Opted In To Google Automatic Matching Beta

My adwords account was recently opted into the new Google automatic matching feature (it is still in beta). I don't remember being asked to opt in (or out) so I assume Google just enabled it on my account for some reason or maybe it was in those new feature updates I usually ignore and click dismiss on.

When I have used tools on Google / Yahoo in the past that are supposed to optimize a pay per click campagin the results have been absolutley horibble with the optimization doing nothing but increasing my cost per conversion and the amount I pay to Google / Yahoo but new option appears to be different. It looks like I was opted in around 11/08/2008 and here are the results so far.

From the week before 11/01/2008 to 11/07/2008


From the week it was turned on 11/08/2008 to 11/14/2008


And these from last week 11/30/2008 to 12/06/2008


Unfortunatley as automatic matching is rolled out to more accounts the CPC will probably go up as there will be more competition with Google displaying more ads for each search query.

eBay Auction Sell Through Rates Update

Just a update to the auctions sell through rates chart I posted on 11/22. The results are still good but it looks like the rates down a bit with last weeks listings. Tuesday's (11/25) auctions came in at 30.68% and the Saturday at 30% (perhaps it has something to do with the auction listing sale eBay ran on 11/24 & 25).

Fixed price listing results after eBay puts duplicates back in search

On 11/18/2008 eBay announced that identical fixed price listings would no longer be hidden in search results so I decided to run a limited number of fixed price 7 day listings to see what the sell through rates would be like. The results were pretty bad with 15 out 116 listings sold on my main id for a sell through rate of 12.93% and 12 out of 55 listings sold on my free shipping id for a sell through rate of 21.82%. The rate on the free shipping id is almost acceptable so I might trying listing a few fixed price 7 day listings here and there on that ID.

Sell through rates for eBay auction listings

When the fixed price sell through rates started to tank on eBay I began experimenting with auctions listings and here are my results so far.



I also did a comparison of fixed price sell through rates to auction sell through rates on accident. I forgot to change my listings to auctions on 11/04/2008 and the following week I listed the exact same listings (plus three new ones) as auctions. The fixed price listings on 11/04 had a sell through rate of 13.41% (11 sold out of 82) and the auction listings listed on 11/11 had a sell through rate of 32.94% (28 sold out of 85).

At this point it seems worth the effort to list some of my items as auctions and I will be expanding the number of listings I put up as auctions to see if the sell through rates hold up as I add more listings.

Global Sources Direct closing up shop

I received the following e-mail from Global Sources Direct today (along with a close out sales promotion).

"After 3 years of servicing wholesale customers from 144 countries with thousands of quality products, it's time to say farewell! Global Sources Direct will close its doors by the end of 2008 and will take its last orders on December 1, 2008. We will continue to provide helpdesk support to our customers until June 30, 2009."

I found Global Sources Direct through the eBay reseller marketplace but never made a purchase. The main reason I never made a purchase is that like almost everyone else targeting smaller retailers and eBay they claim to have wholesale prices but it just isn't true. As a example there is this foldable keyboard offered for $5.40 each ($108 for a case of 20) plus shipping of $111.55 for a total of $219.55 or $10.9775 per keyboard. I could (and did) purchase the exact same keyboard from a US based wholesaler for $5.05 per keyboard including shipping for a total cost of $101 and less than half the price Global Sources charged.

Falling eBay sell through rates

My sell through rates on eBay sales started to drop off in mid September. Business overall was still good so I didn't dig into what was going on but I knew something was up. Near the end of October I decided to take a closer look and found hat the sell through rates on my fixed price 7 day listings had plummeted as shown in the chart below.



The slow down really kicked in the week eBay rolled out fixed price 30 day listings and I converted all my eBay store inventory listings to fixed price 30 day listings. The main reason for this drop appears to be recent changes to eBay search that keep identical fixed price listings from the same seller from showing up in search (as of 10/23 only one listing was being shown per seller other identical listings were being hidden). Because of this there is no longer any point in listing the same fixed price listing multiple times and after this week I will no longer be listing fixed price 7 day listings.

In order to do something to try and create more sales I have been experimenting with listings some of my best sellers in the auction format with buy it now. So far the results have been positive with sell through rates around 40% a week with about 50 items listed a week. However at this point I have pretty much given up on eBay. I will continue to list to get the the sales that still trickle in but all my efforts at growing sales will be focused on my website and Amazon.com.

New DAZzle Interface DLL & Keep One Listed software released

DAZzle Interface DLL:
This DLL provides the Endicia integration for Order Integrator. You can download the dll and source code below. This is public domain software and you are free to use it in your own applications, modify it or do anything else you want with it. The latest update adds support for the large priority mail flat rate box.

This new version adds support for the large Priority Mail flat rate box.

Keep One Listed (for eBay Blackthorne):
Keep One Listed allows you to scan your eBay Blackthorne inventory items and automatically schedule new listings for any item that is not currently listed.

This release adds the option to use eBay fixed price 30 day listings instead of store inventory format listings for 'store listings' along with a option to choose which type of listings you want to process (regular, store or both).

The software and latest updates can be found on the Your Cable Store website at http://www.yourcablestore.com/Software_ep_38-1.html

Trying Out Google Adwords Conversion Optimizer

Last week I logged into my Google Adwords account and saw a new option called conversion optimizer. I had tried something similar with Yahoo Search Marketing a while back and the results were less than stellar but I figured hey maybe Google can do a better job so I will give it a shot.

Here are some screen shots showing the results

10/14 to 10/16 (from the week before turning conversion optimizer on)


10/21 to 10/23 (results of turning conversion optimizer on)


At first it looks good with double the clicks (190) at almost the same click through rate. The real problem is that more clicks and paying more per click does not translate into more conversions. During the 2+ days I had conversion optimizer turned on I paid an extra $38.13 for one more conversion and my cost per conversion went from $2.50 to $7.59.

The one bright side is that unlike Yahoo where I had to manually edit all my bids after turning their optimizer off turning off the Google optimizer restored all my old bids and my campaign was back to normal with a single click of the mouse.

Opening post / purpose of this blog

The advice I seem to get coming from everyone who talks about search optimization and what not is to create a business blog but I have hesitated to do so up until now because I didn't want to create another blog that is just outright shilling for my website, posting links to online articles that have little or no relevance to my business or posting affiliate marking links in every other post. I am not saying I won't do some of that, after all the whole point of doing this to help generate more sales for my website.

Why am I creating a blog now? In the month since fixed price 30 day listings has been rolled out my eBay sales are falling and sell through rates on my weekly fixed price 7 day listings have fallen below 15% the last three week (I will give some data in a future post). My sales are not all bad since the fixed price 30 listings are selling pretty well but this has been kind of a kick in the ass to get me motivated and try to make sure my business can survive without eBay. Right now it probably can't since 65-70% of my monthly sales are coming from eBay.

I don't really have any kind of plan just the general idea that I should stop spending so much time and energy chasing the eBay changes and concentrate all my energies into growing my business outside of eBay. To that end I have a few general ideas I am starting with and will go from there.

• Create a blog and write about eBay, google and other e-commerce related issues on a regular basis.
• Work on SEO and improving rankings in natural search results (blogging is supposed to help with this).
  
• Add more of my products to Amazon.com since it has been a great source of extra sales and should a fairly easy path to growing sales (at least in the short term)
  
• Finally get around to adding some new Google adwords ads and exploring some of more advanced options.