This new selling tactic allows you to directly message auction watchers a lower-price offer. In spring 2019, eBay began rolling out an “offer to watchers” function for sellers. The eBay selling tips below will help you create special offers and deals for watchers, optimize your listing to be more enticing, and employ a few psychological marketing tactics that encourage shoppers to act with urgency. While not all watchers can be converted into buyers, there are things you can do to encourage those watchers who have an actual interest in buying to take the plunge. For that reason, it’s worth focusing on and optimizing listings that have generated interest, with the goal of making a sale. Buyers have no idea how many other people are interested in the product, so high watch counts don’t generate any sort of external social proof or sense of urgency for shoppers.Īlthough you may not know much about who your watchers are or what their motivations are, a rising watcher count is still a useful flag that tells you someone out there is interested in your product. eBay recently began removing watch counts on most listings, so only sellers can see the number of watchers on their own listings. There is no way to ID who is watching your sale, or why.įurthermore, watch counts don’t provide any social proof or sense of urgency to shoppers. You can track how many watchers you have on each individual listing, but the identity of the watchers is kept anonymous. As a seller, you can see how many people are watching your listing under the Watcher column on your active listings page. Only a few of those possibilities are likely to convert into sales, and it’s impossible to know which category your watchers fall into. Many watchers are sellers of rival products and are simply checking out the competition to see how their listings perform.

They don’t want to buy the item at all, and they are casing your listing.

They don’t want to buy the item at all, but they think it’s cool or interesting.They don’t want to buy the item right now but want to purchase something similar at a later date, so they are saving the listing to remind themselves.They are somewhat interested but haven’t made up their mind if they want to buy yet, or they are comparing similar items.They are interested, but it’s too expensive, or they want to see how an auction plays out before committing.They are interested in the item and considering buying it.Users also have the option of receiving real-time, daily, or weekly email or instant message updates about the listings they are watching, so they can monitor deals, price changes, and sales that are ending soon.īecause of these features, there is a wide range of reasons why an eBay user might consider adding a product to their watch list: This gives them an easy way to follow any changes to the listing, monitor auctions, and consolidate all the products they are interested in for easy viewing. Shoppers on eBay can bookmark listings they are interested in by adding them to their watch list. Why Watchers Don’t Always Equal SalesĮven a crowded watch list for a product on eBay isn’t always going to mean a sale, because the watch list isn’t anything like a shopping cart-it’s a tool that eBay users use to manage their interests. The following eBay selling tips will help make your listing more enticing, increase the feeling of urgency for shoppers, and persuade watchers to become buyers. However, if you do notice a high number of people following your listing, there are some eBay selling tips you can take to increase the likelihood of a sale. People click watch for a lot of reasons-and not always because they’re actually intending to buy While it can be encouraging to see the number of people watching your listing tick upward, it’s not a reliable indicator that you’re going to make a sale. Someone will surely nibble soon, you think.Ī few days pass, and the end of your sales time frame ends-a bunch of people still on the watch list, but no bids and no offers. You’re feeling pretty excited about your eBay sale: no bites yet, but within just a few hours, five people have added the listing to their watch list.

Ebay watcher app