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[theElench]

Good morning pastime,
I looked at esty, decided against listing there and started here instead. Years ago I worked in local authority accounts, then did my own books and tax returns for 30 years, but I couldn't work out how much it would cost to sell a £10 item on etsy !! Any company that makes its fee structure that complicated is up to no good IMO, even the obay + paypal fee wasn't as difficult to work out.

I even bought a few things without problem but eventually got fed-up trying to see what I wanted between the clutter of Promoted Listings so rarely even look at the site now. I'm convinced that it was set up by obay shareholders to deflect any accusations of "monopoly" away from obay and by using the lessons learned on obay, fleece the sellers more efficiently.

Note that esty introduced Managed payments, promoted listings and (tried?) to introduce permanently held payment Reserves [I]before[I] obay. Obay proceeds more cautiously only because of the number of private pre-loved sellers it has and doesn't want a mass-exodus.

Only my opinion, but take the worst features of the big three sites and little by little they will all adopt them all in time, as they become "standard industry practice" and sellers have no choice but to accept them, unless they are willing to accept fewer sales on smaller sites. OK if you're down-sizing a collection, but not viable if you're a business looking to make a living by on-line selling. So again only my opinion, is that ultimately the big three want rid of their non-business sellers, businesses who are dependent on sales from the big sites can then be turned, in all but name, into wage-slaves with the sites deciding how much visibility they get, how many sales they can make, how much they get paid and when.

Whether the way they carry out their plans is legal or not is beside the point. In business anything that is not illegal is legal until it is specifically outlawed and legislation is miles behind "industry practice". So the big sites slide through "grey areas" and loop-holes to get where they want to be and by the time the rules are changed in law, the game will be over IMO.

[theElench]

Yeh it would be good if the site got more visibility but the traffic numbers have been not so good, rankings have gone down and the account plan changes made no sense.
If I remember correctly they changed the minimum value of a listing to get seen on GS and I'm sure that didn't help

GS is a user to user based system based on search behaviour, behaviour over time etc, so if you search for specific items, sellers or sites more often google will add it to more of the facet-lists which are filters, Ebid is rarely seen because few people use EBID in their searches, I see theElench items and on the left bar because I was testing the search using your items, so when I use art deco glass more of yours will come up but that's only for me
More and more companies are putting money into googles advertising system and since that is money based products from this site will continue to be seen less and less unless your in a less common category

The car sticker idea was good and it would be nice if someone continued that with Poly bags, Tape etc because that is the only way the site will get see activity

If I understand what you're say correctly, it's this.
"theElench" first appeared on the GS side-bar because I started looking at my ads. regularly, I agree, it wasn't there when I first took any regular interest.

But others, not searching for my items but only for a more general search of "Art Deco Glass", won't be shown "Ebid - the elench" or my ads.?

How then, shortly after it did get shown to me, did others see it on the side-bar?
When you started your tests, were you shown "Ebid - elench" on the side-bar?

From what I have seen, "Ebid - theElench" has now been shown for over a year. Are you saying that no-one else, even if they search for "Art Deco Glass" is seeing that?

If that's so, I've been wasting my time (and everyone else's).

When I've been searching GS for other items, Hard Rock Cafe Pins, Soap Bars, Amethyst Necklaces for example, I've sometimes been surprised to find "Ebid - +Seller-name" is already shown on the side-bar, without my searching for, or previously viewing any ebid ads. for those items. Are you saying that this is solely down to GS noting my interest in Ebid Ads., so shows only me ebid + seller and an occasional ebid ad.?

I only began this thread because during the Covid lockdowns and having time on my hands, I started paying attention to tips I'd read on ebid previously and that my sales on obay had declined to the point that my notes in those parcels could no longer account for any of my sales here. I asked myself, where then are my buyers coming from if hardly anyone knows about ebid?

How do you explain that prior to my starting to take an interest in GS and applying the tips I knew about, my sales here were only in single figures each year? But since doing so they are now in the 20s and increasing slowly every year? Is it just coincidence and just as few people are seeing my ads. on GS as they always did?

