posted on October 17, 2000 06:17:49 PM
I don't use counters on any of my auctions, and my auctions do just fine.
I did for awhile back about 9 months ago, but really couldn't determine any benefit, and certainly not an increase in bids or anything.
Now eBay (& everyone else) is promoting counters counters counters (could this be eBay's current secret weapon for crashing the site?) so I am just wondering about others feelings pro, cons, and ambivalent about them.
posted on October 17, 2000 07:30:12 PM
Counters will never you get higher bids on your auctions. The only thing they are good for , is that they gauge how many people are looking at your auction, but looking is not bidding. I've had lots of examples of auctions with hundreds of people looking, but bidding was very weak. Basically counters are worthless.
posted on October 17, 2000 09:37:01 PM
I'd agree that they don't do anything to increase final price, but disagree that they're worthless. I watch mine to determine 2 things:
1. How many people look and don't bid
2. What days/times get the most hits.
This tells me whether the item is a) of interest; b)a strong or weak 'specimen' (I deal in antiques and collectibles, not new items); and c) when people are sitting down and browsing. The answer to the last question flies in the face of what most people who end auctions on Sundays might think!
posted on October 17, 2000 09:45:23 PM
Counters are invaluable to me. At the auction end, I tally up page views, obviously if people VIEW your item, they are interested. I look at my star bids. If an item received 111 page views and no hits, the MARKET value is lower than the start price. On a relist, it gets lowered. An item that receives 8 page views over 10 days, people just aren't interested. The item gets relisted 100% over cost and 90% of the time will sell. Cheers! Thank counters!!!
posted on October 17, 2000 09:56:06 PM
They also come in handy to see how different titles and descriptions affect hits. I misspelled a crucial word in a title once, figured no big deal. Item got 1/4 of the hits of my other identical auctions.
posted on October 17, 2000 11:23:36 PM
I have to disagree with pnth's statement that " . . . obviously if people VIEW your item, they are interested."
An auction page visitor counter is completely worthless. You can glean no useful information from it. The problem lies in that many, many users find your pages through a Search. What if I am looking for a Gold-Plated Widget and you are selling a Gold-Colored Widget? Chances are, I'll end up looking at your page and move your counter up. But your auction isn't for me - its not even remotely related to what I'm looking for.
pnth: Your statistical model is based upon someone looking at the Auction TITLE. This supposes that all auction titles clearly reflect the exact contents of the auction. I can truthfully say that quite a few titles are vague or some even flat-out wrong.
I tried counters at first. After the first week, I realized the error in the data gathered in the statistical model that the counter uses (quantity). This is what I did:
I tried to make something useful from it. I made the auction picture smaller, around 100 pixels across or less. Then I would make up an HTML web page that I hosted on my web space that had a photo blow-up. On THOSE web pages, I included a seperate counter. That way, if someone was REALLY interested enough in what I had to sell - as goes this theory, then they would want a closer look at it. Then I could compare.
I then compared the number of web page hits with the number that lead to photo blow-ups as contrasted by the number of bids on my item.
Useful? Useless! And I'll tell you why:
The number of unique users who looked at the photo blow-up page almost always equaled the number of bidders! >>DOINK!!<<
So the alternate web page was a useless piece of garbage. That led me back to the fact that the number of unique users who landed on my auction was not indicative of how many pulled it up out of interest vs. curiosity vs. accidently.
Useless, but fun if you have the time.
Just my Two Centums, Folks!
edited by me for sin-tax
[ edited by Borillar on Oct 17, 2000 11:27 PM ]
posted on October 17, 2000 11:35:11 PM
don't know about warm spit - but the only use they are for me is "level of interest" as opposed to zilch! I only care about my high ticket items when I use them. It tells me how active the auctions are (charts available on the image hosting sites) which tells me that it at least drew a crowd AND that Search just might be working! Also with this much interest, if it doesn't sell this time round - I may take a chance on a relist.
I will often view something I like but simply can't afford , but it tells the seller they are at least offering something of interest.
In the long run, it's like Bingo - it only takes that one bidder to hit reserve...the rest of the views are just stats.
posted on October 18, 2000 05:46:07 AM
I use counters in a simple way. If my item get several hits, and no bids. This tells me to take a change to relist it at a lower price. This has just worked on one of my auctions.
If I have an item with no hits will wait to see if something else will generate the interest, usually something in the news will get people to thinking about it.
