posted on June 27, 2001 06:48:20 PM new
Does Featuring Auctions on Yahoo Really Work?
All comments are welcome. Your opinions or suggestions are welcome. As far as I'm concerned - no one has a bad opinion. Please keep comments on this subject related to YAHOO Auctions as this is something I'm curious about with Yahoo.
I'm a Yahoo seller (bread/butter come from this site). I also sell on other sites too but my main site is Yahoo.
At first I was reluctant to feature auctions on Yahoo because of the addt'l cost. I then gave in. I started listing auctions for 10 days with a feature of .10. Immediately I did see results. The bidding began. Sell through improved. So I feel it works but my main question is with the sellers who feature EVERYTHING! Has your sell through improved when you feature everything?
The rebates are nice too - it does cut down on the overall cost of listing the item. This month I'm being greedy and only featuring an item after it has a bid. Saves a little money. Sell through overall is ok.
Note: I learned recently that if you feature something and then have it on automatic relist, it will feature it again. Careful with that function. The .10c add up fast.
What are you thoughts on this? Any tricks of the trade I'm missing? Is there a seller out there that features everything and wish to share with us
Thanks!
posted on June 27, 2001 10:17:50 PM new
Not sure how much this helps since they don't break it down by category. According to this article from June 1st Yahoo states the featured ad sell through is 51%.
http://www.auctionwatch.com/awdaily/dailynews/june01/2-060101.html
I don't feature very much, a lot of my sub-categories only have 100 or ads so I don't feel a need in those cases. It wouldn't take too long for a browser to view the whole cat.
For the more crowded cats sometimes I feature and sometimes I try this instead. Most items can reasonably fit in about 3 sub-categories. On a 10 day run I'll start the ad in the one with the least pages, then in 3 days move it to the next crowded one, another 3 days move it to the most crowded. That way it stays closest to the front in all 3 for people who might only browse a few pages per cat. And it gets more exposure than staying in one place. The last cat is where I'll feature but only if it's still far from the front with 4 days left.
posted on June 27, 2001 10:34:12 PM new
I forgot to add-
as soon as you get a bid the change category option disappears and the ad has to stay where it is the rest of the run.
posted on June 28, 2001 08:37:05 AM new
I guess it depends. I have not seen that now that Yahoo is smaller that it really does. The last few months I have featured my items on the last 2 days of the auctions. Some not all to see what will happen. I have seen not difference between the featured and the non-featured.
There are a lot of catagories where Yahoo only has 25 to 50 items maybe 100. Since the is an extremely limited amount it is easy for a buyer to go through and doesn't make much sense to feature it.
I had to laught last week. I collect Catholic collectables so I was going through that section of Yahoo. There was a person that had his item featured. I think in the catagory I was looking in Pictures there was a whole 18-19 auctions. He featured it from the start. As far as I was concerned that was a waste of his/her money or free credits.
I have been selling on Yahoo for sometime I like Yahoo but I don't really believe that the feature item is really all the much more profitable if at all more profitable. The only difference I think is the bids come early but there usually is more bids because if it is what I have taken notice as a seller and a buyer.
posted on June 28, 2001 06:53:13 PM new
Regarding the catholic collectible. That was me - I believed it was in a different catagory that has over 1,000 items. I "feature" every day - usually late a night and sometimes I mess up.
posted on June 28, 2001 08:45:59 PM new
I discovered shortly after starting to sell on Yahoo a year ago, that if I did not feature, I did not sell. I didn't even get very many hits! So I started featuring everything! When people on this board would talk about how Yahoo was "free", I was a bit envious. It really has never been free for me....I think it probably had to do with the category I sold in. It was very crowded.
When Yahoo started charging fees, and things "thinned" out, I was hoping I could quit the featuring! I tried featuring one of my "best" items and put a clickable link to my other auctions (my booth set on "pictures only" so I had a "picture gallery" ). I was amazed that the featured item would have many hits/bids but my non-featured items had very few! Apparently nobody was checking out my "other auctions" or using my special link! I was very disappointed. So I went back to featuring everything.
