The Future of eBay Search

Nick FreedmaneSellerPro Webinar Series

Overview

Introduction

eBay Marketplace fast facts

About eBay Search

eBay Best Practices for 2014

Conclusion

The eBay Marketplace

Global GMV USD$75bn GBP£47.5bn

>400m live listings globally

>60m live listings UK alone

eBay Search

Search visibility is the most important factor in your eBay

success

Understand the keys to search visibility

Get optimised for search and sales will follow

A little background

eBay currently runs on Voyager search engine

10 year old technology, now creaking

Will be replaced over next year with Cassini engine. Entirely new technology.

Biggest change to search since 2008 – Time ending soonest to Best Match

Change is planned to be seamless

Change will result in both Winners and Losers

eBay Voyager Capabilities

Indexes only selective items

Item title (80 characters)

Variation text (Red, Blue, Green)

Item specifics

NOT Subtitle

NOT item description

CASSINI

Cassini Deployment

Currently serving ebay.com (US) results

UK rollout from Q3 2013

Progressive, cautious rollout through 2014

Already powering low and null recovery search results / completed items

Cassini Key Changes (1)

Cassini is a work in progress

Cassini will search Descriptions as well as Titles and Item Specifics

This happens automatically without buyers having to perform an advanced search

Ensuring Descriptions are accurate and relevant will become more important

Cassini Key Changes (2)

Cassini Principles

Cassini is data-driven

Cassini is values-drivenTrust

Value

Relevance

Convenience

Cassini is shopper-oriented

Designed to generate and rank search results in whatever way is most likely to generate an immediate sale and a happy transaction for the buyer

Cassini Probable Factors

Sell-through-style data

Complete listing data, including Titles - Use popular, relevant keyword combinations

Item specifics

A clear, structured, and comprehensive item description. Stay "on topic" and describe your item accurately. Be generous

Catalogue

Image quality

Category appropriateness

Cassini Probable Factors

Seller Performance and Buyer SatisfactionOverall feedback

Detailed Seller Ratings

Customer service history

Dispute resolution history

Past buyer protection cases

Responses to eBay’s message communication system

Timely payment of eBay fees

Cassini Best Practices

Make accessible, interesting, attention-grabbing listings

List stock gradually, as you actually expect to sell it

Focus on performance and being customer-oriented, not just on listing tactics

Maintain consistency

Use both Terapeak and eBay Listing Analytics

Cassini – What not to do…

Don’t: Try to game the system. Exploits will be progressively closed off

Don’t: Keyword stuffing

Don’t: Category stuffing

Don’t: Terse listings

Don’t: Poor images and lazy listings

Don’t: Poor customer service

Cassini Implications

eBay will make you more accountable as a seller

Good sellers should increasingly be advantaged over bad

Impact on different verticalsMedia

Anything involving compatibility

Rich descriptions may make measurable difference

Cost and effort to improve image quality

Consider ROI of changes you make

To conclude…

eBay is becoming ever more “Amazon” like

Cassini is a key part of this process

Start planning now for Cassini

Follow best practices and sales will follow

Leverage eSellerPro to manage and store rich product data for eBay