If I clean my glasses will it improve my Item VISIBILITY?

[mr_lincoln]

Views count for the last 30 days:

131 Items with 0 Views =  29.9%

 57 Items with 1 View  =    13.0%

 34 Items with 2 Views =   7.7 %

..........................................  50.6% 

Not much else to say, huh?!? 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Thanks...that helps!

[mr_lincoln]

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@onlinecentral wrote:

436 Active Listings
305 Model Railroad
108 Cast Iron Skillet (actually only 17 Cast Iron listings)

Have you considered that are competing against yourself? How many of your railroad listings do you estimate that one buyer looks at?

If 436 different products were listed in 12 categories, would there be more views because of the more diverse inventory?

436 Active Listings
293 Sold in the Past 90 Days
66% Sold in the Past 90 Days (subjective considering inventory replenishment over that 90 day period meaning the replenished total Active listing count of 436 would be higher and the sold percentage of 66% would be lower relatively speaking, but I get the point)

Let me congratulate you on your percentage and having identified good moving niches. Many sellers who post on this discussion board have a percentage less than 8% percent.

Sales the first half of April are slow for me every year. Buyers are busy with spring cleaning, tax, garden and boat preparation.

My external site views have been as high as 67% so far in April.

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@onlinecentral   While some of the numbers above need some adjustment your point is well taken.  I actually have many categories covered on my listings.  As it relates to Model trains each Gauge represents a buying group and up until eBay reshuffled Categories (what about 2 years ago?) each gauge WAS a separate category.  Even today each gauge is like it's own category because folks buying mainly O Gauge seldom buy HO, etc.

Historically my BIN sales have been a large part of my sales from a volume stand point but in the last three plus weeks BIN sales have dropped significantly, not a normal dip but a drop ... the last time that noticeable change happened was right after the GTC Mandate was implemented ... what about 4 years ago?  It was VERY noticeable.  So I decided to check Views on eBay to see if anything jumped out at me ... thus this thread.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@richard1rst  At some point, I'll try experimenting with some of those techniques. However, it does add extra work, and I notice some of your stuff---most of it?---is multiple item listings, while mine are single quantity listings. It's one thing to do the extra work which might result in multiple sales from the listing, but for me, it is extra work for one sale....and many of my items are not high dollar items either. So I have to weigh that into the equation.

Also, I notice your template is not well formatted for phones, and more and more people use phones to shop on ebay now. 

I think I'll probably start with adding links to my store and links to the item's store category in the description....that's fairly straightforward and serves a dual purpose, since it is helpful to buyers and I think search engines like the links.

Thanks for all your info, and any further suggestions you might want to offer. 

[nuclearomen]

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@richard1rst wrote:

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@richard1rst  Are you talking about something like this?

<meta name="description" content="Blow mold Great Horned Owl from Dalen Products stands about 16" tall.">

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That goes into head and is help. But you will get much better results if you put more and additional information in the description block which tends to attract Googles web crawlers (they typically call them spiders).

I wrote a somewhat lengthy post on this awhile ago. You can get the basics at this link:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Are-you-stuck-in-trying-to-get-sales-and-increase-your-brand/t...

Scroll down to response #8 for an initial hint and then especially response #14 for the main report and multiple suggestions. Once you have an understanding of the first steps you can then do a Google search for SEO for more information to build on that.

Hope this helps.

---

Just to note something, in the link you provided, in your #8 and #14 posts...your actually wrong, you do not have to add any photos to the listing description, you can add the info right into your image on the photo gallery and Google will pick it up. I use to, don't anymore, but as long as the images have that "hidden" info of what it is Google will indeed pick it up when ebay submits the listing to Google. The point you mention of the meta data tag, that is really all you need in the description for Google to pick it up and know what it's for. I believe Ebay also inserts the meta data tag in their listing frame and use the listing title...that is why they always tell you about using Key Words. I designed, maintained and hosted websites with a partner for 10 years back in the 90's/early 00, we did over 200 official websites for bands, labels, distributions and magazines. It ended when things like Social Media started taking hold and were free to use - course most of the people who ditched the website have since been going back to that past few years and ditching Social Media. 

