The Chris Dawson Q & A Thread regarding "best Match"

[*smee*]

As previously mentioned Chris Dawson has agreed to partake in this Q & A Session ,
He will be available here from approx 9pm Wednesday night 18th
Chris was the author of the 3 part series recently on tamebay about best match ...
the links to those sessions are below
http://tamebay.com/2009/11/best-match-secrets-part-1-getting-found.html
http://tamebay.com/2009/11/best-match-secrets-part-2-how-products-are-sorted.html
http://tamebay.com/2009/11/best-match-secrets-part-3-5-top-tips-for-best-match.html

If you are interested in learning about the ins and outs of this enigma called best match please read these links ... and hit Chris with your questions upon his arrival tommorrow night , please dont post questions prioe as I think it would be good if we can conduct this a bit like a talk back session ... a question followed by answer etc etc , wherever possible

[*Countessa*]

This thread is temporarily locked in anticipation of Chris's appearance tomorrow evening. You may want to prepare your questions in a Word document beforehand, ready to cut-and-paste as soon as this thread hits "UNLOCKED" status.

...

and since I don't want to inadvertently leave it locked, I'm unlocking it now.

[shyer]

 Hi Chris,

Thank you for giving us your time. the question I have is if I was selling for example, the godfather set of movies as a BIN with 6 to sell which is more important for best match top of search list " the title" IE ( DVD set of godfather all three movies ) or similar tiltles . Or getting sales and relisting with same title?

[TameBayChris]

Morning all, or evening there I guess

Many thanks for welcoming me as a guest to your boards. I'll do my best to convey eBay's official position on Best (worst?? ;-) ) match as well as as many tips for legally gaming it as I can

[shyer]

welcome chris, please see my question above.

[TameBayChris]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for giving us your time. the question I have is if I was selling for example, the godfather set of movies as a BIN with 6 to sell which is more important for best match top of search list " the title" IE ( DVD set of godfather all three movies ) or similar tiltles . Or getting sales and relisting with same title?

I would suggest using tools like Terapeak to find the MOST relevant keywords that previous listings have sold with. But the overriding factor in Best Match is sales and price. If you have the best or close to best price and you have recent sales you're on to a winner, although I know that's likely to drive prices and profits ever lower so you need to balance that.

[TameBayChris]

I've got 7 tips for getting you item kick started in Best Match, some of which you may be able to use depending on which eBay site you list on:

1) Featured First

Featured First is the only sure fire way to the top of search results but it’s going to cost you (£44.95 for up to ten days, £134.95 for up to 30 days for eBay UK). Featured First is a great way to buy exposure but, as it’s success starts to be seen, more and more sellers are starting to use the listing enhancement.

If you’re one of just two sellers to use Featured First in a category then you’ll always be at the top, but as more sellers start to use the feature you listing will appear in a rotation and the exposure starts to fall.

This is a feature that should only ever be used once on a listing with good run rate, and then recent sales should be keeping you at the top of search. However, for slower sell through rate, high value items, Featured First is definitely worth considering on an ongoing basis.

[TameBayChris]

2) Auctions to drive sales

Yes auctions are old hat, as a seller you probably prefer to know you’ll get the price you want and many buyers want to buy instantly rather than bid. Well that might be the case but auctions are still sorted using Ending Soonest and are still a great route to getting your listings to the top of search results.

Auctions at an attractive start prices will get buyers looking, strong links from auctions are a great way to kick start some sales on your main BIN listings. Look at the auction as a loss leader to gain attention and drive traffic from the auction to your BIN. Also consider trying an auction with a BIN price for an instant sale because….

[TameBayChris]

3) Auction to Recent Sales Advantaged BIN

… It’s possible to gain a Recent Sales advantage in Best Match from an auction and this is the main reason sellers should be experimenting with the listing format. If your auction sells at a final value price that you’d be willing to sell at (or below), relist it but convert it to a BIN.

In testing it appears that Recent Sales advantage is transferred from a sold auction to a new BIN listing and can propel the BIN towards the top of Best Match at best, and above an identical BIN listing with no sales at worst. Auctions can be used to actively gain a head start for a multi-quantity BIN.

[TameBayChris]

4) Best Offer

On your first listing of a new product always add Best Offer. It only takes a few sales to make a huge difference in search results standings. Some experimentation with this tactic has thrown up some interesting trends, the most significant of which is that early sales will tend to be Best Offers, but once an item reaches the top of search results buyers start to buy at the full price rather than making further Best Offers.

It’s well worth accepting the first one or two offers at less than you’d normally consider, in order to boost your listing in search results. Offers are worth accepting even if you make a slight loss on a couple of sales – it’s still probably still cheaper than paying for Featured First, to get to the top of the page.

