A Bookseller's Guide to Sellathon by Craig Stark #41, 18 April 2005

If you visit forums, especially the eBay forum, you know that there are good-intentioned, experienced booksellers who consistently offer helpful advice and information about selling books on eBay. Unfortunately, there are other booksellers who perceive eBay as a megalithic, corporate giant that not only doesn't care about the little guy but also seems deliberately intent on making life miserable for him, step by fee-raising step, to the advantage of - this is the group that's most often mentioned - the more profitable high-volume sellers. If you also read a popular email newsletter (I won't mention its name) that began life as an aid to help sellers make it on eBay, you also know that it's devolved into a near messianic adversary, determined, it seems, on delivering us from eBay's clutches and transplanting us in an alternate venue.

This hostility doesn't stop with eBay. You'll also be told in most forums that the online book market is glutted with inventory, that it's effectively impossible to make money anymore. The Golden Age of Bookselling, a brief, intoxicating period several years ago when you could put almost anything up for sale and make a buck on it is, to hear them tell it, over. If I didn't know better, I'd think that these sellers were victims of forces they had no control over.

The problem with these perceptions is the same as it is with all perceptions that emerge from failure: they're wrong.

Personally, I love eBay. It's my favorite place to sell books, and I make good money there. There was a time last year when I did back away some and waited for the dust to settle during the category - what's a nice way to put this? - "restructuring." My concern was that sellers wouldn't be able to find my auctions as easily and that my business would suffer. As a result, for several months I focused more on fixed-priced venues and listed less on eBay.

Two things happened, neither of them good. First, my overall sales went down. I discovered that I couldn't make up the deficit of less eBay income by sending more books to fixed-price venues. Second, it wasn't as much fun. One of the things I like best about eBay - why it's so much more captivating than other venues - is how things always have the potential of getting crazy. Last week (and Pam can attest to this) they got crazy three times on one of my selling ID's. One, an unremarkable booklet published in the early 1900's sold for over $200. (I probably would've listed it on Alibris for $30 or $40.) Two, a set of books I featured in issue #1 of 50/50 that typically sells for $40 to $60 inexplicably sold for almost $200. Three, two vintage, topically-related books I listed as a pair sold for well over $200. (Fixed-price comparables were, respectively, $10 and $30.) That's $600 that I absolutely could not have predicted would end up in my pocket.

Yes, some of this is luck, but I've been doing this long enough to know that much of it isn't. There are other factors involved as well: presentation, feedback, etc., not to mention the many small decisions I make dozens of times a day on things like category selection, auction length, start times, title wording, opening bids and so on. Until recently, most of these decisions were guesswork for me most of the time. Over time, with experience, I did get better at guessing, but the problem was that my guesses were forever based on precious little information and were, therefore, still guesses - and by their very nature guesses aren't always right.

Well, those dark times are essentially gone for me now, and all this for less than five bucks a month. If you're a regular BookThinker reader, you know by now that I only recommend products and services I use myself and derive significant benefit from. There are plenty of vendors out there who will happily take your money, only a few that repay the investment - and Sellathon is one that has repaid my investment in spades.

For those of you not familiar with Sellathon, ViewTracker is a sophisticated auction counter that's triggered by a block of code that you insert in your listings. It returns much more than visit totals - in fact, it tells you almost everything you ever wanted to know about your eBay auctions and then some. Here's a list (taken from Sellathon's FAQ) of data the current version delivers:

1. The sequential number of the visitor. (Is he the 14th visitor or the 126th?)

2. The date and time the visitor arrived at your auction.

3. The visitor's IP. (By clicking the IP, you'll see ONLY those visits originating from this IP.)

4. The visitor's geographical region (for example, "New York, USA").

5. How much time the visitor spent looking at your auction.

6. If the Reserve Price was met when the visitor arrived.

7. If the item has received a bid yet.

8. If the current visitor is the high bidder, a bidder who has been outbid, or no bidder at all. Also, if the visitor is watching this auction in "My eBay"

9. Whether the visitor browsed a category, searched a category, searched all of eBay, used eBay's Product Finder Utility, came from "See Seller's Other Items", or some other page.

10. If browsing, which category he was browsing in. If searching, which category he was searching in (if applicable).

11. If searching, what search term(s) did visitor use?

12. If searching, did visitor search "Titles Only" or "Titles and Descriptions"?

13. If user found your auction through the "View Seller's Other Items" link, and if so, which auction did he come from?

14. Which page of auction listings did the visitor find your auction on?

15. Did visitor elect to view Auctions Only, "Buy it Now" items only, or both?

16. What search preferences/options did the visitor select. Some examples include: Show/Hide pictures, Sellers that accept PayPal, Price Range, International Availability, Regional Searching, Gallery View, Show Gift Items, etc.

17. How did visitor sort results? For example, High Price to Low Price? Ending Soonest?