Ask Dan: What percentage of my listings should sell?
December 30, 2007
Whirly asked: At what level would you deem an ebay business to be failing or in need of change or successful in terms of sold and unsold items, for example:
Ended listings in last 60 days: Sold : 10; Unsold : 40
Based on your experience, is there a level you should be achieving,, 50/50 70/30 ?? or at the end of the day doesn’t it matter as long as you are making a profit.
To my mind the question has the wrong focus. Conversion (the number of items you list that sell) and take rate (the percentage of turnover paid to eBay/PayPal) are hugely variable across the eBay site. There aren’t any neat answers as to what’s good or bad. But since you ask, it’s worth suggesting some general principles:
- You want to sell as many of the items you list as is possible.
- You want to pay eBay/Paypal as little as possible. (And Mountie is the expert on that!)
The nub of this question is really about profitability. A seller can list a fair few high value items consistently over a few months, not sell a thing, pay a whack in fees and then make a single sale and be profitable. Equally, another seller could list thousands of items, sell them all, pay a low percentage in fees and still lose money.
The bottom line is, to state the obvious, the bottom line. Your conversion rate and take rate are personal to you and they are just numbers you’ll need to inform your decisions because they help you assess profitability. This is business. Profit is sanity. Everything else is vanity.
If you have questions for Dan, post them in our forum.
How to cope with spam email
December 30, 2007
It’s the only quiet time of the year for me on eBay, sales are still coming in but there’s now no courier collections until Wednesday next week so no need to go into the office. With some spare time I’ve decided it’s time to tackle some of the problems I’ve been meaning to fix and top of the list is spam email.
A temporary fix six months ago was to install MS Outlook 2007 with the junk email filter enabled. That has been capturing a couple of thousand spam emails per week, but recently it’s been missing an unacceptable proportion of the spam I receive. Chatting with Steve of < ? aff_link("http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Astro-Bits-and-Pieces","Astrobits","","UK"); ?> a couple of days ago he again (he’s been telling me for years!) suggested I install MailWasher Pro.
As Steve said to me “Advertising is a double edged sword, the more people know about you the more spam you get.” This is especially true as eBay and PayPal are two of the biggest targets for phishing attacks.
What MailWasher Pro does is to check your email on the server only downloading headers and the first 200 characters of the email to your PC. It doesn’t download the full message or any attachments. Much of the email is automatically marked as spam (highlighted in red) as soon as it’s downloaded. email is checked against known spam lists and your own personal blacklist and safe list.
You can scan all spam just in case it’s miscategorised an email, and from then on process the email and spam will be deleted from the server. MailWasher Pro then launches your email client so that you can download just the remaining legitimate email with no spam.
There are other attractive features such as the ability to send a fake “bounce” email, this tells the sender that they sent email to an email address that doesn’t exist and may in the future actively reduce the amount of spam you receive. You can also report spam to several spam blacklist servers including Spamcop who will report the spam to the relevant ISP.
When installing MailWasher Pro it makes sense to schedule automatic email checking on the program, but to disable it in your email application. If there is an email you wish to send a quick reply to you can click reply in MailWasher Pro and it’ll open the email in your email application een before you download the mail.
There are only a couple of things I dislike about MailWasher Pro, and they’re minor in comparison to the job it performs. It would be nice if the recycle bin displayed totals of the spam it holds, but you have to check the program statistics to see this. The only other thing I’d love the program to do is when it launches outlook after deleting spam to trigger an automatic send/receive to download legitimate emails, currently you have to click to do this manually.
For less than £20.00 MailWasher Pro is a superb tool to reduce the time handling spam takes. Totals for today show that 93% of the emails I’ve received were spam, and that’s just too many to handle manually. If you’re starting to (or already do) struggle to cope with a deluge of spam I’d highly recommend trialling MailWsher Pro, and it’s at no risk – they offer a 180 day money back guarantee.
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Recycle your unwanted presents
December 29, 2007
Unsurprisingly eBay are wasting no opportunities to encourage recipients of unwanted presents to sell them on eBay. With the tag line that “eBay’s perfect for any gift that’s not perfect for you” today’s the ideal day to list those weird and wonderful items someone thought you’d love.
