eBay

this*old*attic · ‎07-22-2019

I had something interesting happen today.

I was researching completed listings to gauge saleability (percentage of sales compared to total listings) and sweet spot pricing.

Everything I checked had virtually a 100% sell through rate. 😑

Well. Either I have the most amazing, desirable, sure-fire inventory on the planet (I wish) or GTC is entrenched for at least some makers in my category (vintage clothing).

In other words: there’s near total GTC usage compared to auctions, and shorter fixed price durations no longer exist. Everything stays listed until it sells. There aren’t many pulled listings.

This will make researching harder. 😩

I always looked at percentage sold when deciding which pieces were sell worthy and where to set my price on the spectrum.

bigdeals.etc · ‎07-22-2019

@this*old*attic wrote:
I had something interesting happen today.

I was researching completed listings to gauge saleability (percentage of sales compared to total listings) and sweet spot pricing.

Everything I checked had virtually a 100% sell through rate. 😑

Well. Either I have the most amazing, desirable, sure-fire inventory on the planet (I wish) or GTC is entrenched for at least some makers in my category (vintage clothing).

In other words: there’s near total GTC usage compared to auctions, and shorter fixed price durations no longer exist. Everything stays listed until it sells. There aren’t many pulled listings.

This will make researching harder. 😩

I always looked at percentage sold when deciding which pieces were sell worthy and where to set my price on the spectrum.

Yea, sadly you're going to have to figure out another way of doing that. Try taking "inventory snapshots" to find out what inventory you have left compared to the beginning of a fixed duration and get a percentage from that. That's what I do every time I restock inventory

this*old*attic · ‎07-22-2019

Good suggestion but unfortunately that won’t work for me - everything I have is one off, long tail items.

The closest I come to large “lots” or “batches” of similar inventory is the clothing decades (50s, 60s, 70s, etc.) and a few corresponding KWs (is the 70s dress a “Prairie” or a “Hippie”?).

This is problematic for my selling strategy.

bigdeals.etc · ‎07-23-2019

@this*old*attic wrote:
Good suggestion but unfortunately that won’t work for me - everything I have is one off, long tail items.

The closest I come to large “lots” or “batches” of similar inventory is the clothing decades (50s, 60s, 70s, etc.) and a few corresponding KWs (is the 70s dress a “Prairie” or a “Hippie”?).

This is problematic for my selling strategy.

Oh. Yea it's a tough situation. Sorry you're going thru this. Any time a change happens (not limited to just ebay), it can trickle down and effect other things. That's just how it goes. I'm sure you'll end up finding a way to do it, even if it will require more work. Maybe some others will chime in with suggestions. Good luck!

this*old*attic · ‎07-23-2019

Thanks.

I’m pretty stubborn, I don’t give up particularly easily and I’m not put off by thinking up different ideas to solve a problem.

This one caught me by surprise though. Talk about unintended consequences!

cornersbumped · ‎07-23-2019

For about a year I've been using the SKU field to record the dates when a listing was created (or the date when I first did this, whichever is first). That lets me track half-life of groups of (kinds of) items, since each individual item has been essentially continuously listed for that whole time. So in my listing manager I can look at, for example, a kind of book or a kind of ephemera.

You could also use arbitrary markers in the body of the listing, or the titles if you have slack for control numbers there.

That sort of thing may do what you want, in the long term at least. A tool for managing and editing listings in bulk (we use GarageSale, which lets me write a script to do this, and use Smart Groups and complicated searches on local templates) will certainly help.

(edited for wording)

luckythewinner · ‎07-23-2019

@this*old*attic wrote:
Talk about unintended consequences!

If it obscures the fact that a lot of eBay inventory languishes on this site for months, I would not be so quick to label it "unintended".

dtexley3 · ‎07-23-2019

@this*old*attic wrote:
I had something interesting happen today.

I was researching completed listings to gauge saleability (percentage of sales compared to total listings) and sweet spot pricing.

Everything I checked had virtually a 100% sell through rate. 😑

Well. Either I have the most amazing, desirable, sure-fire inventory on the planet (I wish) or GTC is entrenched for at least some makers in my category (vintage clothing).

In other words: there’s near total GTC usage compared to auctions, and shorter fixed price durations no longer exist. Everything stays listed until it sells. There aren’t many pulled listings.

This will make researching harder. 😩

I always looked at percentage sold when deciding which pieces were sell worthy and where to set my price on the spectrum.

tyler@ebay Hi Tyler, it looks like the changes to GTC have impacted the sell through rates. I'm assuming this is not intentional, otherwise this metric is now mostly useless.

Member of the Grumpy Old Man crew

membersinceaug2001 · ‎07-23-2019

The completeds have been inaccurate for years now. Both sold and unsold do not show all results.

I have been unable to find my own stuff that ended within a month, both sold and unsold, yet completeds are supposed to show 3 months?

zamo-zuan · ‎07-23-2019

@this*old*attic wrote:

In other words: there’s near total GTC usage compared to auctions, and shorter fixed price durations no longer exist. Everything stays listed until it sells. There aren’t many pulled listings.

This will make researching harder. 😩

I always looked at percentage sold when deciding which pieces were sell worthy and where to set my price on the spectrum.

Oh there's "pulled listings". The AI calculates stale and stagnant as two of the primary factors deciding whether your item appears or not, and where.

There's just no visible statistics or metrics measuring this stat.

They prefer you using "THEIR" trending/average prices, rather than being able to find out your own.

this*old*attic · ‎07-23-2019

Interesting point.

charity_scents · ‎07-23-2019

Have you looked at traffic stats in the Performance tab of Seller Hub? Click over on Traffic and at the bottom it shows individual items.
Is it possible to put together the information you are seeking via reports in File Exchange? It has Active, Sold, and Unsold. I use the paid and shipped download for part of my accounting purposes.

this*old*attic · ‎07-23-2019

Thanks. My problem, though, is not that I’m trying to control or manage my own inventory from within.

The problem is that I’ve always used historical listings - sold vs. unsold - to identify trends, popularity, best strategies, pricing, etc. and compare my listings and inventory outward.

Why did this one sell but not that one?

Now it looks like much of what I sell has 100% sell through - and we sure know THAT isn’t true. LOL.

Boy, I sure miss those those days! Between an initial listing as an auction and subsequent listing as GTC (I always used it, even when stores weren’t in search), I pretty much had 100% sell through within 30-45 day timeframes.

ersatz_sobriquet · ‎07-23-2019

This has been going on a lot longer than forced GTC. Many times in searches I only am able to view sold listings, no matter if I check the box for completeds or solds or both. It is worse since forced GTC. Other times I am able to view some unsolds, go figure, no logic.

zamo-zuan · ‎07-23-2019

@ersatz_sobriquet wrote:
This has been going on a lot longer than forced GTC. Many times in searches I only am able to view sold listings, no matter if I check the box for completeds or solds or both. It is worse since forced GTC. Other times I am able to view some unsolds, go figure, no logic.

Honestly, even if you use software to connect to the eBay API, there's no logic. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don't.

It's been extra hit or miss today. Some order data being sent with no store name, some has a store name. Order#'s according to the data skipped 300 numbers consecutively, no idea why.

Now the issue from early this year, when eBay removed shipping methods, where listings claim "no shipping details" has appeared again. Even though, obviously, the listing *did* have shipping details (or else the listing would never have been created), apparently eBay "lost" the data. So now I need to come up with a way to get a list of all the eBay items that are triggering this error...

It's so very annoying. Even software can not work correctly because eBay's constant tinkering with things that don't need to be touched.