figuring out visitor/watcher patterns

[ilyaz]

While scraping, I come across stuff worth more than scrap. Put them on eBay with varying success. A couple of months ago found a functional vintage amplifier. Did some limited testing, the unit seemed quite good, and apparently valuable, so I put it on eBay as Buy it now with Best offer for about $200. There were a few views, one or two watchers, but it did not sell. Lowered the priced, tried again. No luck. Lowered it to $99, put it as an auction for 7 days. In the first 6 days, I had about 70 views and 3 watchers. Then, in the last 24 hours, the viewer count went to about 150 with 15 watchers! I realize that in many cases the watchers are not the people who want to buy and who are just waiting for the last 1 minute of the auction to place the lowest possible bid, but instead folks with the same item trying to figure out if there is market for it. But usually when I had even half the watcher count as this time, I would get a bid or two. You know how many bids I got this time? ZERO! The thing did not sell. Never had that happen to me before with that many watchers. And why did I get that many of them this time but very few when I had it posted for $150 or $200?

Has anyone try to find any sort of patterns in the visitor/watcher counts for the items they tried to sell (or buy) and then use that to actually sell their stuff better? Yes, I know, I need to have a good description, I need a market for my item etc etc, and maybe I am trying to make things more complicated than they should be, but it's just that what I got was very different from what I expected, so I thought I would do some "eBay psychology research"



Thx

[Mick]

There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason. I've had stuff sell with no "watchers". I've had stuff sell as "Buy it Now" in the last hour of the listing. I've had stuff not sell for two cycles, then get sold "Buy it Now" within the first couple hours of the third. Just list it - keep it there - and eventually, it'll sell. I even had some copper listed that didn't sell. I kept dropping the price just to see what it'd take. Last time I dropped it, it had been there two days before I said "Wait a minute". I'd dropped it below scrap price. Got the listing ended before anybody else figured it out.

[miked]

What is the record for sales for that particular item? This is the question I ask before listing. Mike.

[Mechanic688]

First guess is your price is higher than others, or you have a low rating.

[Electrowaste]

In my opinion, it's all about timing. You just have to have it listed, and for the right price, when the right person searches for it. I have almost done away with auction listings and moved mostly towards fixed price with the "Make an Offer". Oddly enough most people just pay the fixed price and don't even make an offer.

About the jump in viewers / watchers... One time I was selling a lot of vintage Atari ST stuff. Someone on an Atari forum posted the link on that forum asking other Atari fans what the value of the lot was and my traffic went through the roof. It ended up being very beneficial for me though.

[src3collector]

There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason. I've had stuff sell with no "watchers". I've had stuff sell as "Buy it Now" in the last hour of the listing. I've had stuff not sell for two cycles, then get sold "Buy it Now" within the first couple hours of the third. Just list it - keep it there - and eventually, it'll sell. I even had some copper listed that didn't sell. I kept dropping the price just to see what it'd take. Last time I dropped it, it had been there two days before I said "Wait a minute". I'd dropped it below scrap price. Got the listing ended before anybody else figured it out.

Yup, I would agree with that. I had an auction before with tons of interest, a bidding war with several people to sell at a really good price to then have the winner back out. I then send a second chance offer to the next bidder, who does nothing. so I then relist the same item in auction and sell it with only 1 bid for WAY less than the sale price of the first auction. So in summary, the EXACT same listing gets tons of bids one week, and the next seems lucky to just get one!