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Sorry I didn’t catch that, I see what you are saying now.
Sharyn, Sorry, I’m not sure what you are getting at? If you want that ability, just add Make An Offer to your listing.
Thought I’d check this out. I looked at an AUCTION listing, no Make An Offer, and clicked contact seller, then clicked “Make An Offer—got this message from ebay:
How do I make an offer?
The seller hasn’t enabled offers for this item. See if they’ll consider — send a message with your best price.Personally, I’m fine with this, BUT….does anyone else think that, at this point, you might just as well put Make An OFfer on everything?
I agree that this is a good thing. Not all my items have Make an Offer on them, but it never stops buyers from trying, so ebay might as well make it easy for them. I suspect we are going to see some changes around Best Offers in the next few months or year….I heard buyers will eventually be able to set a price they are willing to pay for an item, and then make an offer…the offer will automatically go to all sellers selling the item. I haven’t heard any details on this, but I think it’s a pretty safe bet that eventually either all sellers will be required to include “make an offer” on their listings, or at the very least, it’s going to be highly encouraged by eBay, via carrot and/or stick.
My Maine experience is limited to a few all too brief visits to Mount Desert…seemed like it could be fertile scavenging territory! What types of things do you sell?
08/01/2018 at 10:51 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 371: T-Satt (Troy) Reports on eBay Open #46612Steve, Another way of looking at this, for old stuff: I just did a search for “College yearbook” and got over 52,000 results. Used free ship filter, got 12, 131. Used Free return filter, got 5,372.
Assume those types of numbers would apply for a more specific search as well. What that tells me is, IF a buyer is using one of those filters, I definitely increase my chance of selling in a filtered search because there will be so much less competition.
Now, my gut tells me that those filters are more often used by buyers searching for new products, but, especially in the 4th Q, I expect a fair number of buyers looking for our type of stuff use filters…probably a minority, but could it be enough to help me make a sale? I think so.
07/31/2018 at 9:10 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 371: T-Satt (Troy) Reports on eBay Open #46565Again, I agree with Troy. Remember the required fields are often also filters for search on the left side, and as product pages develop, they will be key to appearing in those pages (and elsewhere). Like I said in that thread, my sense of it is, if you were to choose between great IS and great description, eBay would recommend IS if you want to be found and you want your listings to convert. Right now, this may not be as important for our type of stuff as for new stuff, but everything is headed that way, and my recommendation is whenever practical, get ahead of the curve.
07/31/2018 at 6:19 pm in reply to: Item Specifics 101: How to customize specifics for unique items? #46543Oh, and LOL at T-Satt’s 25 is the max comment….I thought I used a lot of IS, but I never hit the max…didn’t know there was one!
(I wonder, if ebay continues to build on structured data, will they expand the max?)
07/31/2018 at 6:18 pm in reply to: Item Specifics 101: How to customize specifics for unique items? #46542I’m with T Satt on this. eBay strongly recommended using the IS, partly because their data indicates few mobile buyers look at the complete description, but apparently they usually DO read through the IS. And partly because of structured data, both for eBay’s use and Google Shopping’s use.
Some of my older listings already reflect this, but going forward I’m going to try to follow a simple rule: If it is info I’d normally put in the description (dimensions, for example), it will be in the ISs.
Reading between the lines at eBay Open, my sense is that as far as ebay is concerned, your IS details are WAY more important than your description.
I think this also helps cut down on INADs
07/30/2018 at 2:49 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 371: T-Satt (Troy) Reports on eBay Open #46441T-Satt, The workshop on returns.
Another thing , think I may have mentioned this before, but Liv from Promotions Manager team told me that they will be replacing the little used codeless coupon with a coded coupon. Hopefully in time for Q4. Also, they’ll be adding a volume discount to PM….I think this would be off less use for most of us, since I think it’s for volume sales of single items.
07/30/2018 at 1:59 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 371: T-Satt (Troy) Reports on eBay Open #46431Troy and jay , thanks so much for the interview. A couple quick numbers, not necessarily representative of ebay as a whole, but I thought pretty interesting: The average return rate for the approximately 2000 sellers at eBay Open : 1.7%, composed of .9% INAD and .8% remorse reasons.
T Satt, Yep, very sorry we didn’t get to spend some time together. This was my first rodeo, I’ll know better for next year. (If we go…better half has veto power LOL) I definitely found the Google search to be worthwhile, didn’t get to the other two you mentioned.
I will also be sure to have business cards for next year….
Having been there once, I can now see what everyone means when they say the real value is the time spent with other ebay sellers, ebay staff and vendors. And everyone I met was great.
Oh, one other thing I learned, may not mean much to those with handy Fed Ex access, but for those of us in the boonies: Fed Ex is partnering with WalMart, and eventually ALL WalMart stores will allow Fed Ex package drop offs.
Thanks TSatt! I got to say Hello to TSatt, but , alas, that’s as far as we got…pretty tired right now, we got home today should have been home yesterday, but our flight was cancelled at the last minute (literally, we were on the runway, and they turned around LOL)
Anyway, just wanted to add one thing that I don’t think TSatt mentioned…I spoke with the Promotions Manager ebay team leader, and she told me they will be replacing the little used “codeless coupon” with a coded coupon for sellers….hopefully in time for Q4 use. I think that will be a big improvement!
Also, Bob Kupbens hinted in his speech that the Fall Seller Release will be out in a few days or weeks….so I’m thinking sometime in August.
We had a great time, but next year I think I’ll follow TSatt’s plan…spend more time with fellow sellers and ebay staff/vendors, less time at workshops.
jay, Of course, what unhappy ebayers have wanted is ONE site that replaces ebay. That was the stated goal of Bonanza when it started….and Lord knows Ina Steiner tried to push Bonanza when it first got started. But at this point, I don’t see any one site replacing ebay. More like a death by a thousand cuts.
And that might be OK for niche sellers, for whom one site might work. But for those of us who are the equivalent of a vintage/used five and dime variety store, with a little of this and a little of that, it is likely to just make things more complicated. To me, that’s been the beauty of ebay….I can list all sorts of long tail stuff on one site, and if I wait long enough, it’ll find a buyer.
I’ve looked over the agenda for ebay Open, and I see absolutely nothing that makes me think there will be any sort of announcement or change aimed at improving ebay for sellers like us. I hope I’m proven wrong, but I doubt I will be.
I don’t think ebay has any intention (at least, at this point) of ever branching out the way Amazon has. They are having enough trouble just trying to maintain and incrementally increase their market share. I suspect (but of course don’t know) that they are way behind schedule on the product search stuff, and maybe they are finally beginning to realize just how complicated that is going to be. And the problem is, they are racing against time, because they really need that yesterday.
As far as small sellers of vintage, etc?
I think ebay wants to keep us, and recognizes our value in terms of adding selection to the site. But I also think ebay’s priority right now, and for quite a long time past, has been how to compete with new merchandise. That stuff is that lion’s share of eBay’s revenue, so it makes sense that it is a priority.
And for a long time, I don’t think there’s been a very serious threat to ebay’s vintage seller base. Even if sellers sell elsewhere, many are multi channel, and continue to sell on eBay.
My concern is that ebay doesn’t really recognize the threat posed by Facebook, Poshmark etc. And by the time they wake up to it, it will be too late. ebay has lots of “teams”, but as far as I know, they don’t have a team really focused on sellers like us.
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