Try a simple price drop instead of sending offers (some interested buyers WILL be notified)

[gurlcat]

I don't know about yall but I am not happy about the recent extension of time for interested buyers to decide if they want to accept a seller's offer ... from 2 days to 4 days, during which we cannot make any edits, nor send offers to new watchers.  Maybe just me -I'd say at least 75% of the takers I get are within a half-hour of sending the offers, 20% after a half-hour but before 24 hours, and the remaining 5% on the 2nd day (IF THAT).    I seriously don't think there are many who would have taken the offer if only they'd had more than 2 days, and in my book those few aren't worth the greater sacrifice.  But, there is nothing we can do about it.  

Or is there?  😎

Several months ago I ran an experiment with a bunch of awesome volunteers here, to see how many would receive notifications if they watched one of my items and I simply revised the Buy It Now price down, rather than send out offers.  The results were mixed but encouraging.  It appeared that those who have the eBay phone app were more likely to receive it than via the web, and that's okay because lots of buyers out there do shop here via the app.  -That frog brooch remains unsold btw, ha.  

So just a moment ago I was looking at my listings, sighing at the thought of crippling a bunch of them by sending out offers for them. (Oh by the way, notice how much higher your Suggested Ad Rate goes up after an offer fails -that means eBay begins dropping the item's visibility a bunch at that point, because they see it like you must have it way overpriced, if people won't even take your offer).  

Then I remembered the experiment, and decided to try it in real life.  I dropped the prices of several items with watchers, by about the same amount of discount I would have sent offers for.  Et voila!  -About 10 minutes later, success!  

[retro_entertainment_collectibles]

@gurlcat 

Place is so very dead in sales not sure it'd a matter.  There were three regulars at post office and everyone of them said they are just about done here.  Even the clerk chimed in about how few sellers seem to be arriving past few weeks.

I told one seller that its that time season, people spent dough on school kids, Halloween stuff is pricey saying my "Well just hang in there" and he shot back his sales are off a whopping 72%.  I said mine are down too but then the others chimed in.  One said the "mer" place is outselling here 3:1 with the same prices and I quote, "I'm done there, come December 26th."

Of course everything I sell is now vertical so is what it is.  I took the few hundreds I've many multiples of off Amazon in April because I go to camp through end of October.  Here I've a three working day handling time but I too am beginning to wonder if I just shouldn't throw everything over there and come camp next season figure it out...  Have the daughter in law do whatever need be sent out and throw her a few bucks per.

Of course there is the stress of the election ordeal, all such matters, birds going south for the winter and the usual madness of the Sun reflecting light off the Moon going on.  The retail stores here are full of people every time I go seeming as normal, dazed and confused with looks of sheer contempt about the patrons.  The Kentucky Fried Chicken place still has long lines of salivating Chicken Zombie families educating their young in how to expend crazy money for gimp Chicken addiction.  Tim Hortons in the morning upon opening still has lines extending into the streets for a lackluster coffee,  a single FAB ("Fair At Best") Donut and a Breakfast Sandwich totaling ten plus dollars 24 days a week.

As I like to say, "The problem isn't the problem and that's the problem problematically speaking."

[buyselljack2016]

As a courtesy to fellow sellers...................  when I get an offer for something that I will not be purchasing.......... I clink on the mouse to decline at my earliest convenient opportunity.

Needed to buy some packaging tape recently. Had some on my watch list while I was deciding on which to purchased.  Declined the offers that came in to not "lock up" the seller's listing.

[buyselljack2016]

  On the top left of your eBay page: clink on your account name (guricat)...all your items of course pop up for sale.

But the ones on the first 2 or so lines are items that buyers have clinked on very recently.

Kinda cool.

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Interesting. I would like to give that a try.  

I must be starting on the wrong page. Perhaps does not display that because I am on "time away".

Could you dumb it down a bit for me with some screenshots for guidance. I am not grasping how it works.

[luckythewinner]

sighing at the thought of crippling a bunch of them by sending out offers for them

I don't see sending offers as "crippling" my listings. How exactly are they "crippled"?