[pastime]

[QUOTE=theElench;1735288]Good morning pastime,
I looked at esty, decided against listing there and started here instead. Years ago I worked in local authority accounts, then did my own books and tax returns for 30 years, but I couldn't work out how much it would cost to sell a £10 item on etsy !! Any company that makes its fee structure that complicated is up to no good IMO, even the obay + paypal fee wasn't as difficult to work out.

Hi Elench,
You are spot-on - good analysis.

Have just started taking Cindy Lou newsletters (only had 2, so far) I find it a bit difficult to navigate (but I'm not very good IT-wise: https://cindylouwho-2.tumblr.com/post/735473894498222080/recent-seo-marketing-news-for-ecommerce


Have tried to include screenshot, but not sure if it's working - clicked on Insert Image and upload file, what else should I have done?

[theElench]

It's working but only if I sign-up, log-in and collect the cookies and trackers that I'm agreeing to allow by doing so. So I haven't done either and can't read her newsletter.

Have a good Christmas.

[pastime]

Hi Elench,
That's why I tried to include the screenshot - there was a reference to how Google worked re: views etc, which I thought might be helpful to this thread.
Will try again to attach.



Have tried to magnify last para reference Google - I didn't need to magnify (it looked too small in draft!) but OK on post.
Cindy Lou is on Etsy and has own site - she is also collecting info on the way Etsy behaves, to aid sellers. She does seem to be very well versed in online systems - understand your reluctance to sign up for yet another item and if I can find a way to copy you into my newsletters, will do so - you may be able to understand it more than I can!

[theElench]

Good morning Pastime,
hope you had a very merry Christmas!!

It is interesting, even reading between the lines / links your extract contains, it seems that "click data" does have some baring on search ranking. Also, the way I read paragraph 2 does seem to reflect what I've been seeing, that pages 1 and 2 of GS results include more smaller site ads. than should be expected. Poor "User experience" on the "Big Three Sites" combined with the amount of "User generated content" perhaps being reasons?

But the sheer number of links it contains has made me realise (even more so than I already had) how huge a task even scratching the surface of GS for clues about its workings really is. I've also been reflecting on how many hours I've been checking, clicking, counting etc. over the last few years (I started during lockdown) and since starting the thread over a year ago and how little interest has been shown by other ebid sellers.

Yourself and @BordersBargains have replied at intervals with helpful and/or interesting comments, which were much appreciated. But very few others have commented at all and so far it appears that no-one has tried any of the tips mentioned and posted any FB on whether they found them useful or not. Even feed back saying that they had been found completely useless would have been useful by indicating a "dead-end" not worth pursuing any further.

I must say that on a site where lack of sales is a perennial topic of conversation and where GS is possibly the biggest available source of reliable FREE publicity, it's surprised me that it holds so little interest for so few. So with New Year Resolution time approaching, I've resolved to leave the thread to others (at least for the foreseeable future) and get on with a couple of other projects put on the back-burner through lack of time.

Thanks to everyone who replied to this thread and a Happy New Year to all.

[pastime]

Hi Elench,
Yes, when I read that I did think of your finding of smaller site ads did reflect that.
Searching does take up a lot of time and it can get tiresome trying to work out why something isn't showing in GS but is in images (I've got a brooch that should show in a very small list of a certain type, but I doesn't, it's driving me potty, 'cause I can't understand why, when it's showing in images with links to page!! it isn't showing on GS and have been checking for weeks). So, fully understand about the need to spend time on other projects.
Will try to follow some of Cindy's newsletters in the hope it does reveal something, at some point.

Understand why not much has been contributed from many sellers - the busy sellers tend to be stamps/postcards and eBid works perfectly well for them, with lower charges making it very worthwhile and a large group of collectors as their followers, so GS isn't needed in the way we rely on.

The sad thing is that eBid is an excellent site, offers many more listing services and doesn't think it owns sellers' listing and treating their sales as its own. Not to mention, leaving disputes to Paypal etc, but doesn't muck about if a seller is attempting to give poor service. So please, please eBid, don't ever use bots to make decisions on their behalf, that way insanity beckons and commonsense goes out the window.
All the best,
Marie.

