There are eyes on your item? Go for the sale?

[debvor]

I may have brought this subject up before but here goes. I get messages from Ebay from time to time that says something like "There are eyes on your item" and "go for the sale". The message has a list of items that people have in their watch list and Ebay is saying that as a seller I should lower my price and that they will email the "potential" buyer. The first thing that occurs to me is that maybe these people are seller and just curious to see if the item sells before listing theirs. Maybe they are potential buyers. If they are, instead of asking sellers to lower their price, why don't they message the "potential" buyer and tell them that they they can make an offer on the item. That make much more sense to me. Now I know that not every seller puts "make an offer" on their items but at least send the message to buyers of sellers that do.  

[baydealz]

I ignore these stupid messages and was wondering how to turn them off - I'm sure the ebay brainiacs didn't realize the stupid concept, or that many 'watchers' are other sellers or people who bookmark item, just to hold for potential purchase. I can't find how to turn off, so I was going to add to my listing that I don't participate...BUy it Now (unless I have offer option).

[baydealz]

"algorithms"...it's a really dub, clunky old website.

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[mod-designs4u]

Just do what everyone else does...dismiss and delete, or change the eBay notifications in your profile. I started a thread regarding this issue several months ago on this forum after "lowering" my prices on a few of my "watched" items included in eBay's email (I got zero sales as a result). You are correct to assume that some eBay sellers have nothing else better to do than to "watch" a competitor's listing. My post argued that eBay should send an email to all the "watchers" after a price reduction. I've ascertained that eBay doesn't do this after some experimentation. If a "watcher" revisits the listing after a price reduction this may result in a sale if the "watchers" are qualified buyers (not lookie-loo sellers). I've had a little success with price reductions on some items which have several watchers after a few weeks. The problem is that eBay creates these ineffective emails with only a few watchers (probably other sellers). My advice is to dismiss these emails from eBay and take it upon yourself to analyze a potential sale with a price reduction based on "many watchers" and duration of the listing. Incidentally, the sales I've had using this approach have been with items that eBay didn't recommend in their emails!  With all the hair-brained "tools" concocted by out-of-touch programmers and managers I will give credit where credit is due. The "email with offer" feature has worked quite well! Even if your listing doesn't have a "make offer" option a potential customer can email you with an offer. Granted, some offers are ridiculously low but you can make a counteroffer (use some "salesmanship" in your text reply). I've had about a 70% success rate with the "email with offer" feature (70% of the "email with offer" correspondence).          

[lonaiguana57]

I too have received BOTH messages,i take them with a grain of salt.Most times there are no eyes on them at all. I just keep mine monitered so i know when there are eyes on them and take appropriate action.Other times i have already lowered them before i get the message or it is not in my best interest to lower the price,due to the lovely extra shipping costs.

[castlemagicmemories]

They do message buyers, stating seller is accepting offers for this item.

[hawkwind5454]

You can lead a horse to water BUT...  I get those notices all the time, and I think they're ridiculous.  It's all part of the "Cheap is king" dime-store mind-set that ebay has been fostering for...How many years now?

[escuintla]

The only eyes you will get on your items are the people from the VERO program. 

[castlemagicmemories]

And they don't buy!

[sharonc99]

I have gotten those email quite a few times.  I have gone on and lowered my prices several times and have never made a sale by doing this, big waste of time.  I now just delete the messages.

[sharonc99]

I get the message about eyes on your item lower your prices to make the sale and also the one that says people have items in their carts lower the prices to make the sale.  All they ever want you to do is lower your prices.

[poanann_0]

I hate these messages, there are one or two more to the exact same effect.

I am certain they are random and have zero connection to reality.

Buyers having eyes on my items does not equal buyers having my items on their watch list, much as I would like to believe that ebay would have incorporated that into their algorithm it is simply not true. As well just because ebay states there are buyers who have my items in their carts that is also not true, after all if my items are in fact in a buyer's cart why aren't they off to pay for that?

No, I do not believe for one instant that these messages hold any relationship with the truth.

They are annoying, I get more scared when I know there's a message than anything else, mostly because I'm thinking "omg what did I do now?"

I wish I could turn them off.

[sharonc99]

Ya I get this email all the time and delete, but today there were 2 items on that email that I was thinking about dropping the price a couple $ on.  When I clicked on the box to lower the price to the potential buyer it will not let me, it only offers for me to revise my listing to permanently lower the price of my listing not just for that person who may be interested.  LAME.