With today’s 10p listing promotion to encourage people to sell there should be some bargains to grab over the New Year. Someone’s unwanted Christmas present could be yours at a knock down price 
Top of the eBay Shops 2007
December 29, 2007
The Nintendo Wii and related items were the biggest success story on eBay UK this year, with 644,874 consoles, accessories and games sold. Also hot in the technology stakes was the iPhone, with 40,389 sold since the phone’s November release.
Amongst celebrity items, Kate Moss came top, with sales of 30,481 items boosted by her range of clothes for Top Shop. The Spice Girls, and US favourite Britney Spears sold 26,458 and 19,996 items respectively. And the 16,052 Amy Winehouse items sold included dozens of beehive wigs.
However, top eBay personality of 2007 was Harry Potter, with 202,081 items sold.
Sister wrapped
December 27, 2007
I guess the papers are short of stories in the week between Christmas and New Year, because the “unwanted Christmas presents sold on eBay” story has been everywhere. “Auction off your dud presents” advises the Telegraph, before rehashing Dan Wilson’s how to eBay series from this summer. The Mirror includes eBay in a list of ways to get rid of unwanted gifts. Even the BBC gets in on the act.
But the prize for best version of the regifting story goes to a surprising winner: Tazbar. “Were your Christmas presents pants?” asks their email. And comes with this delightful image. Would could resist? 
It’s a White Christmas!
December 25, 2007
Children at Martin House Hospice woke this morning ankle deep in snow!
Chris Hopkins the managing director of Hopkins Catering Equipment Limited had arranged a surprise Christmas treat for local children’s hospice Martin House. He bid for and won a White Christmas on eBay, and decided to make some special childrens Christmas dreams come real.
The gift of a Winter Wonderland was put up for sale by SNO!zone to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity (GOSHCC).
Over 10 tonnes of real snow were delivered at the crack of dawn and laid out by 10 workers. By 9am Martin House was transformed into a veritable winter wonderland, complete with a gift-laden Father Christmas and a troupe of local carol singers.
With only two official White Christmases in the last century (1938 and 1976), the eBay listing was the surest way for Chris Hopkins to guarantee a picture postcard Christmas. Some of the children had never seen snow before today so this was a truly unique gift.
Chris Hopkins told us “We wanted to be able to give a Christmas present that would be truly unique and make a real difference. Christmas is for children and bringing a smile to their faces made it worth every penny.â€
Happy Christmas from TameBay
December 25, 2007
MPs urge action on eBay ticket sales
December 24, 2007
A report by MPs on internet ticket sales has called for eBay to prove that its ticket sellers are genuine fans with one or two spares, and not touts. A report to be published next month by Culture, Media and Sport select committee will accuse eBay and similar ’secondary ticket agents’ such as Viagogo and Seatwave, of collaborating with touts who buy up huge numbers of tickets for popular events, and then sell them online at vast profits.
They will urge the Office of Fair Trading to make test court cases against secondary agents, to establish whether the resale of tickets – prohibited under the terms and conditions of sale – is illegal or not. eBay and other sites claim they are “just a venue”, bringing buyers and sellers together: data protection regulations stop them revealing to ticket issuers who is offering tickets for sale.
I’ve said this before and doubtless I’ll say it again: I don’t think eBay are the issue here. There were touts outside gigs long before eBay was even a twinkle in Pierre Omidyar’s eye. This is yet another attempt by lazy ticket issuers to make eBay responsible for policing ticket sales, when they should be doing that themselves.
Buyers eye: The last Christmas present
December 24, 2007
In typical eBay buyer style I’ve been sitting wondering where possibly (even including Nintendo DS and the Wii) the must have Christmas present this year had got to. Of course I’m pretty good with the post as I know the problems, so every single “Sorry you were out card” from couriers and the Royal Mail had been collected or redelivered, so just where was the Webkinz that I just had to have in time for Christmas?
Well I went up to the local sorting office for a last ditch attempt and there it was waiting for me! It had been sitting there for a week because when I’d collected a parcel there should have been two but only one was marked on the card.
