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Post by SA on Jun 17, 2017 0:01:52 GMT
I was just doing some research and came across this blog. Sure it's about 9 months old - but I think some of us can take something away from it. I will say that I've been ignorant (ignoring) everything "Cassini". Why? Because I don't understand it. And still don't 100% (but does eBay even?). But this lays it out in a pretty basic format. Use what you need. Leave the rest: www.thebalance.com/11-ways-to-improve-ebay-sales-4104461
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Post by SA on Jun 17, 2017 0:14:55 GMT
I will say I'm torn with the whole "don't blast your stuff on Twitter" bit.
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val2525
Chaos Manager
Posts: 30,649
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Post by val2525 on Jun 17, 2017 5:18:49 GMT
List at Least One New Item Every Day
List something that you have not listed before every day. (Relisting unsolds doesn’t count here.) One seller who has 5 eBay stores, a tractor-trailer full of inventory and surpassed $250 in sales in 2013 swears by this method. Listing new items helps “stir the pot” and improve search placement for other older listings. New listings also appear at the top of the “Newly Listed” search on eBay. (Read more about this amazing seller here.)Um, "surpassed $250 in sales in 2013"? I did that already in just two weeks this month alone. I hope that's a typo.
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Post by electro*retro on Jun 17, 2017 11:45:29 GMT
THANKS !!!
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Post by SA on Jun 17, 2017 12:14:07 GMT
Yeah, I saw that too. Pretty sure it's a typo. I had to read it a couple of times. I was like, I hope they're bragging that they sell $250 by noon each day......
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Post by RetroMonde on Jun 17, 2017 16:34:46 GMT
Interesting article Liz- thanks for posting! Everything she says make sense, including listing at least 1 totally new-to-eBay item daily. I use drafts instead of scheduling, and use the reminder app on my phone so I remember to complete the draft when I want the listing to start.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2017 17:07:24 GMT
That post was written by Suzanne Wells (we've discussed her in other threads here) - not saying it doesn't have good advice, but it's fairly basic (at least compared to the collective knowledge here!) Also, she misspelled Cassini in one of the subheads.
Sincerely, Little Miss Nitpicker
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2017 17:11:55 GMT
Interesting. I'm game to try new ideas if there is a chance of increasing sales. Thanks Liz.
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Post by chapeaunoir on Jun 17, 2017 18:11:18 GMT
Thanks for posting that, Liz!
Has anyone else been able to see their RSS feed icon lately? Mine disappeared and I can't find it. The link in eBay's FAQ A-Z leads to some generic page. I used to flip it off and on regularly.
The problem with blasting items all over social media is that SM is mostly just lookie-loos, and this creates a lot of 'noise' rather than direct engagement. It's why I'm judicious about it and only tweet several things that I think are of particular interest in and of them selves (similar to what I did with pinterest). I have actually purchased something on the basis of my Twitter feed, so I know that the exposure does work, but I think a lot of any SM is just clutter.
On Etsy, its been found that likes don't equate with sales. When I found that out I stopped worrying about renewing everything right away to keep the likes and started copying (like sell similar).
A lot of it is basic, but a good reminder nonetheless.
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Post by zoesam on Jun 17, 2017 18:25:24 GMT
Thanks for posting that, Liz! Has anyone else been able to see their RSS feed icon lately? Mine disappeared and I can't find it. The link in eBay's FAQ A-Z leads to some generic page. I used to flip it off and on regularly. The problem with blasting items all over social media is that SM is mostly just lookie-loos, and this creates a lot of 'noise' rather than direct engagement. It's why I'm judicious about it and only tweet several things that I think are of particular interest in and of them selves (similar to what I did with pinterest). I have actually purchased something on the basis of my Twitter feed, so I know that the exposure does work, but I think a lot of any SM is just clutter. On Etsy, its been found that likes don't equate with sales. When I found that out I stopped worrying about renewing everything right away to keep the likes and started copying (like sell similar). A lot of it is basic, but a good reminder nonetheless. Thanks for the info Liz. As usual, I do question how she knows this, when Ebay themselves can't/won't tell us how much of Cassini is actually installed. Last word is that it was only the front end IIRC, just half installed & not the part that actually does the searches. My experience says otherwise though & I think there's some purposeful misinformation going on there. Much of what she says makes sense though. The social media thing can dramatically increase your impressions &/or views, but the point is that without a sale an increase in impressions/views, hurts your item, rather than helps. It's just a caveat to watch out for. If you're using SM & getting sales, then it's working for you :-) I can't get out of the habit of using all my title real estate, nor am I convinced I should. Chap, I went looking for the RSS feed link after reading this article last night & couldn't find it anywhere.
