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did you give the correct dimensions when buying the label?
thanks for the link, that’s nuts.
yep i thought about that. but yea, just another thing to remember to do, when it could just be solved by ebay emailing me 2 more lines of info.
right, the paypal email has the tracking number but no item number. so we can’t cross reference like we could with the old ebay email.
example of why this might be useful:
some buyer filed a paypal/credit card chargeback on an item i shipped the first week of september, claiming they didn’t authorize the purchase. sure, ok.
paypal will typically ask me for tracking to prove i sent it and it got delivered. luckily in this case, paypal already had that info and filled it in for the case.
but what if this was 180 days later? would paypal still have that info? ebay wouldn’t. and ebay has not give me the info in any other form.
blergh.i have, so many times, had to search my email for a tracking number that has fallen off ebay in the 90 days since printing. so i keep all those emails in case i need to do that. but now, i have no record.
you pretty much summed it up.
mickdog:
Why the slowdown in sales? A data-mining story by mickdog
Warning, looooong number crunching post ahead.
The last podcast where Jay and Ryanne wonder what is going on with sales but have no answers got me thinking to look at my numbers for the past two years and do some calculations.
So I went over and spent some time looking at the traffic and impression stats under the Performance tab in the Seller Hub. I won’t go into specifics as to how I calculated all this data (but will if someone wants me to) but I think for my store it is as accurate as possible.
First I looked at impressions. When someone searches eBay with keywords and your item comes up on that page. Then I looked at average impressions per listing per month for the last 8 quarters. here is the data:
q1_18 564
q2_18 425
q3_18 420
q4_18 420
q1_19 471
q2_19 374
q3_19 364
q4_19 292 (so far)
This means in q1_18 there were an average of 564 impressions on each item in my store per month. These are averages per listing because I can’t use raw data as I’ve more than doubled my store in this time from 400 to 880 listings.
Things to note: 1) Q1 is when people search for things like mine the most, even more than Q4.
2) The average number impressions is dropping. Q3_19 is only 65% of the impressions than q1_18. This can mean a few things but basically people are searching less for my kind of items (similar vintage stuff, sprinkled with some new ones like Jay and Ryanne’s larger store).
Then I looked at average click through numbers per item per month.
q1_18 9.1
q2_18 8.4
q3_18 7.1
q4_18 6.9
q1_19 7.9
q2_19 5.8
q3_19 6.1
q4_19 5.1 (so far)
This means that in q1_18 9.1 people clicked through into each item on average per month. Q1 again has 2 of my top 3 quarters but bad news is there has been a steady decline. q3_19 is again only 67% of q1_18. Now these two pieces of data above could be because my items once seen aren’t as desirable to look at, but then I looked at the click through rate and the sale conversion rate.
click through % sales conversion rate %
q1_18 1.6 1.1
q2_18 1.9 1
q3_18 1.6 1.3
q4_18 1.6 1.2
q1_19 1.6 0.9
q2_19 1.5 0.8
q3_19 1.6 1.1
q4_19 1.6 1.3 so far
This data shows me that for every 100 people that see my listing, they click on it at a very consistent rate, 1.5-1.6% (one quarter has a larger uptick, probably due to a few very desirable items listed at that time). The sales conversion rate is more all over but hovers between .08-1.1 in January-June and 1.1-1.3 from July to December which makes sense with back to school and holiday upticks.
These data make me think that I’m doing a pretty consistent job with drawing people in with keywords, photos, etc. and they are buying at a normal rate that really hasn’t changed in the two full years I’ve been running my store.
So this leaves me with the questions Jay had? Why the slowdown? Some possibilities:
1) I have a lot of old undesirable items now. This would be my fault, obv. I looked and currently have about 145 items out of 880 (16.4% that are over 2 years). So that might be a minor issue however this past summer I increased my store by over 200 items my listing a great deal, so this should offset this and I should have better data of late.
2) eBay glitches have reduced searches and sales. Possibly, but the big glitch is the new item specifics for clothes and I only have about 6% of my listing in clothes. Maybe 10% if we add belts, shoes and purses/bags. So that probably has affected me less than others but maybe a little
3) Other online retailers are taking eyes away from eBay. Probably to some extent. In 2012 eBay had 12% market share, in 2017 8%, 2018 around 6.6%, and projected for this year 6.1% a(various online sources, google them and you’ll find them). So from 2017 to 2019 the market share shrunk about 25%. However, I’m seeing 35% drops, which brings me to my last point.
4) The economy is slowing. If you look at the data some would argue that that isn’t true, but I wonder if fun vintage purchases aren’t the first to go when your wages aren’t keeping pace and people are tightening belts. I think this combined with #3 above is the true answer.
Solutions? Some of these Jay mentioned, these are the ones that might work for me: A) diversify to other platforms. I don’t want to but I might start listing bigger items on Facebook marketplace exclusively. That could help. B) List more. This will probably increase sales based on my click through rates and sales conversions. I’m going to try to bump my store up to 1000 listings ASAP, I have a backlog right now. C) Consider more low offers, especially on long tail items. If it is over a year old and someone offers me 40-50% just take it don’t counter. 6 months old? seriously consider….
Anyone else take a deep look at their numbers of late? Are you seeing similar things? Do you have other solutions?
sounds like ebay is hearing that GSP is too pricey. i’ve heard that from buyers several times, but i like the protection GSP provides in terms of tracking and possible damage.
from what it’s saying on that page, it’s basically a USPS label?
After your item sells, select the “eBay Send International Standard” option when you print a shipping label with eBay Labels for buyers in destinations outside the US. Drop off your package at any US post office or schedule a pickup.
i should clarify–
PayPal will track the payment volume of your account(s) to check whether your payment volume exceeds both of these levels in a calendar year:
$20,000 USD in gross payment volume from sales of goods or services in a single calendar year
200 payments for goods or services in the same year*i dont think there is a paypal 1099 limit anymore. you make money, you have to report.
thanks simon! i always keep 12x12x12 in my mind as the highest size before DIMM kicks in. anything smaller is just by weight, anything bigger is weight and size.
i noticed that the ebay mobile app allows you to crop photos pretty small. and my helper has been cropping on all sides. it’s sometimes ok to crop down the top and bottom, but not the width. ebay hates that, it cuts down on their size requirements and ability to do the zoom on the desktop. so from now on, no more cropping.
ha, i thought you were joking. CAROL BRADY!! CAROL!!!!!!
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