Throttling-what to do about it

[cb-boards]

Let me preface this by saying I understand that there is not universal acceptance that eBay throttles their sellers; I respect the opinion of those people who feel they do not and hope that they will do me the courtesy of respecting mine and to please not turn this post into a debate about whether or not eBay throttles sellers, to what extent they do, how or why they would do such etc.   I do not mean for this to come off as rude, I just would like this thread to stay on point and be an ongoing discussion amongst sellers who believe eBay does throttle us with tips on how to best deal and position ourselves in such an environment.

With that being said, I have a particular listing that up until 2 weeks ago, over the prior 3 months I had sold a whopping total of 5 of these items.  About 2 weeks ago I managed to sell 3 in a 2 day period to different buyers.  Over the course of the next 2 weeks I sold 19...about 4x the amount in two weeks then I had sold in the prior 3 months!!!  This is not an exogenous event, I have seen these types of patterns so many times that I can not possibly think it is an exogenous coincidence. 

 It seems very obvious to me that if you want sales, you need visibility for your listings.  In order to get visibility for your listings you need sales. A classic chicken vs. eg scenario.   eBay buries the listings of items that don't sell and give enhanced visibility to those that do.  I usually do a few things to circumvent this sort of throttling.  (This example above is one of the instances where I did nothing to the listing as an attempt to  illustrate my point about eBay throttling. )  But I usually:

1) When an item that doesn't have any sales within a 2-3 week period, I will usually cancel the listing.  Instead of "re-listing" I will "sell similar."  This way it appears as a new listing.

2) If my sales for a particular item that I have many of are slow, I will run a sale for a 3-4 day period droping the price to pretty much break even after I factor in my shipping, fees etc.  While I normally don't like to work for free this way, sometimes dropping the price will drastically will ignite sells over a short time and over the next 4 days I may sell 5 or 6.  While it is true that I may not have made any profits, however I:

A) reduce inventory 

B)  Now have several sales that might help generate more product visibility...so if I originally had it priced at $30 when it wasn't selling and lowered the price to breakeven at $18, now it might start to sell a little more regularly at $24 now that I have a little bit of a track record. 

I'd love to hear from other sellers who believe eBay throttles on what they do to deal with it.  Again, for those that don't believe in eBay throttling I respect your opinion but I ask that you please not discuss that here.  I would be happy to discuss this issue if you would like to start a new post.  I would like this thread to stay on topic and be a forum for sellers on how to best position our listings to cope with throttling.  It would be quite difficult to add value to this topic if one doesn't believe in eBay throttling to begin with.  So again, I hope my desire to stay on point will be respected.    

[thatsallfolks]

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@cb-boards wrote:

eBay buries the listings of items that don't sell and give enhanced visibility to those that do.  I usually do a few things to circumvent this sort of throttling.

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I'm sure eBay does that; they'd be foolish not to. But I don't consider that throttling. It seems that your definition of the term may be much more broad than mine.

Anyway. If visibility is the problem, I'd use resources outside of eBay to direct traffic to my listings. I'd also limit my listings, at least for a short time, to the things that are most likely to sell. The idea that "the more you list, the more you sell" doesn't work if you're listing stuff that no one will want to buy. Doing that has exactly the opposite effect.

[cb-boards]

The only thing that proved to be hopeless was my belief that the Kool-Aid drinkers here might actually respect a non Kool-Aid drinker's opinion and refrain from posting about a subject they might not happen to agree with.

[jonathankirkland]

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@cb-boards wrote:
The only thing that proved to be hopeless was my belief that the Kool-Aid drinkers here might actually respect a non Kool-Aid drinker's opinion and refrain from posting about a subject they might not happen to agree with.

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Oh my gosh you made a topic called "Throttling-what to do about it" and you're calling others Kool-Aid drinkers? Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching you right?

I'm done lol

[cb-boards]

The term throttling can be used with a degree of subjectivity. What sort of resources outside of eBay to direct traffic are you referring to?

