Use eBay’s Tool to Optimize Your Auction For Best Match
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Update: Download the FREE eBook Best Match Made Simple
A reader of AuctionInsights (Thanks Mario!) wrote to tell me that eBay Research Labs has a public web page where you can optimize your eBay listing title for the Best Match search algorithm.
The address is: http://labs.ebay.com/raghavgupta/demoto/to
This is a directory under the home page of Raghav Gupta, the creator of the Best Match algorithm.
Here’s how it works…
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Is Auction Sniping Worthwhile?
Filed Under Bidders' Tips | 1 Comment
While auction sniping is a rather common practice (documented to occur in about 25% of eBay auctions that close in a sale), its never actually been scientifically evaluated and proven to save the bidder money. Until now anyway.
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Best Match: Adapt or Perish
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Who Moved My Cheese?
Update: Download the FREE eBook Best Match Made Simple
If you’ve read Dr Spencer Johnson’s book, Who Moved My Cheese, you are familiar with the concept “adapt or perish.” The analogy, by the author of The One Minute Manager, tells the story of mice in a maze. At the beginning of the tale, all of the mice know their way through the maze to the cheese and life is great. However, at some point, the cheese is moved to a different part of the maze.
Some mice keep returning to the old cheese location and loudly lament their poor fortune. Other mice go looking for more cheese. The mice that insist on doing what worked in the past, eventually perish – all the time complaining, “Who moved my cheese!?” The mice that set out to find a new source of cheese experience a number of wrong turns and set-backs as they stumble through the maze until they eventually find success.
The moral of this story is: Change happens and eBay moved the cheese when they implemented the Best Match search algorithm. Like the mice in the book, eBay sellers must change and adapt if they want to keep ahead of the pack.
According to Dr. Johnson, “If you do not change, you can become extinct. Get out of your comfort zone and adapt to change sooner. Take control, rather than let things happen to you.”
Here are some things you can to to adapt to Best Match – eBay’s “moving cheese”:
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eBay Feedback Changes in Context
Filed Under Feedback | 2 Comments
One of the big changes coming to eBay over the next few weeks involves the feedback system. Effective in May, Sellers will not be able to leave negative feedback on bidders.
This was done in attempt to fix the retaliatory feedback problem. Retaliatory feedback, or the threat of it has crippled eBay’s feedback system. Many eBay sellers are very upset about this change. Quite vocally upset.
Given the controversy, it might be useful to remember the purpose of the eBay feedback system. According to a paper* published by researchers at the University of Michigan, “reputation systems like the Feedback Forum can improve the efficiency of marketplaces in three ways:”
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