So grrr to the Royal Mail but many thanks to Julie who sent it… there’s going to be one very happy little girl tomorrow morning when her Webkinz comes to life on Christmas day.
My last Christmas present has arrived
Hammond’s jet dragster selling on eBay
December 24, 2007
The Vampire jet dragster that almost killed Richard Hammond is up for sale on eBay. The car is the current each way land speed record holder at 301 miles per hour.
This is a 30 foot monster that could never be described as “road worthy”, but after Hammond got his hands on it truthfully it’s described as a “little worse for wear” (or in other words a total wreck). Mind you, they have a few spare parts so you might be able to get it running again…
All in all it’s not a bad motor considering it’s over a quarter of a century old. Even with the damage inflicted by Hammond it’s probably cheaper to get this one running again, than to build a similar vehicle from scratch.
Bidding on the dragster started at £2500.00 and has already climbed to almost £5000.00. The auction closes at 7am on 30th December.
Markdown Manager double discounts
December 22, 2007
Markdown manager has a bug in it! I don’t know what triggers it, but occasionally items are ending and instead of reverting to the original listing price they’re remaining at the marked down price even though they’re no longer showing that the price is discounted.
What’s even worse is that if you then start a new sale the price is marked down again so the buyer is getting double discount. An example of this is a product which was originally listed at £55.00 and marked down to £41.25 (25% off) when entered into a new sale (at 25% off) ended up with a price of £30.94. As you can imagine sales on that item were suddenly brisk and I was losing money rapidly, until I spotted the problem and ended the listing.
This isn’t the only time I’ve spotted the problem, I have a listing still live on eBay that was originally listed at £14.99, was entered into a Markdown Manager sale with 25% off, and now the sale has ended the price has stayed at the discounted £11.24. eBay support are aware of the issue and working on a fix but in the mean time it’s worth checking your listings when a sale ends.
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In good company
December 21, 2007
If you’re still wondering what to buy the person who has everything, you could do a lot worse than buy on eBay. Buck and Follocks (GB) Ltd, and its wholly owned subsidiary, Buck and Follocks plc, is up for sale: everything, all shares, directorships and possibly the world’s nicest share certificates must go.
B&F is the product of one of those conversations you have, the ones where a good idea turns up, and never quite goes away:
“Wouldn’t it be great to be a director of – or own – a company called Buck & Follocks Limited?”
“Yes. I think I’ll register that.”
Sadly, the good people at Companies’ House didn’t initially agree: apparently there’s a prohibition against registering companies by a name which, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, is offensive. Who knew? Undeterred, “Messers Buck and Follocks” formed two seperate companies: Buck Ltd and Follocks Ltd. Which then merged, and *that* was apparently alright.
The seller now says: “The company has never traded, has never made a sale, and although a viable and quite novel company, has just not had the required time put into it to get it making money. I have two other businesses to run (which I hope to soon be three) and wish to sell it to someone who can make a go of it and get best use out of its excellent and hilarious name.”
We wish them many bidders, and hope we find out what becomes of this superb business opportunity.
Business sellers should be business registered
December 21, 2007
There are currently three types of eBay accounts, those registered as Businesses, those registered as Private Sellers, and those who have accounts predating Business registration which are neither.
From next year eBay have stated on the PowerSeller board that “There will also be some moves to enforce business registration on more sellers” [log on required]
This is a great move, business sellers by default have to abide by more stringent selling regulations such as the Distance Selling Regulations, so buyers should have more confidence in dealing with professional sellers.
If eBay start differentiating between professional and casual sellers it should be a good thing for the marketplace in general, but first every seller needs to declare their legal status.
It should be noted that to declare yourself as a Private Seller when you’re actually a business is an offence in itself. The generally accepted definition of a Business Seller is anyone that purchases goods with the intent to resell them (even if you consider it as a hobby!).
Next year I foresee eBay changing (it always does!) but moving more towards supporting professional Business Sellers and giving them the assistance they deserve.
