Relist or Sell Similar?

HappyGamer

Hello.

This is perhaps a stupid question but I was curious whether I would be best off going for relist or sell similar or whether it makes no difference when having previously listed an item as an auction and listing it again as a Buy It Now.

Rhymsta

I have had messages come through saying something like, "An item you were watching has been relisted."
So I would of thought relist would be better. Not sure if changing between auction and buy it now makes a difference though.

HappyGamer

Rhymsta wrote: »

I have had messages come through saying something like, "An item you were watching has been relisted."
So I would of thought relist would be better. Not sure if changing between auction and buy it now makes a difference though.

Thankyou. I do have watchers so relist would be good for that. Though I do not wish to relist if it will cause any issues due to the change in listing.

thebestnameshavegone

I know this isn't exactly what you asked, but thought I'd let you know that if your items still remain unsold on a BIN basis for a couple of months, there is (admittedly anecdotal) evidence that 'sell similar' works much better than 're-list'. This is because new listings often get a boost in the ebay search rankings, yet a re-list can leave a listing floundering at the bottom of page 32!

It definitely worked for me - I had an listing that hadn't sold for three straight months; after reading the above advice on a forum I clicked 'sell similar' rather than re-list and it shot up the rankings. Within a day I'd got a sale, and I've averaged five sales a week from that listing ever since.

lovinituk

thebestnameshavegone wrote: »

I know this isn't exactly what you asked, but thought I'd let you know that if your items still remain unsold on a BIN basis for a couple of months, there is (admittedly anecdotal) evidence that 'sell similar' works much better than 're-list'. This is because new listings often get a boost in the ebay search rankings, yet a re-list can leave a listing floundering at the bottom of page 32!

It definitely worked for me - I had an listing that hadn't sold for three straight months; after reading the above advice on a forum I clicked 'sell similar' rather than re-list and it shot up the rankings. Within a day I'd got a sale, and I've averaged five sales a week from that listing ever since.

It depends how well your listing was doing previously and what sort of sales history you have accumulated. A relist within 7 days will keep the sales history in the background (and the visible history if its a GTC) which helps in Best Match. 'Sell similar' will reset the sales history to zero. I have some BIN listings that are over 2 years old and renew on GTC every month and I have not lost the number 1 position in Best Match for those in that whole time.

There are so many factors when it comes to Best Match. There is no '1 glove fits all' unfortunately.

HappyGamer

That is interesting. I shall keep that in mind. I had quite a few views and a handful of watchers. I decided to list as sell similar as I changed it from auction to Buy It Now.

Out of curiosity do you find that people use best offer?

Before listing I had interest in the item but after stating a price I had no reply until I had listed the item at which point they said no thankyou. I can only assume that they did see the listing as they replied with minutes of it being listed. I am curious as to why they did not offer a lower price upon seeing I am open to offers unless perhaps they were hoping for a very silly low price.

RFW

lovinituk wrote: »

A relist within 7 days will keep the sales history in the background (and the visible history if its a GTC) which helps in Best Match. 'Sell similar' will reset the sales history to zero.

Relists seem to keep history longer than 7 days in my experience, perhaps it's a category thing. If the item successfully sold I can't see a good reason for not using relist.

lovinituk

RFW wrote: »

Relists seem to keep history longer than 7 days in my experience, perhaps it's a category thing. If the item successfully sold I can't see a good reason for not using relist.

What I meant was you have to perform the relist within 7 days of the listing ending. If you do, it should keep all the sales history it accumulated previously, no matter how far back.

thebestnameshavegone

I wonder if my experience was just a glitch - it was an item with 100+ sales history, it was the second cheapest in it's category, alwys on page one, and I've got excellent feedback/DSR scores. After a week or two with no sales the listing just plummeted down the rankings and might as well have been invisible.

I ended the listing eventually (it was on a GTC) and tried a 'sell similar' without changing anything and it immediately popped up on page two flagged up as 'newly listed'. Sales flowed again and now I'm back near the top of page one and selling nearly every day. I did lose my sales history, but in the grand scheme of things that was a small price to pay.....weird.

As for Best Offer - I never bother with it. Some prospective buyers message me anyway with offers for some of my stock and they are always really low! I usually politely suggest they try a private seller offloading an unwanted gift rather than a business seller trying to make a profit. Don't know if others have a more positive experience?

HappyGamer

thebestnameshavegone wrote: »

I wonder if my experience was just a glitch - it was an item with 100+ sales history, it was the second cheapest in it's category, alwys on page one, and I've got excellent feedback/DSR scores. After a week or two with no sales the listing just plummeted down the rankings and might as well have been invisible.

I ended the listing eventually (it was on a GTC) and tried a 'sell similar' without changing anything and it immediately popped up on page two flagged up as 'newly listed'. Sales flowed again and now I'm back near the top of page one and selling nearly every day. I did lose my sales history, but in the grand scheme of things that was a small price to pay.....weird.

As for Best Offer - I never bother with it. Some prospective buyers message me anyway with offers for some of my stock and they are always really low! I usually politely suggest they try a private seller offloading an unwanted gift rather than a business seller trying to make a profit. Don't know if others have a more positive experience?

That is weird.

I am a private seller but I still do not wish to give things away.

I included a best offer and have had one but at £10 lower than the price which is only low to start with. It would not be so bad but I am absorbing some postage costs. If I accepted the offer I would end up with less than half of what they are willing to pay after fees and postage

I wish that I were able to post the item cheaper but I cannot as I am limited with couriers.

lovinituk

They are now showing 'number of watchers' in the search results! If this is now affecting Best Match (I have a suspicion it might be), then it could make 'relist' even more important now as it should keep the watchers whereas 'sell similar' will lose all the watchers.