eBay: BestMatch, FP30 and Auctions - how will they interact?

[mandy]

Since eBay started changing the finding experience with the introduction of BestMatch, sellers have lost more and more control over how their items show up.  Buyers seem to no longer be going beyond the first page of results.  The first page of results has 50 listings and sellers are limited to 10 items/page now so the BEST case is 20% coverage.  The worst case is 0.

FP30 introduces a new element to the equation.  eBay has said that it will be scored in search heavily based on 'recent sales'.  More details on that in Episode II, but for now, think of it as the velocity of the listing - the number of items sold in the listing.  If you have two fp30 listings each with say quantity 100.  If the first one sells 10 and the second 0, the first one (higher velocity) will show up higher than the second one (lower velocity).

BestMatch, FP30 and Auctions - how will the interact?
We know that FP30 results will favor the velocity (time won't really matter, but other factors like seller performance (DSRs), price and what-not still are factors which is important to note) and we know that auctions will still favor time ending soonest (TES in eBay-speak).  So what happens when you have a buyer that searches for 'ipod nano' and there are both kinds of results?...

full article: http://ebaystrategies.blogs.com/ebay_str...indin.html

[mandy]

Part 2 of the article:

What are recent sales?
Here's how it works.  You have a FP30 listing with multiple quantities (let's say 100) of an item. You obviously start on day 1 with no sales, and then as you get sales, you receive a recent sales 'score' (details unknown, but pretend it's a scale of 1-10).  What's important is the relative recent sales for your listing vs. the other fp30's you are competing with for traffic.

A very important nuance (that could change) is that recent sales is a 7 day window. In other words, it looks 'back' 7 days to calculate recent sales.  Allow me illustrate with an extreme fictional example.  SellerX lists a fp30 on 9/20 with quant=200.  On 9/22 (day 2) the seller sells 50 and then on 9/30 (day 10), the seller sells 2 items.  the recent-sales looks back 7 days (9/23-9/30 in this example) and thus the score is based off the 2 items and does not include the 50.   Had the 50 and 2 happened within 7 days, they would have been considered in the recent sales score as they would be in the 7 day window.

Do recent sales benefit large sellers because they sell more?
One misperception out there I keep hearing (from fruitcats!) is: "recent sales favors large sellers because they can list more".  This couldn't be further from the truth because recent sales are for a 'listing' and not for a 'seller'...

full article: http://ebaystrategies.blogs.com/ebay_str...sales.html

[mandy]

FP30 launches... 

Off to a slow start
Given all the hoopla in the press and supposedly nashing of teeth around this new format, it's off to a slow start.  We have about 150 customers that have listed an FP30...

Part of what's going on with the seller base is, for lack of a better word, eBay fatigue.  Sellers feel their businesses have changes so much (DSRs, BestMatch, etc..)  for so little/no/decline in sales that eBay is increasingly becoming a lower priority for them and thus they will tend to be reactive vs. proactive as they would have been as recently as 6 months ago.  To be honest, most of our larger sellers are spending their time getting their websites and other channels ready for the holidays and eBay just isn't a priority.  Of course this doesn't bode well for eBay, but it's the reality of what is going on in the grassroots of ecommerce...

full article: http://ebaystrategies.blogs.com/ebay_str...-born.html