Question about ranking in eBay search results

anatho

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Hey,

I have a short question, maybe someone knows something about it.

I listed a product for $17.99 on eBay with free shipping.
Now I saw, a competitor listed the same for $10 plus $7 shipping.
So our price is basically the same, I included shipping in my price and offer "free" shipping while his price is lower but he charges shipping fee separately.

Now I noticed that his listing is higher ranked than mine.
So my question, is the reason for this that his price is lower excl shipping? They rank it higher because price is lower?
 
There are many factors that are important in the eBay ranking algorithm. The more relevant the title and description are, the higher it will rank. The more feedback you have means you will rank higher. If the price is lower it can be taken into consideration, thus resulting in an increase in rankings. Try mixing a few of these tactics and then search for another listing. It's amazing how much can be learned about the algorithm by pondering for random search queries.

Shadexpwn
 
There are many factors that are important in the eBay ranking algorithm. The more relevant the title and description are, the higher it will rank. The more feedback you have means you will rank higher. If the price is lower it can be taken into consideration, thus resulting in an increase in rankings. Try mixing a few of these tactics and then search for another listing. It's amazing how much can be learned about the algorithm by pondering for random search queries.

Shadexpwn

I will add that the more you sell of a particular item, the better the listing will rank. If you have a store, use the markdown manager to put your items on sale, I've noticed that helps a lot ( just increase your prices before if you want, to offset the discounts).
 
to me its all about the quantity sold, i have the same items with multiple listing and same price, the ones with the most sold gets triple the view counts and shows up on the TOP 10 when they do search by best match
 
Well, it is quite strange.
I had a 30 days listing up. On about day #20, I was on #4 in search results and stayed there for the remaining 10 days.
Then after my listing ended, I relisted it. I did not change anything, just relisted it. And now I am only on page 4 or 5 of results.
Really not sure why this is the case.
 
Well, it is quite strange.
I had a 30 days listing up. On about day #20, I was on #4 in search results and stayed there for the remaining 10 days.
Then after my listing ended, I relisted it. I did not change anything, just relisted it. And now I am only on page 4 or 5 of results.
Really not sure why this is the case.

Is there more competition in what your selling now that you've relisted it?
 
Is there more competition in what your selling now that you've relisted it?

yes there is another seller with the same product, he is selling for the same price in fact, but he charges shipping fee and I do free shipping, in fact we have the same total price.
 
Well, it is quite strange.
I had a 30 days listing up. On about day #20, I was on #4 in search results and stayed there for the remaining 10 days.
Then after my listing ended, I relisted it. I did not change anything, just relisted it. And now I am only on page 4 or 5 of results.
Really not sure why this is the case.

That is the problem. The listing ended and you relisted it. Always use GTC and make sure that you have items in stock so that the listing never ends. I've found that the Sales history plays a big part, as well as the keywords in the title and description of course.

When I list a new item, the sales always starts out slow. It can take a Month before the sales really pick up. Once the auction is getting some sales and customers are starting to leave positive feedback from the item in that auction, then it starts to get some momentum and sales increase. This has caught me off guard several times when I'm selling 1 to 2 a day, then all of a sudden I'm selling 10 a day. I end up ordering more product right away, but I run out of stock before my product arrives. When this happens, I always raise my price very high so that I kill the sales until my stock arrives. Then I lower the price when my stock arrives. It usually takes a week before the sales pick right up again. When I run out of stock and have to increase the price so high that I temporarily kill sales, it seems like I also kill the momentum and when I lower the price to resume sales, it never continues where it left off. All of my Auctions are GTC and I never let my auctions end under any circumstance because the sales history of that auction is very important. If I have 5 left, I might have the quantity available at 75. Now I am ordering stock in larger quantities and making my reorder points higher so that I never have to kill sales until my stock arrives. On a GTC auction, I don't know why Ebay doesn't let an Auction run out of stock. The Auction always has to have one available. The Auction ends when the last one is sold. It would be nice if the auction just disappears from the search results when the last item is sold and then reappears when the quantity gets updated to anything above zero. Isn't that what GTC means? The auction only ends when I cancel it myself.

Also, Free shipping should help your Auction over your competitors even if the prices work out to the same. Ebay gives preferential treatment to Auctions with Free shipping. If you are a Power Seller, then your Auctions get higher rankings. Your DSR ratings also play a part in how your auctions rank.

I've only been successfully selling on Ebay since last September. There are many members here that know a lot more about this than me. But this is what I have found.
 
