posted on March 31, 2001 05:44:58 PM new
I'm sorry if this isn't news to some, but I don't often browse categories myself and I thought I'd check up on how things have been going for other sellers in my category lately.
Anyway, here's the alarming news:
The listing order is totally screwed up!
Remember Yahoo? Remember how bad sales were there and remember how Yahoo fixed the listing order only when they started charging fees?
Well, I've just been browsing a few of the book categories and notice that the "All Items With Gallery Preview" comes up. That's a change. But the alarming part is that the items no longer default to the ending time!
Some of the first items show as ending April 7th! Well, there certainly are items ending a lot sooner than April 7th, but you won't find out about them unless you click on "Ending Today". The question is, do buyers know enough to do that? I don't thing enough did on Yahoo or sales would have been better.
We don't want the same thing to happen on eBay!
I sent an email to support. Hopefully, we'll get some support with this issue.
I know that regarding books, sometimes a buyer will want a specific title or author, but at other times they're just interested in picking up something good to read and will want to know what is ending the soonest. That's probably true in many other categories as well.
Try it yourself. Pick a category and browse. Any category.
I know my business has been way down for the last couple of weeks on eBay.
http://bjgrolle.auctioninsights.com/
[ edited by BJGrolle on Mar 31, 2001 05:45 PM ]
[ edited by BJGrolle on Mar 31, 2001 05:46 PM ]
posted on March 31, 2001 05:53:40 PM new
BJGrolle: You've confused me. The first items shown in a category have always been the newest items listed - which are most often auctions which end 7 days from today.
Sorry, I didn't mean to confuse you. I admit I don't browse that often myself. But I was certain that the default order was in order of ending time. It seems to me that when I would browse a category, that's how the items appeared. To me, that's what makes sense. If buyers have a choice between similar and/or identical items, they want to bid on the ones ending first. Then, if they don't win, the later-ending auctions might still be available.
The highlighted default is still "Current", but the ending dates are all out of order. I've checked into what you said, and the listings are now showing in order of when they've gone live on eBay, without regard to the length of the auction. This is true going all the way back through the pages. I'm just checking the Romance category right now as an example.
I used to wonder why I'd see sellers complaining on the Yahoo message boards about the listing order over there. I'd think to myself, "Yes, but doesn't the buyer know that all they have to do is click on the right link to resort the list, what's the big deal?" Well, I guess that not enough buyers knew that, hence, the poor sales on Yahoo with the jumbled listing order.
Now I see the jumbled listing order on eBay, and I'm starting to worry...
Anyone else think I'm mistaken or do some of you also think it's different from what it used to be?
posted on March 31, 2001 06:35:16 PM new
I'm sorry, but I don't see what you refer to. When I do a keyword search, everything appears in order by ending time. Searching newly listed items, they appear in reverse order. Same as always for me.
posted on March 31, 2001 06:42:42 PM new
It's always been that way. I remember being annoyed in particular about that order at Christmas time 2 or 3 years ago. EBay temporarily allowed 14 day auctions over the holiday period. I was listing 7 day auctions and one of my competitors who listed 3 or 4 days before me listed a whole bunch of 14 day auctions. My items never reached the final couple of pages before they ended. It never did make sense to me.
Of course, if a potential bidder clicks on "Ending Today", all the auctions are in ending time order.
I have been quite active on Yahoo since October and I do agree about the negative impact of the jumbled listing order there. When Yahoo switched back to ending time order in February, my sales jumped immediately. (I guess Yahoo realized that when it started charging fees, it couldn't continue to give preferential listing order treatment to certain sellers).
posted on March 31, 2001 07:43:30 PM newloosecannon,
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I'm not talking about doing a keyword search or any kind of search at all. I'm talking about when you just browse by category.
Every once in awhile I would check my category page placement, you know, if I had an auction ending today for example. I would click on the category to see if my auction appeared on page 1 or 2 or whatever. And the default was always "Current" and the listings showed in the order of their ending time. I'm practically certain of this because when I'd find my auction(s) they would always be among the others ending on the same day on the first few pages.
Right now I have several auctions in the Nonfiction: Military category. Some of them are ending tomorrow. Now, previously, when I would check my page placement under the category, my auctions would be in the first few pages somewhere. However, my auctions that end tomorrow are buried on page 96!
Click on several of the auctions in a row in any category and you'll see that they are in descending order of when they actually went "live". So my auctions which end tomorrow will not appear in the first couple of pages unless the buyers click on the "Ending Today" link to resort the list.
I'm sorry and I don't mean to be an alarmist. But stockticker is right about the negative impact. I've been an active eBayer for a year now and sales were always great for me with minor seasonal down times. Yahoo was terrible with the jumbled listing order and now that it's fixed, things are looking better over there.
So watch your sales. If you think they're taking a nosedive, maybe I'm not imagining that the listings used to appear in order of ending date by default and that this is a recent change.
http://bjgrolle.auctioninsights.com/
posted on March 31, 2001 08:24:42 PM newIrene is correct, at least for the 1+ years I have been using eBay. When I first tried my hand at selling, I tried to time my auctions to hit the "Front Page" at peak hours. Since they quickly disappear to oblivion NOT to appear again (unless someone is searching ending today)! Unfortunately eBay was always so far behind on updates that often my "Debute" was on page 5 - 10!
posted on March 31, 2001 08:45:49 PM new
Ok, it seems I'm wrong then. Funny. I could have sworn "Current" auctions while browsing displayed in order of ending date. Oh well.
Moderator, I guess you can lock this thread now. No need to let it go on and on because of a figment of my imagination.
posted on March 31, 2001 08:50:21 PM new
OK, I think I see what you mean. You're talking about the categories that you find on the home page.
I'm not much of an ebay buyer, so I never look at that. I always use keyword search.
You think buyers browse categories more than keyword searches? I don't mean to be so ignorant, just wondering. It does give more stuff to look at for sure. But, except for some normal slow times I've never had much of a problem with sales (yet), so I've never had much reason to worry about it.
