Traffic

[grandmasjewelry123]

I have been selling jewelry on line for about two years. How come the majority of my customers are coming from the western United States when I am on the eastern part of the USA? I have had one customer in two years from Ct, which is where I am located. How can this be? How do I change that? It seems that ebay is only showing my listings on the west coast. There are some sales from Florida and New York, but almost nothing in New England.

[donsdetour]

Sounds normal to me.

Interest in items is were it will usually sell to.

Only time I end up selling in my state is usually state related items: which of course are usually collected by folks in state.

[ekmadonna]

More money is made on shipping fees when you live on one coast and your items ship to the opposite coast. AI knows this so your items most likely are shown predominately in the places that will make ebay the most money. always been this way.

[stainlessenginecovers]

@ekmadonna More money is made on shipping fees when you live on one coast and your items ship to the opposite coast

Nope; that's not it. I did Free Shipping for 10 years (just Jan 21 did I change)

Less than 2% of sales went to California; and Cali has 10% of the entire Countries Population.

80% of my sales go east of the Mississippi. 

Just depends on what you are selling. 

[ckimodog]

I sell hand crafted jewelry.  The jewelry catagory is a very saturated one.  Be thankful for the sales you have,  where ever they come from...it's a sale and money in your pocket.  PS You have a very nice shop.  Good luck during the holidays. 

[wrong66]

Nonsense!

[kensgiftshop]

@grandmasjewelry123 

I'm from Oklahoma and I'd say that 80 - 90% of my buyers come from the East and very few from the West.

Why, I have no idea, but it's been that way as long as I can remember.

[southern*sweet*tea]

In the almost 19 years I've been selling here I've had a total of seven sales into my home state of Mississippi.

Probably 60% of my sales go to CA, WA, IL, FL,  MI and TX. These are the states I see the most by far, and they all have one thing in common - they are large in population. The rest are scattered across the US.  Strangely enough, I get very few sales to NY, and for that I'm thankful because every package I've ever mailed to NY, even long before Covid, has taken at least a full seven days to be delivered.  My packages get to CA (even during Covid) in three days, sometimes two. NY...fuggedaboutit.  Oh, UT is another package black hole. They get to UT and hide for several days. Fortunately I can count my UT sales over the past few years on one hand.

[mtgraves7984]

Interesting observation. I'm in Tennessee and it seems like I'm forever shipping to FL and CA. Hmmm... 🤔

[m60driver]

Well you have the most sincere crocodile tears tears from this seller located in the Pacific Northwest which is far indeed from the population center of the US located somewhere near Missouri.

[mindmyownbusiness]

Why nonsense? 

eBay has the technology, knowledge, and experience to influence who buys what in aggregate (i.e. general site wide search order tinkering, like free shipping, free returns) and at the individual buyer level (i.e. it tracks what listings I visit for 30 days so it can look back to charge for promoted listings standard.)

These examples show eBay does shift purchases among sellers in aggregate and for individuals.  It's just a little programming. eBay is not "just" a selling site operator, blindly indifferent to the outcomes -who gets what. 

There is no reason they couldn't  manage arbitrage with regard to shipping costs. Since they can, why wouldn't they?

It seems unethical, but it wouldn't be illegal. 

If I were a share holder,  I might even be upset to learn eBay were not managing search order to maximize revenue from fees on shipping costs.

A company the size of eBay could make big money even if distance of sales rose just a little bit.

[mindmyownbusiness]

Reasonable steps would be to advertise and increase visibility locally using nationwide venues:   Enhance your location visibility in listings. Offer local buyer discounts and regional specific listings. Become visible on Facebook selling groups. Work your location into your Pinterest name or board names.  Offer something on local Craig's List, at least occasionally.

Your sales seem to be doing well.  Build on your success rather than divert with the above.

Good luck!

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@grandmasjewelry123 wrote:

I have been selling jewelry on line for about two years. How come the majority of my customers are coming from the western United States when I am on the eastern part of the USA? I have had one customer in two years from Ct, which is where I am located. How can this be? How do I change that? It seems that ebay is only showing my listings on the west coast. There are some sales from Florida and New York, but almost nothing in New England.

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This gets reported on dot ca from time to time. I've had several items sell suddenly to the same province/close postal code out of the blue many times. Same goes for countries. Duelling orders to Israel, France and Scandinavia. Recently I had 2 sales for a listing created several years ago. (3 units available). Hours apart. If eBay sellers understood how their eBay's  AI works we'd many of us would be at the post office non-stop. Most of the time I just file it under  cue Twilight Zone music.

-Lotz

[janet9988]

This is part of  ebay's user agreement...

• We strive to create a marketplace where buyers find what they are looking for. Therefore, the appearance or placement of listings in search and browse results will depend on a variety of factors, including, but not limited to:
  • buyer's location, search query, browsing site, and history;
  • item's location, listing format, price and shipping cost, terms of service, end time, history, and relevance to the user query;
  • seller's history, including listing practices, Detailed Seller Ratings, eBay policy compliance, feedback, and defect rate; and
  • number of listings matching the buyer's query,
• To drive a positive user experience, a listing may not appear in some search and browse results regardless of the sort order chosen by the buyer,
• Some advanced listing upgrades will only be visible on some of our Services,

[yuzuha]

Certain things are more popular in certain areas. For instance, almost every single one of the Annalee dolls and ornaments that I have sold has gone to the South or the Midwest. Whenever I have Dia de los Muertos stuff, it almost always goes to CA.