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Post by SA on Jun 17, 2017 20:23:15 GMT
I was trying to find my RSS feed also and was unsuccessful in locating it.
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Post by RetroMonde on Jun 17, 2017 20:24:28 GMT
I just don't see how using all your title characters could possibly be a bad thing unless you're filling it with with things like L@@k SEXY etc. or KW spamming to fill space.
And I'm so tired of hearing my phone make its Etsy "like" noise. Big deal... show me the money!
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Post by chapeaunoir on Jun 17, 2017 23:30:29 GMT
zoesam - from what I read about a year ago, both the front and and back end of the search engine is Cassini now. They had some kind of frankensearch going with Voyager and Cassini because they couldn't get Cassini up and going, Williams got fired, etc. and at last they got it going. The IT grapevine says that eBay has bottom of the barrel 'talent' for these projects which is why they never seem to work well. From what I can tell, the writer of this article has gathered information by talking to people, and some she may have gleaned from conferences. A lot of it makes sense if you remember how distributed computing works and how eBay...uh...works, but she falls into the "Cassini likes" and "Cassini punishes" which is nonsense. I have an issue with the number of photos - this is a classic case of quantity over quality. 8 dark, fuzzy photos of something thrown on someone's couch should not trump 4 bright, clear photos that were well staged, but there's no way to set a quality parameter because there's no set parameter to begin with save for size. I don't think it makes much difference to one-off sellers. The keyword stuffing is something that's talked a lot about on Etsy - I don't think the writer understands what it is, or there's some other version operating for eBay. Classic KW stuffing is something like "Red shoes, high heel shoes, women shoes, red sandals, satin shoes" etc. The type of title that works best, at least for Etsy, is more organic but still keyword rich: "[Brand] Red Satin High Heel Shoes Size 8 Evening Opera" is fine - what you want is what people would normally type in looking for red satin high heel shoes (or whatever) - the reason for this is the way the search works is by compiling, so you want to have naturally occurring keywords together. It's like journalism - who what where when how.
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Post by zoesam on Jun 18, 2017 3:58:04 GMT
zoesam - from what I read about a year ago, both the front and and back end of the search engine is Cassini now. They had some kind of frankensearch going with Voyager and Cassini because they couldn't get Cassini up and going, Williams got fired, etc. and at last they got it going. The IT grapevine says that eBay has bottom of the barrel 'talent' for these projects which is why they never seem to work well. From what I can tell, the writer of this article has gathered information by talking to people, and some she may have gleaned from conferences. A lot of it makes sense if you remember how distributed computing works and how eBay...uh...works, but she falls into the "Cassini likes" and "Cassini punishes" which is nonsense. I have an issue with the number of photos - this is a classic case of quantity over quality. 8 dark, fuzzy photos of something thrown on someone's couch should not trump 4 bright, clear photos that were well staged, but there's no way to set a quality parameter because there's no set parameter to begin with save for size. I don't think it makes much difference to one-off sellers. The keyword stuffing is something that's talked a lot about on Etsy - I don't think the writer understands what it is, or there's some other version operating for eBay. Classic KW stuffing is something like "Red shoes, high heel shoes, women shoes, red sandals, satin shoes" etc. The type of title that works best, at least for Etsy, is more organic but still keyword rich: "[Brand] Red Satin High Heel Shoes Size 8 Evening Opera" is fine - what you want is what people would normally type in looking for red satin high heel shoes (or whatever) - the reason for this is the way the search works is by compiling, so you want to have naturally occurring keywords together. It's like journalism - who what where when how. If you happen to remember where you read that, please post, I must have missed it. The last article I read, I think it was a press interview, it was still a "frankensearch", so that's interesting. Tho' I didn't quite believe it even at that time b/c evidence was showing something different. I'm not sure what you mean by compiling, as compiling means something totally different to me in an IT context. I question the photo thing too & that's from someone who often has 8-12 pics (quality & unique pics), doesn't seem to make any difference. I agree it doesn't matter much for a 1 off seller. I do it just cuz I'm so picky abt pics, that I usually have that many. Esp since moving into my new house b/c I can't get my lighting quite right.
