Traffic Data and Metrics Are Coming to eBay

eBay is actively working to provide sellers with traffic data and metrics, it revealed during Wednesday’s online Seller Check-in event. Jeremy Chiang, eBay Senior Product Manager for Stores, said sellers should be on the lookout for the new features for Stores subscribers.

The response was prompted by questions from sellers, one who asked for metrics so they could conduct A/B testing, and another from a seller who wanted traffic data to measure conversion rates.

“We’re building these kinds of tools for you guys. I don’t have a hard release date at the moment, but be on the lookout for that in the coming months.” It’s a question they get a lot from sellers, he said, so sellers can see how their stores are performing.

During another session during Wednesday’s Seller Check-in devoted to Seller Initiated Offers, Parin Jogani, eBay Lead Product Manager, said eBay was starting to scale automation a little more.

A presentation slide explained the seller “offers to buyers” feature means sellers can send offers to buyers that have watched; abandoned cart; or browsed the item 3 or more times in a week.

Jogani said some sellers were starting to see automation options when sending offers in bulk. “You can now see an option where you can enable automation. So if a new buyer comes and shows an interest, eBay will send the same offer to them, and we do that once every day.”

And, he said, a big “coming soon” announcement is that soon sellers will be able to send offers in bulk on the eBay mobile app. Currently sellers can only send an offer one item at a time when using the app as opposed to the desktop. For instance, a seller with 50 items will be able to send an offer for 10% to buyers who have shown an interest in them when the feature is added to the app.

Jogani said he couldn’t give an exact timeline, but “very very soon.” Also coming to the app are counter-offer and coupon capabilities.

There was a lot more on the eBay Seller Check-in agenda, whose major theme was how to improve summer sales, and some sessions will be made available on YouTube.

During the check-in event, eBay also announced the dates of its eBay Open seller conference, which will be held September 26 -28, with “virtual studio” events held on September 25th.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.