the item has. If there's more than 2 or more, my willingness to buy goes up with the number of watchers. I don't want one of them buying before I can. They could all be watching for personal reasons, but the number makes me doubt it, and I act. In fact, Ebay could probably get a lot more purchases out of me if they just added 10+ watchers arbitrarily to every listing. Ha

I'm watching a lot more things then sellers know about because I have so many folders arranging all the items I want to keep my eye one. Those don't show to the seller at all, so your items could be "watched" without you knowing it at all. At this time, I am watching nothing, but I have over 30 items in my private lists and these items span 7 different categories. Some empty right now, but there's always those certain items (collectables, hard to find, etc) that I keep folders for even if they are empty.

[disneyshopper]

I sell in a niche category, so the majority of my listings are 30 days.  I do run a few auctions, but mainly so I can use up some of the free insertions that come with a store subscription.

I've had many items sit for years.  Then as soon as one item is purchased, the others will eventually as well.  That shows me that a sale does improve the position in search.