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Post by chapeaunoir on Jun 18, 2017 5:48:42 GMT
I can't find the article anymore - it's one of a ream of stuff that comes out, but it was just around when ?? Doho left?? They were talking about how Cassini is up and running, and how robust it was and it was returning a gagillion searches a day (never mind if they meant anything or not lol). At that point I had noticed a few changes.
There's a better word than compiling - aggregating maybe - where the search fetches single terms to put them together to match the search string someone might enter - Red+Shoes, Black+Shirt - the closer these terms (Red, Black, Shirt, Shoes) occur in one's titles, the faster it will put them together and return the items.
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val2525
Chaos Manager
Posts: 30,649
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Post by val2525 on Jun 18, 2017 16:01:08 GMT
List at Least One New Item Every Day List something that you have not listed before every day. (Relisting unsolds doesn’t count here.)
Personally, I think this is the most important thing she writes (or maybe second most, since the right keywords might tie for first place). I've been listing a little more regularly, but not at daily (yet). My sales are up considerably. Of the 35 items I've sold so far, only FOUR were old items listed longer than 30 days. The other sales were fresh listings. Granted, that's not a lot, but that's been my experience ever since Day One listing on eBay - regular consistent listing does work. Also, if anyone has a lot of older stale stuff, consider letting it sit unlisted for 30 days and then use sell similar (or relaunch from your listing service) with new title and a few words changed in the description.
She doesn't address it, but I also think one can have too many items in their store. Especially when it's all OOAK, which is what many of us sell. It can overwhelm the buyer. I've had this happen several times myself with my buyer hat on. Seller has hundreds of items and poorly set up store categories. I've given up and gone on to another seller. Just something to think about.
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Post by chapeaunoir on Jun 18, 2017 18:28:15 GMT
I need to rejig some of my categories, but I have such an odd batch of stuff, and I'm trying not to let it get above 250 fairly fresh to very fresh items (let the old stuff lay for a month - I agree with that).
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2017 18:05:17 GMT
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Post by SA on May 4, 2018 21:33:15 GMT
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Post by dutchjazz on May 5, 2018 0:20:11 GMT
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Post by dutchjazz on May 5, 2018 0:21:03 GMT
BTW, thanks for posting Liz.
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Post by SA on May 5, 2018 0:41:39 GMT
I'm just going to go ahead and hang my head in shame. I don't even know where to find an RSS or why or how it even works with my listings. I've never dived into that. I don't know why, I tend to get my nose into every other aspect. But never RSS.
But I think the eBay Radio snippet is the most up to date info there is. Like him or not, Griff works for and at eBay. I tend to think he kind of knows what he's talking about - more than I do anyways.
