eBay launched new capabilities for sellers, including the ability to make offers to shoppers who are “watching” their listings, but is only making them available to a limited number of sellers for now.
We blogged about some of the changes yesterday that were announced by eBay’s new head of Seller Experience Harry Temkin in a video recorded at eBay’s New York offices.
Here are two of the changes coming to the site announced officially on Thursday:
Edit Price, Quantity & Custom Labels
You’ve asked for the ability to edit listings directly from the active listings page in Seller Hub for awhile now. Good news. We’re rolling out a staggered release of this feature, one that will allow you to edit price, quantity, and custom labels for all listings right from the active listings page. We plan to introduce this time-saving feature to additional sellers in the coming months.
To try out our new feature, hover over price, quantity, or custom label fields and click the pencil icon to add or edit. Your listing will be updated when you save.
Make Offers to Watchers
Sellers have also reached out to us asking for the ability to make offers to Watchers, AKA potential buyers who are watching their items. We heard you, and we’re making it happen. With this new feature, you’ll have another tool to help close potential sales.
Like our other new feature, we’re testing this one out with a small group of sellers to ensure a great experience for everyone involved. If testing goes well, we plan to make this feature available to all sellers in the coming months.
If you are in our test group, here’s how to try this new feature. Select Offer to Watchers on your active listings page to see your eligible listings. Don’t forget to check each page of your active listings to see which ones are eligible. After you make an offer, you’ll see Offer sent next to the listing. We’ve also ensured that there are checks in place so buyers aren’t overwhelmed with multiple offers from different sellers.
eBay also announced on Thursday it had made it easier for sellers to advertise on the site through Promoted Listings:
Managing Your Promoted Listings Just Got Easier
With three new features, managing your promoted listings is easier than ever. Now, everything you need is in Seller Hub.
Get started with these new features:
1) Promote your listing as you create it with just one click.
2) In the listing tab, see which listings are promoted and promote more than one at a time.
3) Track which listings sell as promoted listings in your orders tab.
Just more mud on the wall. HEY EBAY JUST FIX THE GLITCHES FIRST.
Make offers to watchers? Worst negotiating tactic in the world. You’ve set a price so if there are interested buyers it’s on them to buy or offer. Reminds me of the flea market buyer who asks, “What’s your BEST price?” I always responded with a HIGHER price and then, “What’s YOUR best price? Maybe we can make a deal.” Without an offer from a buyer, my price stays as listed.
I asked for this feature 10-12 years ago. I do lower my prices over time – like to keep inventory moving, and if I started out with 8 Watchers and 8 months later there are 18 watchers – clearly there is interest but everyone is waiting for a price drop – definitely time to set the hook in one of those watchers. Even a small price reduction can do the trick.
A lot of Sellers , WATCH items to see the final price as they have similar items in their inventory to sell at a later date. This does NOT mean they are watching to BUY. Perhaps, some are? Never-the-less if ebay’s ; Completed Prices was accurate for a 90 day cycle in ANTIQUES, you wouldn’t have that problem! Ironically you can find with a Goggle search old prices of a particular item, that you cannot find on the eBay website, because they remove the result.