Can someone explain something to me? Help me understand? Traffic stats

[southern*sweet*tea]

Okay, I rarely look at traffic stats and stuff because I really don't have an interest in them (feel free to read that as "I don't care" lol).   I only glance at them every now and then, but I have noticed something, and it applies to both my selling accounts.

When my impressions and views are DOWN, my sales go UP.  When impressions and views are UP, my sales are DOWN.   Why would that be? Shouldn't it be up/up and down/down? Or is it just totally random? Or are these stats like the view counters and totally wrong? Or is there something I'm not understanding? 

Has the old adage "list more, sell more" been replaced with "list less, sell more", since I'm listing a lot less than I normally do?

[gracieallen01]

"Can someone explain something to me? Help me understand? Traffic stats"

No. 

It's a secret formula, and us mere mortals probably wouldn't understand it anyway. 

[this*old*attic]

I'll take a stab - it's the broken search and competing algorithms.

Your items are showing up in more and inappropriate searchs, and that impacts click through because the reseults aren't what a potential buyer is looking for.

[goodluckselling]

Based on your data that you provided you have two areas that are down considerable.  Listing impressions and Pages views.  The other two are basically neutral so I will talk about the two that are down considerable.

These two stats are highly connected in that you can not get a page view unless you get an impression first.  Because of this close connect I would say you have become much better at using direct keywords version generic keywords to bring potential buyers. 

Direct keywords will create much less in impressions and page views because your keywords are much more refined so buyers using generic keywords will not see you in a bunch of related search results and impressions and page views will be down and yet these highly qualified buyers using the same kind of direct keywords for search will buy at a higher rate because of the direct keywords you are using.

On the opposite thought if you want more views and impression you can change your keywords to be very generic that will show you in several different kinds of search results that might only be slightly related to your items.

Example:  Package of garden radish seeds.  If you use garden as a keyword you probably will show up in garden racks, tools, trackers, etc.  If you use radish seeds you will be in much more direct search results.

This is what we see here in the community all the time when users report of the items in search that do not have anything to do with the search term.  On the surface looking at a title and picture that might be true but search is not assembled by just those two attributes, so the creator of the listing is using some kind of keywords, item specific, wording, picture URL address name that is allowing these listings to be filtered into these search results.

Good Luck Selling!

[sharingtheland]

Is it something as simple as if it's sold, it's not going to get views?

Meaning,  ebay uses some monthly/weekly/daily (who knows - maybe by decades) formula which counts views divided by number of listings? 

You listed 300 things last month; you had 600 views.  10 items sold.

You listed 300 things last month; you had 700 views.  4 items sold.  

[zamo-zuan]

---

@southern*sweet*tea wrote:

Okay, I rarely look at traffic stats and stuff because I really don't have an interest in them (feel free to read that as "I don't care" lol).   I only glance at them every now and then, but I have noticed something, and it applies to both my selling accounts.

When my impressions and views are DOWN, my sales go UP.  When impressions and views are UP, my sales are DOWN.   Why would that be? Shouldn't it be up/up and down/down? Or is it just totally random? Or are these stats like the view counters and totally wrong? Or is there something I'm not understanding? 

Has the old adage "list more, sell more" been replaced with "list less, sell more", since I'm listing a lot less than I normally do?

---

Impressions are a key part of the formula, as in, you could say  the "root".

But eBay has changed things this year. Nowadays you might still get impressions, but your placement on the page is not consistent. In past years, if you were a top seller, you consistently showed on top of search.

Starting sometime in April or May eBay changed algorithms and it was very noticeable in search. You still got impressions, but got less sales as you didn't appear as high.

Regarding "list more, sell more"... sadly that changes along with the algorithms. It's really hard to give solid answers on things like this nowadays, as eBay changes so often.

I will say, for about a week and a half now, eBay changed algorithms yet again. The change is settling a bit (usually takes a couple weeks) but keep an eye out if you noticed something different within the last week. Those changes are likely to stay anywhere from a couple weeks to a month or 2.

Nowadays eBay is a lot of preparing for the algorithm. Sometimes you'll see growth of 30% or more and be able to relax. But if you start seeing a drop... not much you can do but prepare for the worst.

This is why a lot of my complaints lately are about restoring "healthy competition" to search. There's very little we can do nowadays to move up, and even the "experts" at eBay can't really give any advice of something that will move you up.

They also change the algorithm not just in terms of what shows up, but what "keywords" or "product identifiers" are targeted in search. This one shows more in impressions than views/sales. It could explain why high impressions, but you're showing up for things the buyers aren't actually searching for. Which hurts click through rates and makes your items look worse...

I truly hope "Sales History" starts meaning something in search again, so us sellers can focus on "keeping the buyers satisfied" and having that bring us success. Right now we're at the whim of the AI based search algorithms and we have very little effect on our results.

I wish there was more sellers could do, but basically if you find something that works right now, the algorithm will change in a bit and that won't work anymore. The tweaking is never ending, and sadly "keeping customers happy" means nothing. 

[gracieallen01]

And, ebay appears to prefer/support the generic search keywords as it is how the buyer also gets the 'you may also be interested in .... ', and the potential for more promoted listings to be seen, and perhaps sold.

[tunicaslot]

Wasn't the original selling point they pushed at us about Cassini was that it would eliminate those things which the buyer wasn't searching for so that they'd have a better buying experience as search was suppose to return only items with the specific keywords they were searching for? Instead we have items under sell similar with the exact keywords put into search and items under best match that may have 1 keyword from the keywords searched.

[gracieallen01]

---

@tunicaslot wrote:

Wasn't the original selling point they pushed at us about Cassini was that it would eliminate those things which the buyer wasn't searching for so that they'd have a better buying experience as search was suppose to return only items with the specific keywords they were searching for? Instead we have items under sell similar with the exact keywords put into search and items under best match that may have 1 keyword from the keywords searched.

---

Well, yes, but that was before they figured out to start using Promoted Listings.  Had to get Cassini established, first.  A little change here, a little change there and, bingo, the jackpot - almost.

[this*old*attic]

On some level, though, “generic search terms” are simply buyer/seller driven. Buyers see what they like using the terms, sellers are successful and keep listing more of the corresponding items using the same keyword string.

 I sell vintage clothing and there are items that have an automatic “batch” of KWs:

Vintage 70s Hippie Boho ... Prairie (if it’s a Gunne Sax).... Festival (this one covers a lot of possibilities)... blah blah blah

Vintage 50s Pinup Vixen VLV....

Vintage 80s Disco New Wave...

Vintage 90s Grunge Ditsy Print Floral....

NOW,

The trick is to find the unique terms that fit your item and hopefully represent a trend - here’s where I think search is broken.

 I have a few things that are ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY on trend that are getting literally no zero nada views. Why? They have the standard KWs but also the unique/specific ones