This is just how I use counters, but always invisible.
posted on October 18, 2000 06:17:31 AM
A counter for yourself to see how many people have viewed your auction is helpful. But we don't think it helps bids. We used to use a counter on our auctions and have switched to an invisible one just for ourselves.
Islander - What counter service do you use that gives you the date/time of each view??
posted on October 18, 2000 07:48:13 AM
I use invisible counters, the information I get from them does help me determine different things...many mentioned above.
I don't want to bother bidders with any more things to look at or wait to download, like counters or jumping puppies...so I keep the invisible ones.
I'm glad auction watch provides them.
I could see a finicky shopper could see your item with only 12 visits to it and another similar item with 56 visits to it...and bid on the other item just thinking other people know what they're doing over them. Stupid, I know, but possible.
posted on October 18, 2000 09:56:03 AM
A counter is just one more thing to malfunction (ie; lose its functionality), cause a slow or non-load, leading a potential bidder to hit the back button.
Also, I see a large count being a deterent to a bidder who is looking for a bargain. I'd rather let the viewer think they might be the only one to stumble onto this great find. They'll bid and then hopefully get out bid, re-bid, etc. If they see a high count they might decide 'forget it, I'll never win.'
posted on October 18, 2000 11:03:27 AM
Well, this discussion has been helpful to me. I use counters, and I use them basically to make relisting decisions. Obviously, they don't help get more bids. The idea of using invisible counters is one I haven't thought of. I will probably start doing that. I sell a lot of comic books and other books, and my titles are pretty much what you see is what you get. If nobody is looking at an item, then maybe I have done something wrong with the title, or the price is too high, or maybe it just isn't going to sell, no interest. I can't afford to let things sit on ebay if they aren't going to sell within a few weeks. If there is no interest, I will probably move the item over to Yahoo. Selling is really slow over there, but there are no fees, so I can let things sit until they do sell, and I do sell something once in a while, usually at a higher price than I would have listed at ebay. So, I think counters have some value to me, but they are of no interest to buyers.
Nick
posted on October 18, 2000 11:55:47 AM
I used them at the beginning...then I did not...then I came back to them...I have found that: with high-end items, 90% of the times, the listing with the most viewing generated a sale, or at least bids. On the other handmid-range inventory showed minimal viewing and brought neither sales, nor bids...So, my totally personal conclusion (only mine...) is that knowing that certain items are NOT going to generate much attention, I can now stay away from listing those items.
Maybe it is just a fluke, but it seems that my customers know I deal in higher end, and are NOT impressed with my mid-range stuff....
******************** Shosh
posted on October 18, 2000 02:52:40 PM
What I would find interesting is to have microdata on the auction viewing time. When are the potential buyers viewing the page? What day of the week is it? Then, as a post analysis, compare the times and day of week viewers actually bid on the auction.
I think if this analysis is performed over time, you would get a sense of when to end your auctions. As far as I know, no auction counter service offers this type of service. If I had the time and know-how I would develop this myself.
posted on October 18, 2000 04:57:04 PM
Regarding counters and when you get hits. Honesty.com does that. You can get a graph of when people were on your site. Check it out...
posted on October 18, 2000 06:50:30 PM
I just started watching the counters closely. When an auction isn't getting hits, I think about changing the category or the title or both.
posted on October 18, 2000 08:10:45 PM
I always use invisible counters. I find them useful because if no one is looking, I can redo the title or change the category. It's often happened that after I do that, it will begin to get bid after bid. if my item was getting lots of pageviews, but no bids, then I probably won't be in a hurry to sell that item again. If it gets few pageviews then perhaps it was just mis-placed or mis-labeled, and I do further experiments before writing it off. Since I sell a wide variety of stuff, my experiments with counters help me to know what to buy next time and how to describe it.
posted on October 18, 2000 08:49:29 PM
I use the counter to tell me if there is any interest in a high value item that the price holds many people back from bidding. I had an auction last month that had over 2000 hits but only 7 bids. It would have helped me deciding if I should relist it if nobody bid. However it went for $625 over opening so I did not need the datum.
posted on October 18, 2000 11:11:54 PM
What might be useful are counters that tell you if your auction was found by a Search or not and what elements were used in the Search. Practical data would be very nice.
editd by me to add: The other problem with counters is that it does not tell you how many who viewed your action and then set the eBay Watch feature. If it showed both those who came back to look at your auction again versus those who forgot all about it, now that! would be truely useful info!
