Well, after fiddling around with strategy to work with best match over the last….what 12 months? It seems that the lack of exposure that my clients get for not quite being Top Rated Sellers (although, one now will be at the next run – slack eBay account manager to blame) pushes the strategy back to ‘ending soonest’ simple, but sometimes not affordable….
For example, a client who had been surviving quite well on 30 day listings, saw his traffic/eBay sales plummet when TRS was introduced. For the first time his Amazon sales ‘out did’ his eBay sales.
So, what to do? Well we experimented with 5 day fixed price listings, and guess what – you give more money to eBay and you get more exposure.
Sales have increased by 400% and just in time for the Christmas rush really, so he is cashing in on eBay AND Amazon.
Amazon has been stonking this Christmas for all my clients, really come into this own this year. A lot of clients now match or exceed their eBay sales with Amazon and are investing more time on ‘off eBay’ channels.
So why do I think TRS is to blame?
Well one of my clients lists in two main categories. One with a few TRS sellers and one with none. His sales from one category have plummeted due to the presence of TRS, but the other excelled (possibly because his strategy is unaffected by any TRS dominance?)
Soon he will be a TRS and kill off everyone else in THAT category. All’s fair in love and retail but if shouldn’t really be this way. In effect, its not the eBay way.
So in short be a TRS soon or don’t bother with eBay as a business model for lower value items unless you are going to support the fees associated with shorter listings when your Powerseller discount reduces. Large ticket items that have a higher profit margin you can be more flexible with as always.
Use Amazon and your own retail site for the good stuff!