[BordersBargains]

I don't think there will ever be an easy answer to GS but Its all about using the same words in your title that a buyer would use when searching to get more hits. More and more people are turning to online selling, building sites etc, so Google will push paying for advert space more which IMO will effect this and other small sites.
After I had zero sales in November and most of the year was poor compared to last year, I remembered they did a change on the value of items being sent to GS, or it was something similar to that and I noticed some of my items appearing on GS were using the link to the item in one of my stores as the name instead of EBID, so I deleted them all and the next day I got a sale and views have seemed better, co-incidence maybe
I actually don't see much point in me having stores since the odds of someone exploring them are probably rare with the traffic the site is currently seeing, so I will see how it works out next year

[pastime]

Hi Borders,
I didn't know that could happen (shop name rather than eBid) that's something to look out for, any idea how that could happen when we are under the eBid umbrella?

Re: shop views - yes, I wondered if the shop gets looked at, but I do think it's for the best, in the old days I'd often buy from eBid sellers with really interesting items, but several of them didn't have a shop and when they suspended items they would disappear, re-appear but had to list from scratch which was time-consuming and lost sales of items I had wanted to buy.
The other thing that's surprises me is the number of views on some items (some not showing on GS or Images) which must be in-house views and can be quite high - so, not sure who the viewers are, but sales are few and far between?

[theElench]

Aaahhh!!! I just can't resist replying!!

Good morning @BordersBargains,
I wasn't under any illusions that finding any clues would be easy When google has billions to spend making itself mysterious the chances of making some game-changing discovery must be remote to say the least. But I had thought that some of the earlier, simpler tips might be useful to ebid sellers and having tried them (and seen some success by doing so) would, perhaps, join in the hunt for others.

The value of items was mentioned earlier, as was the possibilities of changing word order in titles on different sites and SEO. Yet when looking on ebid it's quite obvious that some sellers seem to have never heard of, or tried to use any of those things. Since I started looking at GS I've been amazed at how many ads. I've seen that stand virtually no chance of being found by anyone searching ebid, let alone being seen on GS even if they are uploaded. (One that sticks in my mind had a title starting with something like "@@ Stunning @@")

As you say, some things that happen may well be coincidence and with so few replies that doubt persists, it's only by more sellers trying the same things and getting the same results that an idea can perhaps be turned into something more solid.

Hi @pastime,
It might be because the seller has several shops selling different types of item. When I started finding other ebid sellers included under "Ebid - theElench" I think I'm right in saying (without going back to find the post) that "Becky's Hoard" (seller name) came up several times on GS, as "Becky's Hoard Pottery" or " Becky's Hoard Brocante", which are both shop names.

Re. Shop views.
Because I sell mostly one type of item and because to start with for several years I was lucky to get any sales at all, I never bothered to open a shop or pay for the upgrade to Seller+ Lifetime. I'm still a Seller and after an initial Platinum Auction Listing, I re-list as RUS as most of the ads. in the category I use are my own. (When I started it had about 25 ads. in total). I think that in itself helps me on GS as it certainly seems to prefer showing my older ebid ads. rather than very recent ones and it has plenty to choose from because, apart from my weekly re-list of the previous weeks auction ad. I don't do the constantly rotating re-lists that most(?) sellers do.

On views in general, I think some must be bots./ spiders doing security sweeps, but some aren't. Not sure if you can see how many views my items have had? But as the RUS ads. are in chronological order over several years, if the views were all bots. I would expect last weeks to have very few and that the views would steadily increase as time goes on. This isn't always the case, two items listed on successive weeks five years ago, one might have 100 views. The next might have 300 views.

Then there's the PYA threads. I've been using them for years to highlight my new listings each week. I delete the old one each week to make way for the next. When I started doing that I thought it good to get 20+ views in the week. I now get 30-40 a week. Again some must be bots. but others, I'm sure, aren't. Because It's noticeable that more collectable items or manufacturers get more views than more mundane items.

Best wishes to all for the New Year and increasing sales.