My sell through on Yahoo has really never been the issue (but I feature), I had a 100% the last month I sold! It's my overall final values that were a big disappointment! I am currently not listing on Yahoo because I have a personal issue with some of their new programs (premium sellers/featured sellers). I have made my disappointment known on a regular basis, but Yahoo doesn't seem to care. There is a seller with a 22% NEG FB rating overall and a 57% NEG rating for the last week who is a PS! They start their auctions at $1.00 and buried in their long, multi-fonted, multi-colored ad, they state part of the shipping is the actual price they are charging for the item ($25-$300 items-they are only paying listing fees on the $1.00!) They rope in a lot of newbies who don't read or don't understand this is a slick tactic to get out of paying listing fees! I am amazed they have any positive FB at all, but I think they let a lot of people "off the hook" if they leave a positive. I make that assumption based on such comments as: "Great to deal with, I didn't understand and they let me back out"...Anyway, why am I going to pay a listing fee on a $100 item when they are allowing a seller (elevated by Yahoo to a Premium Seller) to pay a listing fee on a $1.00 and charge the buyer a shipping fee of $100 + the bid price of $1.00??????
The other issue is the "featured sellers". Many have been brand spanking new with NO history, yet they are located at the top of the category page. Before long they are also Premium Sellers. Seems to help the sales when Yahoo gives you a prime spot with your own link to your booth on the category pages!
I "watch" about 6 PS sellers to see how they do. One who has been a PS, since day one, has a sell through rate of about 5%, they sell about 5 items a month total, yet they are still PS! I also watch 6 sellers who are not PS who do much better, but have not been elevated to PS status. It is possible that they have declined, but I can't see that. Not with the PS being given special links to their booths! Since it is free, you would have to be crazy to turn it down! I feel sorry for them. Yahoo does NOT have a level "playing field" and I won't list with them again until they do!
Forgive the rant and the fact I got "off topic", it's just that I have been in a slow burn over this for awhile. I really like Yahoo, but I can't compete when the deck seems to be stacked in the favor of some sellers...and merit does not seem to be the only factor!!!
posted on July 6, 2001 03:18:01 AM new
Regarding the catholic collectible. That was me - I believed it was in a different catagory that has over 1,000 items. >>
Well the it wasn't yours this was in the catholic section (where you are lucky if there are 200 in all auctions and more the 20 in each catagory).
Whosever it was it was a real waste of the dime.
I think featuring things may be better left for the high season also. From now until August is done I won't be putting up many auctions on either site. Many sellers don't do a lot of August. So, listings will be down. The less there is on a site the less reason to feature I think.
If you feature all 10 days that is 1.00 an auction if you are running 100 it costs 100.00 dollars. So you need to make an extra 100 dollars in order for it to be profitable. I am not sure that would be in the slow season. Even in the busy season. Like uptoolate I usually if I featured just featured the last few days. Sometimes only that last day.
posted on July 6, 2001 07:12:17 AM new
I feature a very high percent of my listings on Yahoo and pay real out-of-pocket money to do so. One of my real areas of expertise shows such bad results overall I've simply given up on it for the time being, at least; featured or not, I was wasting time and money both.
Another area is doing OK... I've even done research comparing identical or very similar items to Ebay historical results and found Yahoo, for me, often gives at the HIGH end of Ebay prices paid to all sellers. However, I feel it's necessary to cautiously pick my spots... paying for the top of a subcategory if I can do so frugally, paying more and having a top-quality expensive item run for many days, but waiting for the last few days or a span including the weekend for mediocre grade items. Sometimes if I notice a couple of regular repeat buyers (I have a few of these at any given time it seems, but I have trouble with them staying as Yahoo regulars) have bid an unfeatured listing to an OK level, I'll cut them some slack by NOT featuring it.
I think you have to put some thought and strategy into using the featuring option. However, IF you have an item that auction "newbies" especially will look through you have to make it easy for one or two of them to spot some of your offerings and tempt them into bidding. Fortunately I'm in an area where newbies seem NOT to be deadbeats. I wouldn't want to encourage them if I were selling, say, Playstation games that 10-year-olds would be drooling over.
The ONLY way I make money on what I'm selling overall is to have some percent of my sales end in the "fair retail" range for items (so I beat having bricks-and-mortar overhead) ... I get killed if everything stays down in the range of minimum-bid net bargain-hunter buying.
Come to think, considering the time the listings and processing take, I'm getting killed anyway. Glad I'm having some fun, at least.
posted on July 6, 2001 09:11:45 PM new
I generally only feature in the very crowded categories but I have noticed a benefit in the single page ones. When there are no features photos from random ads rotate every few minutes but if you are the only featured ad your photo stays in the #1 thumbnail position at all times. That actually is a lot more exposure for 10 cent daily minimum.
I forget the #, isn't it that only the top 20 features rotate thumbnails in the crowded categories? Even if you're paying the most your photo only shows up on the top row once in a while. Please correct me if that's wrong.
I put a bold link in features to view my other auctions and offer a big shipping discount on extra purchases. It doesn't seem to help, the features mostly get 10 times more views than my other ads.