If you’ve not registered as a business or private seller to date, you can define your account type in eBay My Preferences.
More listings go PayPal only
December 21, 2007
eBay have just announced that from mid-January, all one-day listings and all listings in some categories, will allow only PayPal as a method of payment. The affected categories are:
- Computing > Software
- Consumer Electronics > MP3 Players
- Wholesale & Job Lots > Mobile & Home Phones
- Business, Office & Industrial > Industrial Supply / MRO
Back
One day listings are often favoured by scammers, as the short listing duration panics buyers into a quick purchase before anyone can spot potential problems with the listings: extra buyer protection here is probably a good thing. But sellers are bound to wonder how far off a totally PayPal-only eBay site can now be?
Won’t you Skype my sleigh tonight?
December 21, 2007
Prize for the cutest ever use of Skype goes to Santa 1to1 who, for a mere £7.20, will phone your child – or better still, you can have a webcam call for £12. “Based on the information you provide in your online booking, Santa will talk about your child’s pets, hobbies, Christmas Wish list and anything else you would like him to mention.” You can pick a time and day for your call, but as there are only three days left before Santa has to go out on his rounds, you need to get a move on!
I love this idea: it’s magical and memorable, and a wonderful use of Skype.
Via Skype Journal.
Minding my own business
December 21, 2007
Two things happened to me yesterday. The first was a survey from eBay asking what I think about my account manager. Maria is possibly the nicest of all the very nice people I’ve met at eBay: she’s also super-efficient, and I’m lucky to have her as my AM. So far, so good. But the last question of the survey was perhaps the most telling: after asking me if having an AM made me more likely to keep trading on eBay, they gave me a big text input box, and asked me how they could improve our business relationship. The 1000 characters I got to respond wasn’t nearly enough.
The second thing was that I got two neutral feedbacks. Normally, I’d shrug them off: it’s Christmas, after all, buyers are stressed and needy, the post is unreliable, tempers are frayed and time to sort problems is non-existant. But these two neutrals came on an account which doesn’t have very much feedback: it’s one I use for testing new lines and new listing styles, and it gets used pretty erratically. And two buyers is a high percentage of its feedback. Thank goodness those two buyers chose to leave neutrals not negs, because two negs would have got me an account suspension: all my eBay accounts gone, at Xmas, because of one non-paying bidder and one person who didn’t like the colour of her beads.
And I realised what I ought to have said to eBay in the survey.
Earlier this week, Saul Hansell wrote in the New York Times about eBay sellers’ problems. He quoted Scot Wingo saying “eBay’s relations with sellers over the last few years have deteriorated and are, at best, poor right now,†which is undoubtedly true, but then went on to characterise this as being all about fees. Quite honestly, fees are the least of our problems: at least we know what fees are going to be.
The worst things that businesses have to deal with are the unpredictable things, and over the last year or so, eBay have introduced more and more unpredictability. Though it’s been under the guise of protecting buyers, what they have also achieved is to alienate sellers. Seller Non-Performance, Detailed Seller Ratings, putting adverts for our suppliers in search results, and now removing us from search results based on feedback: the real problem for eBay sellers is that constant, nagging feeling that says “we can take it all away from you in a second if we want to, by arbitrary rules that we won’t ever properly explain, and you’ll have no right of appeal”. Because it’s that fear, that very reasonable fear for our livelihoods, that sends sellers away from eBay. We can plan for fee changes, but we can’t plan for total loss of our eBay income. It’s that that makes us look to our websites, to Amazon and to any other online outlet we can find – because in those places, we’re in control. We’re treated like adults running businesses, rather than naughty children who are going to have their toys taken away from them any time that Mommy chooses.
eBay will say – and they’ll be right – that the majority of sellers have nothing to worry about from measures designed to clean up the site. The problem is that although that might be what eBay *mean*, it’s not what sellers are hearing. The new policy against excessive P&P charges is being implemented on eBay UK this week: in a thread discussing this, Louise from beauty-buy-mail says what many are thinking: “I am having a serious re-think over Christmas. I have been on ebay for a long time and things have gone too far.”
eBay’s response to this, tacitly or occasionally explicitly, has been to say that for every seller who leaves the site, there are another five waiting to take over from them. This might be true, but it’s exceedingly sort-sighted. What’s better for the buyer experience: the established, knowledgeable, stable business seller who’s trading for the long-term and is prepared to allow buyers their legal rights, or the Dellboy fly-by-night who’s on eBay for a few weeks’ trading before he falls foul of some policy or other and is thrown off?