[thatsallfolks]

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@cb-boards wrote:
my belief that the Kool-Aid drinkers here might actually respect a non Kool-Aid drinker's opinion

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Where's the respect in that statement? Frankly, I think the people who believe something they can't prove are the ones drinking Kool-Aid.

So, are you going to stay on topic, or are you going to be complicit in your own thread going off the rails?

[7606dennis]

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@cb-boards wrote:
The term throttling can be used with a degree of subjectivity. What sort of resources outside of eBay to direct traffic are you referring to?

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Please define "throttling" in the context that you are using the term?

[thatsallfolks]

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@cb-boards wrote:
The term throttling can be used with a degree of subjectivity. 

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I've seen enough "my stuff isn't selling, I'm being throttled" threads to know that it's used to explain just about anything. Without a definition, this is pointless. There was a thread not long ago where the seller claimed he was being throttled because he couldn't search for his listings. It turned out that he had botched the shipping setup, and blocked his own country in the "ships to" list.

[cb-boards]

There has been 1 maybe 2 responses here on topic so it is clear with the very first response I received that this was going off the rails and my Kool-Aid response was after it had already done so. As far as the respect in that statement, it never would have been made had my wishes (which I repeated several times!) to keep this on topic not been so egregiously disregarded starting with the very first response to the original post. I start out with respect but that gets lost after being repeatedly dis-respected.

[jonathankirkland]

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@cb-boards wrote:
There has been 1 maybe 2 responses here on topic so it is clear with the very first response I received that this was going off the rails and my Kool-Aid response was after it had already done so. As far as the respect in that statement, it never would have been made had my wishes (which I repeated several times!) to keep this on topic not been so egregiously disregarded starting with the very first response to the original post. I start out with respect but that gets lost after being repeatedly dis-respected.

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Then perhaps you need to choose more carefully when titling something and letting people "assume" what you mean about "throttling".

Had you chosen a more appropriate topic title and left out the world "throttling" entirely, I'm sure it could have been a lot more beneficial for everyone to read.

You can request to have a mod lock this title and start a new one if you'd like.

[div_style]

 "eBay buries the listings of items that don't sell and give enhanced visibility to those that do. "

If that is your definition of "throttling", then you are right, eBay does that.

But it is in eBay's best interest to promote (ie, provide greater visibility to) those items that are most likely to sell since that's how eBay makes much of its money.  In a crowded category, very few, that is to say, a small percentage, of sellers can be near the top of the list in either best match or relevance.

All that said, when I search for an item I usually either search for ending soonest (auctions), new-listed (FP), or lowest price.  In any of those cases, most of the time, listings that fall into one of those situations will show up near the top, regardless of recent sales.

[thatsallfolks]

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@cb-boards wrote:
There has been 1 maybe 2 responses here on topic so it is clear with the very first response I received that this was going off the rails and my Kool-Aid response was after it had already done so. As far as the respect in that statement, it never would have been made had my wishes (which I repeated several times!) to keep this on topic not been so egregiously disregarded starting with the very first response to the original post. I start out with respect but that gets lost after being repeatedly dis-respected.

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You've been asked several times for a definition. Are you going to respond, or is it too subjective a concept?

[cb-boards]

Within the context of selling on eBay, I would generally define throttling as the deliberate attempt to increase/decrease the visibility of a listing.

[reallynicestamps]

My default Search is Highest Price plus Shipping.

The lowest price is probably some fishy junk that barely fits in the category, and there will be hundreds of them. All with delivery date two months in the future.

Highest allows me to drill down through a few dozen to the properly described items in my price range.

I used to know an antique dealer whose policy was, if an item had not sold in a month, to raise the price. He would do that five times (six months in his shop) and if it still hadn't sold, he would put it in a local auction at the original price.

Most things sold in Month Three,he told me.

The more something costs, the more people respect it.

[cb-boards]

You are absolutely right this is a free forum and you have every right to. Never debated that.
Just asked for a modicum of respect that those who don't agree refrain from posting so those who do agree could try to have a forum where they can exchange their ideas.
But that is clearly too much to ask for.