[blurryrobot]

Got it in one.  Combining the scales was a dumb dumb move on Ebay's part.  Ebay failed to realize that the "subgroups" in model railroading were almost separate hobbies, Lionel O gaugers have zero interest in even SEEING HO stuff on their screen and vice versa.  Heck, "separate hobbies" may not be strong enough, the blacksmiths and the watchmakers are like mutually anathemic RELIGIONS...

As usual the computer nerds were wearing digital blinkers and couldn't get out of their own heads to see how even the *other nerds* saw things!  

It amuses me that anybody could think that 300 items is enough to 'self compete' on Ebay.  But in trains?  Gad, 300 is barely ENOUGH.  The number of different items a model rail is interested in at any given time is huuuuuuge.  Getting them to spend any kind of money, that's another matter.   But I have to say, your prices look very good!

[luckythewinner]

Not much else to say, huh?!? 

I prefer to look at sales, not views.

In your sold items:

I see 295 items sold in the last 90 days = 3.28 items per day.  

I see 114 items sold in the last 30 days = 3.8 items per day. 

So from that data, it looks like you sales have improved in the last 30 days!

[mr_lincoln]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

Not much else to say, huh?!? 

I prefer to look at sales, not views.

In your sold items:

I see 295 items sold in the last 90 days = 3.28 items per day.  

I see 114 items sold in the last 30 days = 3.8 items per day. 

So from that data, it looks like you sales have improved in the last 30 days!

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@luckythewinner   Good perspective but I look at sales growth over a longer period of time ... I have records for the number of items sold and sales dollars since day one ... in comparing the same month in previous years I have not had a new high dollar sales month since last September and a new high sales volume month since last October.  So while yes I have sold things this year I have not set any records nor seen any growth ... 

-

-

[meme6253]

L.O.L., Thank You For The Laugh!!

[mr_lincoln]

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@blurryrobot wrote:

Got it in one.  Combining the scales was a dumb dumb move on Ebay's part.  Ebay failed to realize that the "subgroups" in model railroading were almost separate hobbies, Lionel O gaugers have zero interest in even SEEING HO stuff on their screen and vice versa.  Heck, "separate hobbies" may not be strong enough, the blacksmiths and the watchmakers are like mutually anathemic RELIGIONS...

As usual the computer nerds were wearing digital blinkers and couldn't get out of their own heads to see how even the *other nerds* saw things!  

It amuses me that anybody could think that 300 items is enough to 'self compete' on Ebay.  But in trains?  Gad, 300 is barely ENOUGH.  The number of different items a model rail is interested in at any given time is huuuuuuge.  Getting them to spend any kind of money, that's another matter.   But I have to say, your prices look very good!

---

@blurryrobot   Model building is similar ... those who like building race cars aren't the same builders who enjoy WWI and/or WWII fighter planes ... 

You nailed it with toy trains ... my larger scale categories like G and Pre War Standard are barren ... one main reason is that shipping costs have gone so high the bigger pieces cost more to ship ... and when shipping costs exceed item price it is a very, very bad situation ... 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@inhawaii wrote:

I heard that the higher your PL percentage, the higher your visibility.

For maximum visibility, I would go 100%.    😉

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@mr_lincoln 

@inhawaii 

@stuff4divas 

How bout we all send our catalog of items/treasures to eBay and they promote at 100 % and as everything sells they send us 100% of the proceeds? Sound like a plan? Would be bout time they did some of the heavy lifting.  If that works for them we can all chip in with our new found revenue and buy ebay the el grande' jug of glasses cleaner!!! Oooopsies!! Never mind. You're not supposed to put dangerous goods in the mail!!! Like the kids say...My bad!!!

-Lotz

[cardxcraft]

Thanks for posting this.

I believe Cassini picks up or reads somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 characters, although you can enter more, if I remember correctly.  Nonetheless, the pertinent information needs to come first. 

