Seller Development Talks about Rebalancing Reaction

A few weeks ago, Bill Cobb made his announcement about rebalancing the marketplace. As part of our effort to help sellers adjust to the changes, we created our seller resource page, and Bill hosted a Community Town Hall (which you can read about it in Laura's previous blog post). Our Seller Development team has also been hard at work, calling many of our affected sellers to provide advice and support. Aashish Tripathi is the head of one of our Seller Development groups, and has talked to scores of members since Bill's announcement. We sat down with him for a quick interview about what he's hearing, and what types of tips they're giving sellers - you can watch below.

In case you can't watch the video, or simply want some of the points down on paper, Aashish also gave us a bulleted list of some of the most common tips he's been giving:

We ask sellers to review how their business is performing - both in aggregate, and also by the various selling formats they use (Auction-Style, Fixed Price, Store Inventory Format, etc.)

Look at your “sell-through rate,” or what we call Conversion Rate, and the price at which items sell on average, or the ASP (Average Sell Price).

When deciding which listing format to use for a particular item, think about more than just the price. Consider the Conversion Rate and ASP for similar items, and also think about the demand for the product.

Here's an example of how demand should factor into your listing strategy: Hot in-season products typically belong in auctions, which have more visibility and quicker Converstion Rates, as opposed to traditionally slow-moving products which might be better suited for the Store Inventory Format.

You can also use eBay Marketplace Research, which will be free until 9/19 for Stores sellers, to keep an eye on sales trends and other important information about your item.