Mon Nov 11 2013 14:08:29 |
eBay Seller Says Secret Tactic Increases Exposure in Search
By: Reader
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Dear Ina, As so many other eBay sellers have reported on your blog and on the eBay discussion boards, I'm one of the so many sellers whose sales came to a complete stop. I've been selling online for a couple of years. At the beginning eBay was absolutely fantastic: good sales, good prices. I was more than happy to pay for all the costs for using this platform.
Then came the changes to the feedback system, the default Best Match sorting order was introduced and not to forget about DSR. In just a couple of years eBay succeeded to transform the once most successful e-commerce platform into a graveyard and hunting ground for sellers.
In the course of years sellers have expressed their displeasure... and eBay didn't want to listen. On the contrary. Best Match wasn't enough to favour the big boys. So eBay decided to build a new search engine where it can just hide your listings.
It's about time that we sellers start fighting back. For this I'm going to disclose one of the eBay secrets I've discovered by accident a couple of months ago. And I've been using this tactic since. I can't promise it works in a category where there are dozens and dozens of sellers selling the same item. But in a lot of cases it will do magic.
Lots of sellers will have noticed the change in the sorting order of Best Match. I strongly believe the new sorting order in Best Match was introduced together with Cassini. Lots of sellers have been asking themselves: I'm a top rated seller with perfect feedback. My item dropped in the results, while another seller with hardly any feedback, excessive shipping,... is at the top.
Before it was easy: put a listing online, offer free shipping, build up a selling history and before you knew you would be on top. A lot of sellers will agree this strategy no longer works.
Even more. eBay completely keeps it's lips sealed what you have to do to have a good position in Best Match. Well, I've discovered something which will give you a huge boost. And the way I found it out is eBay's own stupid fault.
I noticed some of my listings weren't showing in the search results. So I wanted to find out which ones where showing and which ones not. So what I did: I used my buyers account, browsed to my eBay shop and added all of my items to my watch list so I could check under my sellers account which items where followed and which not. After doing this I noticed my items were suddenly showing a lot higher in the search results and were also keeping at the same place a lot longer. So I've been doing this systematically since the beginning of the summer and can confirm it works.
So you want to give your items a super boost in Best Match? This is how to do it:
* If you don't have it already create a 2nd eBay account
* login this account and browse to your eBay shop
* Add all of the items to your watch list
* login to your seller account and check the position of your items in best match. What you just did should give an immediate result
Please note you can put a maximum of 200 items in your watch list. So if you sell more than 200 items you may have to create more than 1 extra account.
I've kept this a secret because I know It's not allowed to mess with the search results. The only reason for doing this is because I was paying eBay for not showing some of my items and completely burry the others.
eBay used to be my main source of income. While sales on other channels have grown a lot and continue to grow, my eBay sales are now hardly 10% of what they have been. The same items, the same price, same description. It sells everywhere except on eBay. So yes, the problem is eBay. Not me, not my items, not my price.
So please Ina, publish this letter and spread the word around.
As a seller we say WE'VE HAD ENOUGH!!! This must stop. We fight back!!!
If everybody begins to do the same eBay can't suspend all sellers. Further more, the more sellers use this strategy the more Best Match will be messed up. So every seller should start doing this. If so eBay can put Best Match and Cassini in a hole where the sun doesn't shine.
With kind regards, An eBay seller who will absolutely hate eBay for the rest of his life |
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