Going back to my feedback, of course it’s entirely possible that if I’d had two negs on one account, only that account would have been suspended, rather than the ones I actually make money on. I don’t know, because eBay still haven’t told me. Rumours of the SNP policy began almost a year ago, yet we still have had no official announcement that it exists. When would any other business partner change their policies, affecting your relationship, and not make sure you knew about it? Imagine if your bank, your courier, or one of your suppliers, made announcements of major changes on a chat board – you’d think it was laughable. And yet that’s exactly what eBay did.
eBay need a change in attitude towards their sellers, and I’m hoping that those survey questions indicate its beginning. Because eBay need to start treating their sellers like proper business partners. Instead of “disadvantaging” some sellers in search results, they need to do things properly: if sellers are undesirable, then throw them off the site. Third party ads in search just take the piss: have a little respect for us, please. And give us information: tell us what your policies are and how they’re going to work *before* you implement them, not months later – and give us the information to comply with them properly.
News in briefs
December 21, 2007
Just a quickie for those following the eBay/Tiffany fight: Eric Goldman has posted highlights from the post-trial briefs from both companies. Top jaw-droppers: Tiffany sent nearly 135,000 take-down notices to eBay in 2006, and eBay receives five million take-down notices a year from its “top ten complainers”.
Exploding eBay parcel injures postmistress
December 20, 2007
A parcel containing a car airbag exploded at a Devon post office yesterday. The sub-postmistress at Clyst St Mary was taken to hospital with minor cuts and shock, but is believed not to be seriously injured.
Explosive Ordnance Disposal officers dealt with the package, which Mike Howe, a director of the joint village shop and post office, later said was an eBay purchase which exploded while it was being moved. Police confirmed that the incident was not suspicious.
(And yes, I’m aware the eBay connection on this story is pretty tenuous!)
Royal Mail announce 2008 pricing
December 20, 2007
Royal Mail have just announced their new prices for 2008/2009, which is not likely to be good news for anyone. First and second class letters go up to 36p and 27p respectively; Recorded Delivery will be 74p and Special Delivery will start from £4.60.
Perhaps more likely to affect eBay sellers are the Large Letter and Packet tariffs, which are both up: for the popular 100g-250g tranche, prices will increase to 78p and £1.45 respectively. On the heavier end of the scale, packets between 2kg and 4kg will now be £8.22, or £6.85 via Standard Parcels.
For those spending less than £15,000 on post annually, collections leap in price to £450 per annum, though they will remain free for those spending more than £15k. There are discounts for businesses with accounts on most of the RM tariff, so if you are sending more than the odd packet here and there, it’s certainly worth visiting the postal MOT centre and seeing where you could save.
The full tariff can be read in pdf format on Royal Mail’s website.
The listings that just wouldn’t die
December 20, 2007
Have you ever looked at your eBay shop and thought ‘I wonder how that listing got there?’ It’s happened to me a few times: I’ve thought I’ve ended something, or thought I’d sold out of it, and yet there it is in my shop, still for sale. And I assume I’ve messed up somewhere, end the listing and forget about it. But now, I think there may be something slightly more strange going on…
Di from Wicked Delights Sexy Lingerie (yeah yeah, I’ll still be here when you’ve finished looking ) has had the same problem, but she has slightly more proof of what’s gone on. A black babydoll and a white basque have refused to leave her shop: both items were discontinued by her supplier around 18 months ago, and the templates on the listings are ones she hasn’t used for two years!
The obvious explanation would be a rogue bit of SMP inventory, but Di doesn’t use it. Nor do several other sellers who’ve said they’re having similar problems. And as Di says, “How is getting there and more to the point how much have these extra listings been costing me!”