Oh by the way, notice how much higher your Suggested Ad Rate goes up after an offer fails -that means eBay begins dropping the item's visibility a bunch at that point

What is your basis for claiming eBay will "drop the visibility" of the item "a bunch"? 

[toomuchstuffagain35]

Must be the TA thing - it works on mine.

[toomuchstuffagain35]

I wonder if the same applies if you raise the price? Maybe that will nudge them to BIN before it goes even higher? LOL

[buyselljack2016]

Will have to take a look again when off time away.  With a 31-59 minute delay to get back to time away I will wait.  Seems like I have clicked up there before, and what is suggested will happen has never happened. Either not clicking the same spot from the same starting page, or increased CRS.

[12345jamesstamps]

Clink on your name as shown.

The first item shown is what a buyer or me looked at...plus I can make changes if I need to on each item.

This page really helps me at looking at pricing and errors of my items.

[12345jamesstamps]

Here's the problem...I can't decline right away.

Plus I am using some for research and want to know pricing...especially auctions...which could be 9 days.

And I use my iPhone eBay app. more than my ebay app. on my computer.

Canceling on the computer does not cancel the same ones on the iPhone.

So I have to cancel them twice...LOL. And I think they stay longer on the iPhone.

I don't do 'best offers' as buying something or selling something...I have enough of emails to deal with.

This is not for me my main course of income.

I guess because in my category my items are so much more hard to identify I need to research to help identify items. 

[adamcartwright]

@buyselljack2016 

I do the same thing but we're in the minority.

One reason is probably that many watchers are competitors.

[gurlcat]

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@toomuchstuffagain35 wrote:

I wonder if the same applies if you raise the price? Maybe that will nudge them to BIN before it goes even higher? LOL

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I've never received a notification of an item's price rising, and I'm glad because sometimes I'll raise a price a little bit before sending out offers so it seems like a steeper discount.  I reckon this or that person might remember what the price was previously, but I doubt most would.  

[robbie31415]

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@gurlcat wrote:

Okay but if a "buyer" turned out to be a deadbeat, then someone else who wanted to buy but saw 0 in stock will have moved on and bought elsewhere by the time the 4 days runs out, when really you did have available stock that whole time; it was just held hostage by someone treating BIN like the shopping cart.  

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So here is an example that just happened today.

Item been sitting for 6 months. No movement, someone bought but didn't pay. It got cancelled. It got relisted with 1 sold and actually sold within 24 hours.

Now, would it have sold regardless? Don't actually know.

But typically things move faster once an order is cancelled and relisted.

So I have no problem with deadbeats.

[gurlcat]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

sighing at the thought of crippling a bunch of them by sending out offers for them

I don't see sending offers as "crippling" my listings. How exactly are they "crippled"?

They can't be edited and I can't send offers to buyers who became "interested" after I sent the current batch.  

Oh by the way, notice how much higher your Suggested Ad Rate goes up after an offer fails -that means eBay begins dropping the item's visibility a bunch at that point

What is your basis for claiming eBay will "drop the visibility" of the item "a bunch"? 

Well let me ask you this, what would you consider a legitimate basis?  I'm not being spiky; all I have so far is casual observations and I haven't been 100% satisfied with that, so now I'm in the early design phase of testing the hypothesis.  I definitely don't want to waste time finding a correlation if it's meaningless.  I'm not even sure how much we should believe in promotion increasing visibility, at least in direct proportion to the promotion rate.  

You once provided the most logical sounding explanation I've seen (to date) of how it works, er I think it was you.  It was quite a while ago but I think you said it was like a raffle with page modules being like random draws, and each decimal you raise your promotion rate, the more tickets you get in the hat, to potentially be drawn.  That just sounded so solid I didn't ask you then, but I will now, what was your basis for it?  And are there any other ways to measure visibility, like views per day maybe?  I realize all kinds of factors go into whether someone decides to view a listing, but comparing a listing to nothing other than itself with a different promotion rate (or as I hypothesize, the same listing and same rate but compared to a different suggested ad rate), wouldn't view counts be useful then, as a measure of how viewable the listing is?  

EDIT: I should be clear that I have zero trust or interest in eBay's 'Impressions' data.  

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