In this week's issue of Data Bytes, we'll analyze listing promotions on eBay. While we can all assume that the total number of listings goes up after a free or discounted listing day, do the sales go up as well? In other words, is it worth it for sellers to take advantage of these discounts? Let's take a look.

In March, eBay held two big listing promotions - one on eBay Motors and one on eBay.com. eBay Motors held a 50-cent listing promotion on March 13th. Let's look at one of the most popular categories on eBay Motors - Wheels. The week prior to the promotion 2,852 items sold at an average price of $416. There were 3,427 items sold in the Wheels category the week following the listing promotion with an average sales price of $412.

So, sales went up during the promotion along with the total number of listings in this popular category. Total bids per listing, as one might imagine, followed the opposite trend. The number of items listed jumped 32 percent after the promo, while the total number of sold items jumped only twenty percent, and the number of bids per item dropped by eleven percent. In other words, more items sold but conversion rates dropped quite a bit.

The eBay.com promotion last month was a 20-cent listing day on March 14th. Looking at what seems to be an ever-popular category, Apple iPods, we see a different trend in iPod sales. The total number of sold items was at 14,541 during the week prior to the promo, while during the week after the promo the total number of sold items was 15,584. The average price for iPods the week prior to the promo was $123.90, while during the week after it dropped to $122.54. The total number of listings jumped by six percent, while total number of sold items went up seven percent. Bids per listing dropped by two percent, and average price dropped slightly. However, in this case, conversion rates actually went up.
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Hmmm,... two different results thus far. Let's take a look at another listing promotion. On January 18th of this year, eBay.com held a 20-cent listing day. Tracking another popular item at the time, Sony digital cameras between 2.0 and 2.9 megapixels, the results follow the iPod trend more closely. In this case, total items listed jumped 12 percent while total sold items went up 16 percent during the week following the promo. Bids per listing went up during this promo by 4 percent. Here, again, we see sales and conversion rates go up.

Interesting,... there are a couple of different results here, but each time we see sales going up. So what do we make of it? Keeping in mind that sales do go up after a listing promotion, conversion rates could go either way (but in two of our three examples, trend in a positive direction), and sellers can save costs on listing their items during a promo, it seems it is a good idea to take advantage of eBay's listing promotions. While competition heats up, the cheaper listing prices make adding listings a smart business decision. Don't miss the next one!

Please send questions, feedback or article suggestions to databytes@auctionbytes.com.
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