Has anyone else come across the same problem, and how did you stop the never-ending listings?
Court rules in favour of eBay
December 20, 2007
eBay have successfully defended a patent infringement suit against Netcraft. The case asserted PayPal infringed Netcraft’s “Internet Billing Method” however the case was dismissed as Netcraft’s patents concern Internet Access provision and as eBay are not an ISP there is no way the patents are applicable.
Any restriction in the use of PayPal in conjunction with eBay would be a catastrophe for the many businesses reliant on the sites for their main income source. eBay issued a statement saying “We are pleased by the Court’s well-reasoned ruling in this case. We will continue to protect the interests of our global community of users and the businesses who rely on eBay’s platforms to make a living.”
Google Checkout’s UK traffic passes PayPal’s
December 19, 2007
Google Checkout has seen more traffic this December than PayPal has, according to a director of web traffic measuring firm Hitwise. PayPal’s traffic was way ahead of Checkout’s for October and November, but it has fallen back to just slightly lower from 6th December. Also interesting are the sources of traffic for each site: almost 60% of PayPal’s visitors still come from eBay, and just 2.2% from non-auction shopping and classified sites. Compare that with Google Checkout’s 45.3%, and it would seem that Google’s promotions – free processing for merchants, and money off for buyers – have proved attractive this year, just as they did last year.
However, what might be more significant is what visitors do *after* visiting the payment site. Robin Goad says “visits do not always mean purchases. … While I can’t provide abandonment data, it is likely that people visiting another retail site after either Paypal or Google Checkout may have not completed their purchase. In other words, a lot of downstream traffic to our Shopping and Classifieds category could be used as a proxy for abandonment rates.” On that basis, GC’s 43% downstream to shopping and classifieds sites seems unfavourable in comparison to PP’s 28%: are buyers just checking out Checkout, rather than actually using it?
If you’re a merchant offering both PayPal and Google Checkout, how are sales working out for you? Which system do your buyers prefer? – leave us a comment below.
Via WebProNews.
Changes to eBay UK affiliates program
December 19, 2007
eBay UK affiliates will no longer be paid for leads generated from paid search traffic from Google, Yahoo or MSN. The change will be implemented from 1st February 2008, and applies to any paid search on the named networks with an eBay.co.uk landing page: paid search leading to a landing page on a non-eBay domain is still allowed.
The changes were announced in an email sent to existing affiliates, although the website still includes paid search as an acceptible promotional method.
Rather less specific but potentially good news for affiliates is that payouts to eBay UK affiliates are to be increased early in 2008. As UK payouts are significantly lower than for the .com program, this is sure to “incentivise further growth” from UK affiliates.
eBay UK announce post-Xmas CLD
December 19, 2007
eBay UK have announced a cheap listing day for Saturday 29th December. Perfect for reselling any unwanted Christmas presents, insertion fees for auction and buy it now items will be reduced to 10p.
There are, as usual, several exclusions, so do read the small print before you list: multiple item listings in either format are not eligible, and perhaps it’s worth pointing out that mobile phones with contracts are also not eligible. Media, Toys and Photography items priced at 99p start or lower, which have normal insertion fees of 5p, are not affected.
And I’m sorry, but I can’t resist… I love to say I told you so
Buy the stars on eBay
December 19, 2007
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This is the auction for all the budding astronomers out there. Forget about buying a simple telescope, how about owning your own planetarium capable of projecting the skies above any point on earth from any date you choose?
The Spitz Planetarium Star Projector was listed on eBay by the Centennial School District in Pennsylvania USA, and whilst it doesn’t include the 40-50 foot dome you’ll need to house the projector it does include the operation console you’ll need to run it. If you fancy running a planetarium to rival the one at the Miami Space Museum this is an identical projector so get bidding. With sixteen constellation projectors and the ability to project almost 4000 stars.
The only slight problem you may encounter is that the buyer is responsible for dismantling the projector and associated equipment and shipping it to its new location. There’s bound to be an avid astronomer out there that won’t let that deter them. The auction ends on Christmas Eve so get bidding for a truly unique item.
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