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Post by kat on May 5, 2018 1:54:10 GMT
I used to do the toggle on and off on the RSS feed because that was another tip I had read. When eBay offered the phone call to go over optimizing sales, I had a rep that seemed to be very competent. She said the RSS feed is useless unless you have people subscribing to your RSS feed. There was a minor advantage to it and that’s if those 3rd party sites subscribed. You know how sometimes on a google search you’ll find your listing on some weird site (like pic-click or similar) or an Asian site that redirects to your eBay listing? It might keep your newest version there. Sometimes I feel like I fall for techniques that just waste time. Kind of like how you try different bets and switch the button to the handle on a slot machine, but in reality what you’re doing has no effect on when it pays. As long as you keep feeding the machine and pulling the handle, your odds increase.
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Post by chapeaunoir on May 5, 2018 4:40:34 GMT
Geez - I quit futzing with my RSS feed about 10 years ago. I used to toggle it on and off, then I finally set it and forget it.
In a way, it's Google who subscribes to the RSS feed, so doing it won't hurt.
ETA: Google rewards longevity, so don't toggle it too quickly or too often. Flipping it on and off like a light switch won't do much because it's not enough time - wait about 12 hours anyway. Then just leave it for a few weeks. I think I used to toggle it about once a month but don't really remember now.
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Post by thekloset on May 5, 2018 11:32:50 GMT
the rss feed thing is a dinosaur from the olden days when sellers had to do their own advertising and submissions to search engines manually. there were workarounds to automate the process so on/off reindexed things both on ebay and elsewhere to boost visibility once ebay started doing it for the whole site we lost the ability to do it individually and it just became a holdover from the past. technically one could have RSS feed subscribers, but who what they be--moses? how many rss feeds do any of you subscribe to--my answer is a big fat zero, and i cant see me doing it any time soon...just like i dont really telnet these days using my dos c prompt and my US Robotics modem. toggling it today doesn't really serve any purpose, and hasnt in a very long time.
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Post by chapeaunoir on May 5, 2018 18:52:49 GMT
Plenty of people subscribe to RSS feeds - it's just a way to get content. I use a bunch. I agree, though, that it probably doesn't do anything to toggle it, but it doesn't hurt, either. eBay got itself into so much trouble with Google that at this point I would do almost anything to get items seen.
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Post by zoesam on May 5, 2018 21:10:29 GMT
I haven't subscribed to an RSS feed in close to a decade either.
I haven't listened to this yet. If Griff is suggesting toggling it, I would be pretty shocked. Or not. Yes, he still works there, but I've worked for a Silicon Valley company that had employee #4's & 6's. Dinosaurs that they won't let go cuz it looks bad to let employee #6 go (believe it or not there is some loyalty to them) & basically found a "special project" to keep them employed & out of others' way. Sorry, that's the impression I have gotten of Griff for close to 2 decades now. I don't believe he's been in any relevant loop for over a decade now. They keep him out of loyalty & b/c it looks bad to lay off the people who helped start your co, but they wouldn't let him touch anything but a "special project" for years. And we all know what "special project" means in corporate America LOL.
I have known several Griffs & What's odd about most of these early employees & was true at my company too is that most of them have enough stock options to retire, but they don't. Of course if they wait too long, they're stock options may become worthless - I've known a few that that's happened to as well. Maybe that's Griff's situation. They basically let you putter til retirement. It was fairly common in Silicon Valley back in the day. Not sure if it still is, I imagine things are more cutthroat these days.
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kritter
Mod Squad
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Post by kritter on May 5, 2018 21:48:17 GMT
What Zoe said! That is my impression of Griff and his roll at Ebay also.
I don't think he plays any relevant part at Ebay and has no real clue about what is going on. They can't let him go because he has been there forever in a high profile but of little use roll so firing the old man would look bad after all these years.
He is just puttering along until he is carried out on a stretcher.
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Post by chapeaunoir on May 5, 2018 22:58:51 GMT
RSS feeds are still good for getting digested content and updates - news channels use them a lot, as do sports and business - they're even used with gaming (the DH works with a semi-pro gamer). They're just not the all-purpose source that they used to be.
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Post by SA on May 6, 2018 0:09:32 GMT
Take it. Leave it. Totally up to you.
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