Great info @richard1rst 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@mr_lincoln wrote:

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@blurryrobot wrote:

Got it in one.  Combining the scales was a dumb dumb move on Ebay's part.  Ebay failed to realize that the "subgroups" in model railroading were almost separate hobbies, Lionel O gaugers have zero interest in even SEEING HO stuff on their screen and vice versa.  Heck, "separate hobbies" may not be strong enough, the blacksmiths and the watchmakers are like mutually anathemic RELIGIONS...

As usual the computer nerds were wearing digital blinkers and couldn't get out of their own heads to see how even the *other nerds* saw things!  

It amuses me that anybody could think that 300 items is enough to 'self compete' on Ebay.  But in trains?  Gad, 300 is barely ENOUGH.  The number of different items a model rail is interested in at any given time is huuuuuuge.  Getting them to spend any kind of money, that's another matter.   But I have to say, your prices look very good!

---

@blurryrobot   Model building is similar ... those who like building race cars aren't the same builders who enjoy WWI and/or WWII fighter planes ... 

You nailed it with toy trains ... my larger scale categories like G and Pre War Standard are barren ... one main reason is that shipping costs have gone so high the bigger pieces cost more to ship ... and when shipping costs exceed item price it is a very, very bad situation ... 

---

@mr_lincoln 

Throw in the recent Unit Quantity/Unit Type add to the collection for item specifics, a complete waste of time and space.

-Lot

[blurryrobot]

What we are really lacking in the train world overall is good entry level scale or semi-scale stuff with play value.  Lionel and Marx had play value nailed down in the old days, and Marx had trains for every budget which would all run on the same track.   But now none of the entry level stuff has enough of a fun factor - none of it has the play value for the kids that, say, Geotrax or the Trackmaster sets offer. And none of those are compatible if the kids decide to upgrade to scale models.   And all the new-product action is in the high end limited run products which sell at horrendous prices.    Everyone refocused on chasing that aging and shrinking high-dollar market in the 1990s and it's really done some damage, the only reason the hobby gets any newcomers at all is because there is still a good supply of 70s and 80s stuff via us Ebayers and the train shows!

Heck, it's even hard to find a line that a small merchant can afford to CARRY, except for Bachmann and their minimums and discounts aren't as good as they used to be. 

[nuclearomen]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@richard1rst  At some point, I'll try experimenting with some of those techniques. However, it does add extra work, and I notice some of your stuff---most of it?---is multiple item listings, while mine are single quantity listings. It's one thing to do the extra work which might result in multiple sales from the listing, but for me, it is extra work for one sale....and many of my items are not high dollar items either. So I have to weigh that into the equation.

Also, I notice your template is not well formatted for phones, and more and more people use phones to shop on ebay now. 

I think I'll probably start with adding links to my store and links to the item's store category in the description....that's fairly straightforward and serves a dual purpose, since it is helpful to buyers and I think search engines like the links.

Thanks for all your info, and any further suggestions you might want to offer. 

---

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques 
doesn't matter what your listings are for, how much your items are, how many quantity you have or anything else can think of. Optimizing your listings to be picked up by Google isn't the only reason, it also helps with ebays search and what Cassini looks for in listings. 

There is however correct ways to make a listings and use HTML mode...and unfortunately, most people do not use it correctly and to make those matters worse, ebay doesn't provide any info on it either. If you go to google and type in anything resembling "Create Ebay Template with HTML" the results you will get will be for 3rd party listing apps....most of those are crud, not supported by ebay, and/or have to pay to use the apps, there are few good ones but you do pay for those. If you go to Youtube and search " How to Create Ebay HTML template" (or anything like that) every single video you will find is wrong, not only wrong, but severally outdated. In fact you will find zero video "tutorials" that were made and uploaded since ebay changed the listing tool a year ago not to mention in the last few weeks (they have updated the tool 3x in the last month!) - but, aside that fact, every single "tutorial" are not using the feature correctly. Most of them show you how to create a template and fill in all the info for the item template is for (leaving particular things blank so you can fill them in specific to the item listing). When they get to the description portion, they are not either using html at all, or they are showing you how to get templates for free using some (usually shady) sites and then copy and past what they give you into the description html mode...again wrong. Notice none of them are providing the needed coding tags, such as meta data tags, which searches like google and ebay will look for. If place images in your description, those images should contain the image information tags (known as ALT tag) - they do not, so the result is wasted time that is doing absolutely nothing for your listings except making them look horrible. Yes, I said horrible. Free - Paid - Templates are the worst thing for ebay listing, ebay doesn't like them, cell phones don't like them, buyers don't like them. Truth is, you can create your own template right from ebay and keep it clean, simple, no boarders, no photos, no fancy graphics, no dumb fonts or font rainbow colors etc... it's not the look that's important - it is the CODING that is! 