[TameBayChris]

5) Email Marketing

Get smart about your email marketing, use it to drive traffic to the listings you want to sell. Use emails to highlight new listings that you need to gain Recent Sales to increase Best Match placement.

Combine email marketing with your other initiatives such as Best Offers. Tactics such as “We’ll accept best offers of just £x.xx from email subscribers” for a particular item work really well – giving an exclusive deal (even if it’s not) is a great way to get some quick sales and boost your search standing.

[TameBayChris]

6) MarkDown Manager

Have a sale! What better way to boost your search rank than to give a discount. However this is getting harder to implement in the UK as only GTC BINs will ever qualify. If you’re almost anywhere bar the UK you’ll find it much easier to hold a MarkDown Manager sale (listings in the UK have to be 28 days or older before they can be included in a MarkDown sale).

This is a tactic that can also be used on older listings which have fallen from the top of Best Match as a way to regain recent sales.

[TameBayChris]

7) Listing Enhancements

So you’re seeing some success but you can’t get right to the top of search results. All is not lost as, once you’ve got to the first page, you can add some enhancements to make your listing stand out.

Featured Plus will get you to the top of the page (£14.95 for up to 10 days, £44.95 for up to 30 days), but there are other low cost enhancements such as Bold, Highlight and Subtitle which are also good value. They might not get you to the top of the page but they’ll catch the eye of any buyer who scrolls down looking for a good deal.

[shyer]

Thank you for your answer , Re; price I have found using above example I am better at $44 with free postage than at $29 with $15 postage same TOTAL price , but now my postage cost is way over average.

[shyer]

Thanks for tips I used to for some items always use featured plus.  In australia most catagories in featured plus is $15. I will look at rotating use tactic.

[TameBayChris]

There's also one important snippet of information I found regarding multi-variant listings for sites that they are available on. Previously the Recent Sales score was based on the Best Matched item in the variant

e.g. if you sold 10 red 5 blue 2 black and 1 Pink Mickey Mouse t-shirt and someone searched for "Mickey Mouse t-shirt" you'd get a score based on 10 sales (the highest match)

That's changed it now works on sales for all variations
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/sell/sellerupdate/bestmatch.html#a9
e.g in the example above searching again for "Mickey Mouse t-shirt" you'd get a score based on 18 sales (the total sales for the listing)

That means multi-variant listings are a must if they're appropriate for your product as even search for a "Pink Mickey Mouse t-shirt" gets a score of 18

[*FluffyDuckee*]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for that info.  Yes it makes perfect sense that if you pay for a 'Featured First' it will always go to the top of the list (as long as it doesn't have to compete with a hoard of other sellers using 'Featured First'.  I notice you mention that if there are many sellers, the feature appears in a rotation.  So can you confirm here that if you have paid for 'Featured First' then no other factors can effect the postion of that highlighted listing other than a rotation?

[TameBayChris]

Thank you for your answer , Re; price I have found using above example I am better at $44 with free postage than at $29 with $15 postage same TOTAL price , but now my postage cost is way over average.

Free postage does get a boost in best match. Also there is lots of anecdotal evidence both on and off eBay that buyers prefer it. More savvy buyers (in particular those that sell as well as buy) tend to be more discerning and look at total price, but in reality most buyers aren't that savvy.

It's also worth noting that from eBay internal tests they've told me that when buyers are presented with a choice they tend to purchase free post items more often and they can measure the effect by promoting them less or more. (and that's why sometimes you'll see what looks like unusual search results in you're in a particular test group or not)

[TameBayChris]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for that info.  Yes it makes perfect sense that if you pay for a 'Featured First' it will always go to the top of the list (as long as it doesn't have to compete with a hoard of other sellers using 'Featured First'.  I notice you mention that if there are many sellers, the feature appears in a rotation.  So can you confirm here that if you have paid for 'Featured First' then no other factors can effect the postion of that highlighted listing other than a rotation?

In the UK only Top Sellers can use Featured First, so it's used much less frequently than before. Also Featured Plus has been scrapped in the UK so the only way to buy your way to the top is as a Top Seller.
Definitely if you use Featured First you'll only rotate with other Featured First listings - in the UK there are two slots reserved for Featured First (there used to be additional slots for Featured Plus listings that fell on the first page of search results so on other sites you may still see a mix of Featured First and Plus)

[shyer]

Featured plus as I understand it. now only moves you top of page you appear in best match with so if you are on page 50 under best match you will only be at top of page 50 the $15 cost in that case of very questionable benefit.