Oct
14
The Camera & Photo category is a mixed-bag when it comes to the listing type the Best Match algorithm prefers for the various sub-categories.
According to my analysis, you should lean towards the fixed price listing type for the following sub-categories in order to have the best exposure in the Best Match search results:
- Camera Accessories
- Photo Albums, Display and Storage
You should stick with the auction-style listing format when posting in the following sub-categories:
- Camera Parts & Repair
- Darkroom & Developing
- Film Cameras
- Manuals, Guides & Books
- Projection Equipment
Oct
9
Listing Type Influence on Best Match Rankings: Baby Category
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Things get interesting as we examine the Baby Category for the impacts of listing type (auction style or fixed-price) by category and sub-category under Best Match.
As a whole, the Baby category favors the fixed-price style listings, however the sub-categories vary widely - (three of them favor fixed-price style listings and three of them favor auction style listings).
The following sub-categories appear to favor auction style listings in the Best Match search results:
- Baby > Bathing & Grooming
- Baby > Keepsakes & Baby Announcements
- Baby > Toys for Baby
The following sub-categories appear to favor fixed-priced listing styles under eBay’s Best Match search results:
- Baby > Baby Gear
- Baby > Feeding
- Baby > Nursery Decor
See the original post in this series to review the methodology I used to conduct this analysis.
Oct
1
Booted from eBay Partner Network
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They say the first rule of running a blog is to post on a consistent basis. The second rule is to not apologize when you violate the first rule. So I won’t apologize.
In late August I found myself included in the many publishers recently booted from eBay’s affiliate program- the eBay Partner Network. Literally overnight, half of my online income stream dried up. Of course I was upset, but it was time to develop new revenue streams anyway. Blogging has taken a back seat while I focused on developing new affiliate sites and partnerships.
I’ve also been busy working on updating my free eBook, Best Match Made Simple, in order to incorporate the myriad of changes that eBay has implemented over the summer. You’ll see the fruits of those efforts on this blog very shortly. I’m very excited about some of the things I’ll be sharing with you in the coming days.
Aug
4
As I discussed in my last post, eBay’s early success can be traced to the fact that the online auction was an early facilitator of the Long Tail economy. For decades, marketing efforts have concentrated on developing introducing products and services with mass-appeal due to the constraints of limited shelf-space and limited demand.
The internet provided merchants of niche products the opportunity to “aggregate demand [for these products] on a national or even global scale.”* eBay in particular was important to the development of the Long Tail economy because their online marketplace satisfied several important factors identified as key to the success of the Long Tail economy.
These factors are detailed in an MIT paper called, “From Niches to Riches: Anatomy of the Long Tail” and are divided into “Supply Side Drivers” and “Demand Side Drivers.”
Supply Side Drivers
As I noted above, traditional merchants were limited “by the same basic constraints: how many products can be provided in a limited amount of shelf space, and how many consumers in the local geographic area are willing to pay for these products.”* Brick-and-mortar businesses were confined to storefronts in expensive locations and could, therefore, only sell products that appealed to the mass-market. Niche items that had limited marketability to the consumers in their area were not a profitable use of their expensive shelf and warehouse space.
eBay helped change that. Merchants no longer needed to work out of high-rent storefronts in high-trafficked areas. Long Tail marketers could stock products of interest to niche communities in their garage or basement located in some remote part of the country. As long as they had a way to ship the products and access to the internet, niche sellers could use eBay market to a broad base of customers without the concern of the expense of a high-rent location.
Purveyors of Long Tail goods could count on eBay to promote their products to a global market. They were no longer constrained to the limitations imposed by traditional marketing venues such as print, radio and television advertising which would only reach limited audiences despite the significant expense involved.
Demand Side Drivers
eBay satisfied several key demand side drivers by providing consumers a centrals source and the mechanisms required to find the niches products that interest them. eBay accomplished this through organization and effective search tools. Before there was such thing as an effective search engine, eBay provided the central destination on the internet where consumers could browse for Long Tail products by category and sub-categories and/or conduct queries for specific items or features using their search feature.
There are several passive demand side drivers identified in the article which eBay has attempted (half-heartedly) to implement that are also important to Long Tail marketing. “Sampling tools, such as Amazon.com’s samples of book pages and CD tracks, allow consumers to learn more about products in which they might be interested.”* User reviews and recommendations also take some of the risk out of the equation for the Long Tail consumer. Additionally, “recommender” services such as NetFlix’s are an effective way of developing the niche marketplace based on the experiences of other consumers with similar tastes (eBay’s version needs some work! ). An eBay interested in developing into a mature Long Tail marketplace would certainly be well served expending some resources in developing and marketing these tools.
Where Does eBay Stand Now?
Alas, given the factors identified as significant to the success of the Long Tail marketplace, eBay seems content to implement policies and field technologies that move the auction site in the opposite direction.
Best Match is optimal for listings with mass-market appeal - not collectibles or niche items. This is in direct contradiction to the circumstances that made it popular and as the original niche marketplace to begin with - the effective organization and search.
eBay has tested the waters of user reviews and recommendations (so successful on Amazon), but has not devoted a significant amount of corporate effort into making these tools a significant feature on the site.
By implementing policies that are designed to encourage the listing and sale of products with mass-market appeal, eBay is implicitly discouraging the Long Tail market. The management has recently created a special category of Power Seller that provides special treatment for super sellers of mainstream products such as Buy.com. Additionally, eBay’s most recent promotion was aimed at increasing the number of fixed-priced listings - a selling format that is much more common in the mass-market product arena than the Long Tail market.
It’s ironic that as eBay implements changes to make it more like Amazon.com, Amazon is broadening their market to encompass more niches. Good thing for Amazon, especially since they have the tools to accomplish the task!
* Brynjolfsson, Erik, Hu, Yu Jeffrey and Smith, Michael D.,From Niches to Riches: Anatomy of the Long Tail. Sloan Management Review, Vol. 47, No. 4, pp. 67-71, Summer 2006
Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=918142