penguins_dont_fly is a Volunteer Community Mentor
@vintage-car-magazines wrote:The only thing I can suggest is to change your titles to move the most relevant terms first. For instance
MINT Rossetti SPRING VIOLETS Set/6 Cups and Saucers Hand Painted Japan
...doesn't get to what it is until the 36th character. If the title gets truncated....disaster. If the search is for Cups and Saucers then search may rank your listing as less relevant than other listing that start with those search terms.
Other things to consider regarding search...
Is Hand Painted more important than Occupied? Your item will not show up in a search for Occupied Japan.
Condition is generally not supposed to go in the title. I'm not sure I completely agree with that, especially if the condition is a major selling point. If you keep it in, move it to the end. Again, someone is more likely to search for Cups and Saucers than for Mint.
You can use & in place of And to save a couple characters. You can also eliminate the plural is you need characters for more important words as search will automatically include them.
Don't use ALL CAPS.
Perhaps this...with characters to spare.
Cup & Saucer Set 6 Rossetti Spring Violets Hand Painted Occupied Japan Mint
I agree with "lose the caps", I forgot that.
In my experience, Pottery and Glass buyers search for Brand/Pattern/Type
So "Rosetti Spring Violets Cup & Saucers Set of 6 Handpainted Porcelain"
These are not "Occupied Japan" pieces. The backstamp says "made in Japan", not "Occupied Japan"
Most things made during that period were explicitly marked "Occupied Japan", Including this pattern
http://ojemporium.com/ojemporium/Occupied_Japan_Marks
Rossetti is the importer .. I can find evidence that Sango (Japan) produced these for Rossetti (Chicago) and that there are multiple backstamps ... this pattern was made for many years. These pieces are more likely late 1950's - early 1960's pieces
@american-photography wrote:China and crystal may not be what buyers are looking for at this time, especially with a lot of people out of work.
Have you tried promoting your items?
Promoted listings will get your items more exposure and more potential sales. It works for me. Go into your Seller Hub, then click on Marketing, then Promoted Listings. You can promote all your listings or just a select few.
My sales have not slowed down a bit ... and will probably start picking up next week or the week after ... this is the season for folks to start preparing for the holidays ... which is the only time that (most) people think about China & Crystal ... the other 3 peaks in the year are Mother's Day and Wedding Season (Late May-June) ... and then post-Holidays (replacements of things broken during the holidays) ... Wedding season was definitely a bust this year, though ...
Promoted Listings will give a boost ... but only if the SEO is good. Promoted listings won't help if a listing has a really bad SEO score. PM listings may get boosted higher in search ... but they have to be found in search first.
@american-photography wrote:Promoted listings have nothing to do with SEO which is outside of Ebay (like Google).
It is Ebay's own cross-promotion selling system within its own search and listing pages. With promoted listings, your listings will appear on the top and bottom of Ebay search pages and also within hundreds or thousands of other seller's individual listings based on what the buyer is looking at. Click on any seller's listing and you will see other seller's promoted listings there also.
Yes.
A buyer searches for "Shott Zwiezel Gardone Champagne"
A listing that is promoted will come up at the top of that search and also will show in "Similar Items" on other listings that are viewed.
But ... those listings have to come up in that search under those search terms ... and be associated with other listings of Shott-Zwiesel Gardone items.
This listing:
MINT Set 8 Crystal Fluted Champagne glasses Gardone pattern by SCHOTT-ZWIESEL
Does not even come up in that search ... it can't be boosted to the top if it is not even recognized as being what the buyer is searching for 😞
@penguins_dont_fly wrote:
@american-photography wrote:Promoted listings have nothing to do with SEO which is outside of Ebay (like Google).
It is Ebay's own cross-promotion selling system within its own search and listing pages. With promoted listings, your listings will appear on the top and bottom of Ebay search pages and also within hundreds or thousands of other seller's individual listings based on what the buyer is looking at. Click on any seller's listing and you will see other seller's promoted listings there also.
Yes.
A buyer searches for "Shott Zwiezel Gardone Champagne"
A listing that is promoted will come up at the top of that search and also will show in "Similar Items" on other listings that are viewed.
But ... those listings have to come up in that search under those search terms ... and be associated with other listings of Shott-Zwiesel Gardone items.
This listing:
MINT Set 8 Crystal Fluted Champagne glasses Gardone pattern by SCHOTT-ZWIESEL
Does not even come up in that search ... it can't be boosted to the top if it is not even recognized as being what the buyer is searching for 😞
Is that a spelling issue? No idea which is correct but noticed they're different.
Shott Zwiezel
SCHOTT-ZWIESEL
its Schott Zwiesel ... if you look at the search link that I posted, it is what I searched for ... that listing does not come up at all
Interesting.
I clicked your search link and the OPs item did not show. I played with adding the hyphen and still nothing.
My next step was an exact search of the OPs title and it was #1.
Changed you search to match the order of the OPs title and it's #1.
Went back to your search and now the OPs item is #1, probably because I looked at it.
From the original search that didn't show the item, it appears that eBay search didn't like something in the title. I don't think it's the order of the keywords (although that doesn't help the listing) but rather some kind of "demotion" for lack of a better term. I say that because items matching "fewer" keywords were shown and it still didn't include the OPs item even though it matched all the entered keywords and would have also matched fewer keywords. To me, that rules out the possibility that it didn't like the hyphen because it still should have matched fewer keywords. There's also an item in the match results that has a hyphen in the name.
Random thoughts as I try to understand what was included as a match in the search and what may cause the OPs listing to be excluded.
It's not a category issue
It's not a number of matches issue. There were only 3 shown
Image size is ok
8 Pictures is good
No Border or watermark
Listing only 60 days old
I don't see any policy issues
No recent feedback issues
Shipping is high but I would think it would be lower placement vs excluding it
Mention of 100% feedback in the description. Not a good idea but shouldn't exclude the item.
A shown listing has a hyphen in the name in the title
A shown listing has all upper case in the title
A shown listing has the search terms in different order in the title
A shown listing has the name as the end of the title
A shown listing has a condition listed in the title
That condition is listed first
Conclusion...I have NO IDEA why the OPs item would not show up in the search you used.
@chapeau-noir wrote:
@penguins_dont_fly wrote:I wanted to add.
Google Shopping likes plain backgrounds. So does eBay,
Another poster said something about "natural settings" ... keep the plain backgrounds ... your item will do better in search and it is much easier for a buyer to see that there are no flaws on the pieces.
"Natural setting" - meaning natural lighting, no odd backgrounds (like the black background) - clear photos (i.e., correct lighting - no yellowing), no excessive cropping. Groups shown on flat surface under natural lighting brings out sparkle rather than hot spots or glare. It's actually pretty easy to achieve.
A black background is actually pretty standard for taking pictures of clear glass. It's not "odd" at all. It allows tha glass to actually be seen with no distortions due to things in the background.
I use "daylight" bulbs in all of my fixtures for an even lighting that gives correct color. I use a black background on all of my clear crystal and glass.
It is possible to get "sparkle" without a "natural setting" using the correct lighting.
