I’ve just completed the third edition of my free eBook, Best Match Made Simple. This edition includes everything eBay sellers need to know about the significant changes to Best Match introduced last month. This edition has grown to 131 pages in length.
Download your copy now at http://auctioninsights.info/bestmatchbook.
The Return of the Auction Format
Filed Under Sellers' Insights | 1 Comment
The auction format is experiencing a renaissance of sorts on eBay. For several years, eBay has been depreciating the auction style format in favor of the fixed-price format (Buy It Now and Stores inventory) through various incentives such as listing fee discounts, extended durations, and favorable treatment under the Best Match. Recently, however, this trend has started to turn around. Auctions are making a comeback.
eBay seemed to signal the auction formats return to favor when they offered sellers the opportunity to post five free auction style listings each month. Then, eBay recently redistributed the ratio of auction to fixed-priced listings they display on the first page of the Best Match search results. According to the Best Match Webinar eBay held last week, auctions now comprise an average of 70% of the listings on the first page of the search results. In fact, eBay is going as far as testing a notice on the Sell Your Item form encouraging sellers of a single item to employ the auction format to achieve increased visibility in the Best Match search results.
Also, the most recent Best Match changes level the playing field somewhat among auction listings. There is no boost in Best Match for free shipping (although listings with excessive shipping and handling charges will be penalized) and Top-rated sellers do not get increased visibility for their auction-format listings (they receive a boost in Best Match for fixed-price listings only). In fact, auctions are currently the easiest way to get visibility in Best Match without all the hassle of Best Match optimization.
So all hail the return of the auction format!
On eBay Bid Retractions
Filed Under Industry News & Analysis | Leave a Comment
eBay recently notified me that a user had retracted a bid they placed on one of my auction-style listings. The justification provided was that “the bidder was unable to contact the seller”.
According to eBay, there are only three valid reasons a bidder can retract a bid:
You accidentally entered the wrong bid amount due to a typographical error.
The item’s description changed significantly after you entered your last bid.
You can’t reach the seller by telephone or email.
Incredibly, eBay validated the bidder’s claim that I was unreachable, and processed/approved the bid retraction. Considering that all contact between eBay users must (initially) be processed through eBay’s system, I find it hard to believe that eBay couldn’t/wouldn’t cross-check this claim through their records. If they had, they would have easily concluded that the bidder never attempted contact me.
Instead of expending so many hours of their programmers time and efforts making it more complicated to sell on eBay successfully, how about getting someone to write a simple script that will validate “could not contact seller” bid retraction request. It just might make selling a little easier on eBay.
Free Shipping & Best Match: An Advantage for Fixed Price Listings Only
Filed Under Best Match | Leave a Comment
With the roll out of the Fall 2009 changes to Best Match, eBay has provided more transparency than ever before into the inner workings of that algorythim. One of the aspects eBay has clarified pertains to the advantages of offering free shipping when competing for visibility and placement in the Best Match search result pages.
From information available on eBay’s site, we now know that only fixed-price listings get an advantage in the Best Match search results by offering free shipping. However, both fixed-price and auction style listings are penalized in the search results for “excessive” shipping and handling fees.
From eBay.com:
Fixed Price listings with free shipping will continue to receive added exposure. Auction-style and Fixed Price listings with excessive shipping will be demoted.