Bay Area eBay and Ecommerce Meetup Group

A huge thank you is going out to the Bay Area eBay and Ecommerce Meetup Group, it was a true pleasure to be your speaker this week.

As promised at the Meetup, here are the slides:

If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments below and I will do my best to get you answers.  Thank you!

Reflections on Cassini and eBay Search

Cassini Spacecraft, Artists Rendition.  Courtesy NASA.

Wednesday, Hugh Williams, eBay VP of Experience, Search, and Platforms, presented "Search at eBay" as a part of the Top Rated Seller Webinar Series.

The webinar discussed Cassini, the search algorithm eBay designed to replace the old "Voyager" search algorithm which was in use for over 10 years.

eBay Powerseller Joe S. took excellent notes during the event, and has graciously agreed to share his "take-aways" with you here:

Overall, it is the buyer experience sellers need to focus on, always considering three factors: Trust, Safety, and Relevance.

1. Keyword spamming and otherwise taking short cuts won't pay off... the buyer sees through it.
2. Cassini is being implemented in stages, it is not completely here yet for live listings. 
3. Cassini is fully implemented for all sold/completed items, going back for 90-days.
4. Duration: If you list for 30-days or Good Till Cancelled, it does not make a difference for you search ranking.
5. HTML: In your listings, having HTML does not make a difference when determining search placement as Cassini strips it out.  However, be aware of mobile listings as HTML and Flash may not read well on smartphones or tablets.
6. Category: The category you list your item in is important since search is not always by queries (this is when buyers enter keywords in the search box); they also shop by also category browsing.
7. TRS/Top Rated Seller Status: Is very important for search rank results.
8. Photos: Having bright, large size pictures is very important .
9. Sales:  Many sellers ask "why are my sales down", most often because of price competition, or because the seller is failing with one of the values above Trust, Safety, and Relevance.
   

These webinars move so fast, everyone catches something different in their notes, which is why I'm so grateful for Joe's help!

I picked up a few other "nuggets".

There are three factors that affect how you get visibility.  1) Search recall, 2) Search refinement, and 3) Best Match.

For best results in Search Recall, use powerful keywords in your title and (if appropriate for the category) make sure you are using the eBay catalog.

Mr. Williams would not explicitly say what determines "value" for the buyer, but I inferred from what he discussed that having the lowest price for a comparable product is a huge factor.  I have a LOT to say on this, but will reserve these comments for a stand alone blog post very soon.

Best Match factors which eBay used to clearly give us (1-day handling, free shipping, etc.) are still important, but Mr. Williams refused to answer most questions on what factors are considered now.  He did explicitly say that 'new vs. old' and listing on a mobile device vs. a desktop computer (regardless of listing service) are not factors.

Studying the Top Rated Seller program and using its "pillars" is important to meet the 'Trust' factor in search success.

And this final nugget is something I realized for myself when he was discussing language translation software... Always remember when writing your descriptions that they need to use simple language that translates easily.  Don't just say "Turquoise" make sure you say "Turquoise blue" because blue will translate better.  Avoid idioms in your listings ("setting up this computer is as easy as falling off a log") because they won't make sense when translated (instead, "This computer is very easy to set-up.")

How to Tweak Your eBay Listings for Best Match Optimization

My eBay sales have started to pick up a wee bit, and I wanted to share insight into how to move-up in best match (and yes, they've been messing with it).

If you see eBay "suggest" something (like 3 minimum photos per listing), do it.  The "suggestion" will have positive best match results.

Absolutely have a minimum of 3 photos (more is better) in the gallery section of your listings.  If you list with a 3rd party service, you might need to upload them manually after the item is listed.  If you don't load those great pictures in the gallery area, you are committing best match suicide.

Your photos MUST be minimum 1600 pixels wide (I recommend 1650).  I found that the software I was using told me my photos were 1600, but when I checked with gimp.org (free photo editing software) I found they were 1599.  Yikes!   That 1 pixel makes all the difference!  You can use software like gimp.org or Photoshop to increase image size after the fact, but it is a time consuming and complicated PIA.

Stop using busy, html-loaded templates immediately.  It has not been explicitly stated by eBay, but some testing has shown html-heavy listings are downgraded in best match.

Put as little text as possible in your descriptions, utilize item specifics more.  Both have shown to improve best match results.  The theory is that really long descriptions make the computer think you are keyword spamming (from a search engine perspective, not a violate eBay policies perspective).

Use item specifics, add your own.

Offer 1-day handling.

Offer free shipping.

Top Rated Seller (TRS) gets a small bump.

Run a Markdown Manager (MM) sale every day on your fixed price items.  There is a definite bump when using MM.  It doesn't have to be much, you can program a 10% off sale Mon-Tues, 15% off Wed-Thur, 10% off Fri-Sat, etc. Short (2-day) MM sales which are constantly running have the best effect.  Note: You can mark everything up 10% before running 10% off all the time.

Lower priced items rank higher than the same item at a higher price.

Auction items rank MUCH higher than fixed price.

With fixed price, you get a visibility bump when the item is newly listed but I have NOT seen a corresponding visibility bump for fixed price items about to end.

Auction items get a best match visibility bump when the item is ending, but I have not seen a corresponding visibility bump when they are newly listed.

EXCEPTION: When ANY item is newly listed (FP or auction) it will appear in people's Feed (new: www.ebay.com/feed).  If you haven't opted-in to the feed yet do it now so you understand it.  It will be rolled-out to all eBayers soon, the sooner the better!

Older listings with a lot of impressions (an impression is when something appears on a potential buyers list of results) will be downgraded in best match.

As for Good-till-cancelled (GTC), I still think it is a good tool.  I am ending all my GTC listings this month, and relisting GTC after refreshing the listings and editing the pictures.  In August, I will go through the same process again.  I think a GTC purge once/year is helpful, but I do not think it is in our best interest to stop using GTC.

Do you have other suggestions on how to post higher in Best Match results?  Enter them with a comment below, and thanks!