How to get the eBay search algorithm fall in love with your listings?

Cassini’s world is exclusively about the behavior of eBay customers and their interaction with the products. Years ago, this was a simple, transparent process. But those times are over, and the age of customer – centric eBay platform has started with Cassini.

Cassini’s world is exclusively about the behavior of eBay customers and their interaction with the products. Years ago, this was a simple, transparent process. A seller’s job was to “pack” as many frequently search for – keywords into the listings as possible. But those times are over, and the age of customer – centric eBay platform has started with Cassini.

Customers’ search behavior:

Buyers usually start their searching more general, and then go into more details. For example: iPad – iPad case - iPad case white.

As a search engine, Cassini gathers thousands of different points of data from its users. Based on this data, then it predicts what the future users will want to see with the same search term. It’s all about an algorithm, or a specific formula to predict what buyers want to engage with.

Cassini searches for: Product titles, Item’s specifics, Category and eBay Catalogs.

Item’s specifics are very important, eBay actually lives on it. If you don’t use them, bigger the chances to end up with the search results in the Category ‘other’ , which will be not interesting for the buyers.

Your search rank increases and decreases with:

  • The relevance of your listings for potential buyers
  • General feedbacks
  • Which format( auction/ fixed price) is most popular in your category

The price influences the result. For ex: If the buyers search for items between 300 GBP and 800 GBP, and your offer is 40 GBP, then your offer does not appear as a top result. With Cassini, everything circles around the buyer and the popularity of your products. “Popular” are the products that buyers interact with.

Cassini measures 4 parameters:

  1. Sales
  2. How many people have open the product details page
  3. Have visited the product
  4. Bids submitted

Cassini determines a value from the parameters and equates this with the number of impressions. It doesn’t matter that you offer the cheapest price. It is about providing good overall value for the buyer in your listings in terms of:

  • fair price
  • shipping costs
  • professional product description
  • high – quality photos
  • high – quality design of your eBay shop
  • return options
  • price of return shipping
  • delivery time etc.

There is no golden rule. Give your customers what they actually want, and remember that the customer’s behavior is changing. Create more opportunities for your products, and use product variations in order to attract multiple buyer groups and increase popularity of your listings.

Example: Normal listing: blue T-shirt size M ---small target group Variation listing: blue/green/yellow/red/T-Shirt size XS/S/M/L/XL----larger target group

Auctions

Start with a low price to attract more visitors to your listings. Auctions really help with your seller engagement as it creates a lot of excitement with potential buyers. The more watches, bids, clicks, purchases, etc, you get on a listing the more active your store seems to Cassini. Having a good mix of auctions in your listings (say, close to 10%) is considered a good mix. Cassini is a big fan of auctions and your customers will be too!

Cassini requires that you regularly take care of your customers’ interests and pay attention to what your competitors are doing, in order to stay more competitive.

The product – customer interaction is all about being professional. You want only the best! High quality photos, the best product titles ( with the best, most specific keywords), of course the best buyer feedbacks, and the best customer – centered design!

Product Relevance

Make sure your products are in the right category. Select them based on customer behavior, your competition and of course the product. Example: refrigerator – in this category you will also find refrigerator filters or refrigerator door handles. However, if the customer searches in the fridge category , he will not look at refrigerator accessories, because there is a separate category for this.

Attention: Irrelevant products in a wrong category also get impressions, and since the product – customer interaction is bad, it will hurt your ranking.

Keywords

No keywords scamming! No incorrect keywords, note eBay guidelines! Example: Chanel article: “Chanel, similar as Barberry” – eBay will find out your description, and will delete your offer! Whenever you can, use eBay catalogs so Cassini knows you definitely have relevant products for the buyers.

Seller’s reputation

You need to make your customers happy. Reply to emails, respond friendly on reviews. Do not violate eBay’s sales guidelines! ( Attention: these will change, so stay tuned!)

Pay your eBay bills on time! That also influence your seller’s reputation and honor. Ebay does not look at your entire seller history- pay attention especially on the last 30 days, and probably even less than that! Before making any conclusions about Cassini, always ask these questions:

  1. Have you changed anything about your listings? ( photos, price, shipping etc)
  2. Has your seller rating changed?
  3. Do you have new competitors?
  4. Have competitors changed something in their listings?
  5. Have categories changed?
  6. Are you still highly competitive in terms of pricing, guidelines and added value?
  7. Has the category structure or the structure of the article characteristics changed? (eBay does that twice a year)
  8. Has the buyer behavior changed? For example: free shipping is no more desired?

If everything noted above is in green, then Cassini has probably learned something about buyers behavior and has applied it.

Stay tuned, and read in the next blog post about eSagu! tipps to improve your eBay listings!