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That is the problem. The listing ended and you relisted it. ....


Exactly all of this. I have been very casually selling on ebay for almost 8 years (only about 900 items). I've read nearly every guide out there and they all say pretty much this. It is true too, I've done some basic testing and had the same results.

My IM business is dying and I am about to give ebay a real go.

MikeLac you say you started in September and it sounds like you're working the right system. Do you mind if I ask roughly how much you make a month? I'm trying to figure out if I can actually live off my ebay profits or if I will have to go get another JOB.
 
Exactly all of this. I have been very casually selling on ebay for almost 8 years (only about 900 items). I've read nearly every guide out there and they all say pretty much this. It is true too, I've done some basic testing and had the same results.

My IM business is dying and I am about to give ebay a real go.

MikeLac you say you started in September and it sounds like you're working the right system. Do you mind if I ask roughly how much you make a month? I'm trying to figure out if I can actually live off my ebay profits or if I will have to go get another JOB.

I have tried selling on Ebay a few times before, but made very little money. But I was dropshipping and the profits were small because lots of other Ebay sellers were selling the exact same thing. My IM business was dying as well, so that is why I gave Ebay another shot. I'm selling Cell Phone accessories. Mainly batteries and cell phone chargers right now. Slowly expanding my inventory. So far this Month, my profits are $2100. I'm only carrying 14 products right now. Didn't have much money to put into the business. Started out with $200 worth of inventory and haven't put any more of my own money into it. Using some of the profits to pay bills. Most of the profits are going back into the business. Mainly to increase my inventory. Placing larger orders per item so that I don't run out of stock. Ordering products from Aliexpress. I have about $4000 in inventory right now. Not bad from an initial investment of $200.
 
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I received an email from one of my clients this morning asking a related question.
As ebay is not my forte, I'm advising them on other matters I thought I would pose
the question here.
Just wanted to ask your advice on a matter to do with our eBay account,
Not sure if *** explained this to you but I will try again, we have had the account for a few years now and have always tried to compare our sales to other sellers at the moment we are just of the opinion that for evey say 100listings we have we would sell on average 20 **** so at the moment were aiming to list around 8000 which hopefully will boost our sales on the law of averages to 160
However looking at some of our competitor such as **** we noticed on there site they could sell about 300 a day but only have 50 or 60 listings we just could not fathom out how they were getting those sales of so few listings but with eBay it is all about views the more views the more sales and the more views and sales you get the higher up the eBay pages you get till you get on page one were if your product is good your sales will continue to get higher so you continue to stay on the first page I am sure you get what I mean
Anyway what we noticed on another competitor and these are a multi million pound company **** they sell crap but it's their own crap they buy from themselves on a regular basis so their ***** are always on the first page, they are a bit clever though as they use a few different accounts to buy from themselves but upon looking most of the smaller companies do the same except they only use one account to buy from themselves and they have to keep doing it on a regular bases because even though they are on the first page the **** they sell are rubbish so don't sell that many light but it gets people to look at their shop and they get views I would say the top 50 companies do this and their whole business relies on doing it eBay has got to know it goes on but seem to ignore it as they still get their commission
Anyway what I am getting at is it would be a lot easier for us just to have 100 listings all selling well than having 8000 and struggling so wanted to ask you if you could think of a way we could do this on say 10 different account to keep buying from us without looking too obvious
we had on multi variation listing which was selling 5 to 7 a day for the last 49 days and was always high up the page Lee added a couple of extra **** to it and for some reason lost the listing it just happened today but since we lost it we can't find the listing so have lost that placing so lost those 5 to 7 sales a day anyway think that just about explains it obviously better and a lot less work to have less listing generating more sales than 000 listings, if you think there is a way let us know
Any ideas?
 
I received an email from one of my clients this morning asking a related question.
As ebay is not my forte, I'm advising them on other matters I thought I would pose
the question here.


Any ideas?



Sorry, What is the question exactly? Seems that he has his mind made up to create 10 accounts and buy his own stuff??
 
All of the above are great points regarding ranking high in the search. Also clean out your computer cache occasionally, it can't hurt. More and more users shop via smart phones and tablets. Make sure you do not have too many all-caps in your auction, it can slow the process. Call eBay (you have to get that one time use code) and talk to them about your concerns professionally and ask for suggestions. Often times when I've called I've had a coincidental spike in sales.
 
if you do a longer auction will that help get your listing higher in the search results?
 
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