As for photos, the meta data richard was taking about...that all can be (and should) entered into the images you post in the gallery... Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator... that all have file info you can fill all that info into (description, photo name, keywords, and the google supported and recommended IPTC metadata - that's creator, copyright, license usages etc...) that is what google picks up. If have that stuff entered into your galley photos, all those photo extended tags like ALT and having photos within description field become obsolete. 

Which brings me to the red highlighted part of your post...idk how many people have noticed, but ebay removed the mobile checker from listing tool, that little link that use to be on the top right of the description field now "Show All Options" then replaces with "Show HTML Code" check box. SO you cannot check mobil optimization of your description anymore. Can only list it then use cell phone or ebay app to see the listing on your mobile devise. 

[mr_lincoln]

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@blurryrobot wrote:

What we are really lacking in the train world overall is good entry level scale or semi-scale stuff with play value.  Lionel and Marx had play value nailed down in the old days, and Marx had trains for every budget which would all run on the same track.   But now none of the entry level stuff has enough of a fun factor - none of it has the play value for the kids that, say, Geotrax or the Trackmaster sets offer. And none of those are compatible if the kids decide to upgrade to scale models.   And all the new-product action is in the high end limited run products which sell at horrendous prices.    Everyone refocused on chasing that aging and shrinking high-dollar market in the 1990s and it's really done some damage, the only reason the hobby gets any newcomers at all is because there is still a good supply of 70s and 80s stuff via us Ebayers and the train shows!

Heck, it's even hard to find a line that a small merchant can afford to CARRY, except for Bachmann and their minimums and discounts aren't as good as they used to be. 

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@blurryrobot   That is extremely good insight ... I identify my train buyers in basically two categories ... Collectors and Users.  While some are both here is how I make the distinction:

Collectors:  will bid auctions up on rare, unique pieces or ones they need to complete a set or a train line for their layout

Users:  Buy mainly for holiday train  displays, dabble with layouts and maybe a small collection

Before shipping went whacky I was able to sell complete train sets, Lionel, K-Line, HO Sets, LGB set, etc.  Some were factory sealed from the 80s & 90s.  What started to happen was shipping drove costs up due to dimensional weight for the large set boxes and weight if the sets included a transformer, track and scenery.

So while I hated to do it I would put a set up for a month and if it did not sell I broke it down in to individual pieces and in like 2 weeks most of it was gone.

I use the set boxes as large trays for my loose inventory ... or in some cases threw them out or burned them ... sad but true but that's the market.  Buyers will add a car or several or a locomotive but not jump of a complete set.

At some point the Collector buying group will shrink to where the high priced items simply won't sell like they used to.  We see collections coming out for sale all the time.   One of my PT jobs is putting together train auctions at a local auction house ... while we don't compete with the big boys in the business the day may come when we do.  We are currently breaking down a rather large G Gauge collection in to two auctions ... they will run about a month apart.  Each gauge has its challenges, G Gauge has the size issue AND a small Buying group compared to O, S, HO and N ... 

For myself I don't collect but see more trains pass through here than most collectors have in their collections ... we don't have room for a big layout inside our house BUT for something like G Gauge I would love to set up a train layout in the front yard for Christmas time and run it LOL!  So I might be able to get all that I need from the two auctions mentioned above!  Chug chug - choo choo the train is ON TIME!