Mar
17
Is Best Match Working for the Silent Majority?
Filed Under Best Match, Sellers' Insights | 2 Comments
Update: Download the FREE eBook Best Match Made Simple
While the eBay sellers who are having trouble with Best Match are complaining quite vocally, there are some folks that are finding success.
Scot Wingo (CEO of Channel Advisor) mentioned this on his blog
On March 3rd when eBay rolled BestMatch we saw an even larger and more across-the-board conversion bump. We’ve got some [Channel Advisor] sellers seeing a 10-20% increase in conversions. I haven’t seen anything this dramatically positive on eBay in a LOOOOOONGGGG time.
The owner of Living on the Fringe blog has this to say about their experiences:
I found Decoding eBay’s Best Match from Auction Insights very helpful. Follow the links in the article if you have time. Of particular interest to me was the Best Match Made Simple.
Last night I made a few changes to items and I did have almost $200 in sales by this morning. First, I checked my competitor’s titles. Then I revised my titles to EXCLUDE any terms they didn’t use. This is absolutely backwards from any previous recommendations so it was tough to do. Then, I put one item from each style of trims I carry on fixed price. Too many of any one style would just have bumped my store listings off for sure. Right now it is possible those store listings will show up. This all depends on how many other competing items there are listed on eBay at any given time. However, it makes no sense to be jockeying for space with myself.
Hope this helps. It took me a few re-reads to get it. Mostly, I just couldn’t believe how much I needed to change my thinking. Remember feedback and DSRs are important, but eBay claims the majority of sellers have high scores. It is best to spend more time on figuring out best match than worrying about feedback and DSRs.
Feb
25
eBay recently hosted an online workshop in their forums with the goal of helping auction sellers improve their detailed seller ratings. One of their suggestions was to offer free shipping. A few observations are in order…
eBay is pushing the shipping and handling fee as an evaluation criteria pretty hard these days. Don’t spend too much emotional energy thinking that this is to improve “the buying experience.” It’s no secret that eBay makes no commissions off of shipping and handling fees that the seller charges the buyer. An item that sells for one cent but tacks on a $19.99 shipping and handling charge makes eBay no money in Final Value Fees. Through carrots and sticks, eBay is encouraging sellers to mark up the sale price of a transaction like this to $20.00 and to offer “free shipping.” In this scenario, eBay takes their commission on the entire transaction amount (plus PayPal’s cut on the transaction).
Feb
21
Use eBay’s Tool to Optimize Your Auction For Best Match
Filed Under Best Match, Sellers' Insights | Leave a Comment
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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Feb
19
Best Match: Adapt or Perish
Filed Under Best Match, Sellers' Insights | Leave a Comment
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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