Not sold on SellAthon...

I have sellathon, and I didn't know they resold our "info".

Icky.

However, I *really* enjoy being able to take a gander at how many unique hits I have on a given auction - it offers so much more insight than just a plain odometer-type counter does.

I've gotten used to my sellathon

-Fox

quote:

resold

Mike,

Can you confirm that Sellathon is selling our info?

If so, I'd like to know your source.

This is info that I think needs to be known and I belong to several message boards that are highly thought of for sellers, OTWA, Tulip Tools. PowerSellers Unite, ECommerce Arena just to name a few...and in all my eight years not one of those boards has mentioned selling our info.

If this is going on for sure, I think the source needs to be clarified.

I personally love Sellathon and it has taught me if nothing else that keywords are what are important in a title not how pretty the title appears.

I wouldn't recommend it if I didn't like it and believe in it.

I also will not be recommending it if they sell our information and it can be proved.

I boot mine back up every fall and go with it off and on throughout the year.

Sellathon also services Overstock and several other venues.

As far as looking for the information you have for an item you're about to list...that's easy. Research keywords on closed auctions or there are services that do this also. MPire I believe is still doing that.

Thank you in advance for the information,
Donna

If they could make more money then why wouldn't they sell the data? It's not private information. I'm not saying I like it -- just that, hey, it's the Internet we're talking about.

I haven't yet signed up with sellathon (although I've been intending to) but if they do sell the data they collect I bet it's in the TOS somewhere.

Ok,

The way it works, according to SellAthon, is that if you use the FREE counters...they collect and sell that data...but if you pay, then they do not sell that data. At least that's what the fine print says on their site...

They actually charge some pretty hefty prices for the information also...

Just check out their other website...

http://www.sellerpower.com/

They give a pretty good sales pitch on that site as to what my point was... If your listing title is wrong, then no amount of marketing inside of your listing is going to help you and all of your SellAthon Market research is pretty much invalid.

It actually begs the question...now that I read the fine print...as to what good any of their information is. I mean, if they collect and sell the data only from the people that are using their FREE service then one could argue that they are collecting the data from people that potentially don't know what they are doing. Since they say they don't collect or sell the data from the people that pay, again, potentially the people that know what they are doing... Then all of the data they gather and sell is from the people that may not be doing it right...and if they are not doing it right, who cares about how people found their listing...

Ugh... Again, more than I want to worry about. I'm just going to save the $50.00 and get a regualar counter and call it a day...

Mike

Oh I thought you were inferring to the PAID counters and public info.

I could care less about the FREE counters.

I don't even have counters on my auctions...<shrug> and when I do boot up the Sellathon counters from time to time I know that preferences is the first thing to set up and I know how to set them up and definitely don't have them showing.

Thanks for the information. I wondered if you meant the paid for counters.

Take care,
Donna

I used sellathin before coming to Auctiva, I used the free month and the npaid another month before cancelling. In that 2 months time it give me enough info that I needed to set my keywords and listing times

I like to use mpire for my "research"

I've checked out MPIRE and it looks like that is the way to go...

They give you the information that you need to have before you put a listing up and for someone like me that sells different type things all the time it is much more valuable than SellAthon ever will be... Besides MPIRE is also free...as SellAthon should be...

I don't quite understand why anyone would recommend SellAthon though. What good is it...? Seriously...

If you are a seller with a store, and most of your items are BIN, does it really matter if your buyers have a "body clock" that you need to tune your start times for...uh, no!

If you list your items as "Sponge Bob" vs "Spongebob" does it really matter if you again tune your listings towards the people that found your ad...especially if the majority of the people are looking for the items using the keywords that you did not choose. Once again...nope...

SellAthon cannot help you if you do not start with good keywords in your auction title. Heck, even if you start with a good title, all you're going to find out is that more people will view your item right before it is about to close...no big scientific breakthrough there...

I just wish that Auctiva was not tied to SellAthon like they are. I like a counter in my listings. SellAthon is a good basic counter...that's about all it is... But you have to jump through all these different hoops if you don't want to use the SellAthon counter and substitute some other counter... And IMO that's bad...

Mike

Yep, I have an MPire account, too. And like the service alot and use it alot. It works well but doesn't fill all the gaps for me as to my ongoing auctions and how well they are doing.

Have you considered not checking the box to use a counter with Auctiva? Then sign up for an account with Andale and they'll put one in your auctions automatically. Andale counters are free, too.

Like I said, I don't like the look of counters on my auctions. Nor do I want my buyers knowing how many hits my items have received.

I'm one of those that you refer to as those that like using Sellathon. (albeit it's not every month or every season)

For an example: How many will use the correct spelling for Sponge Bob as versus Spongebob.

If I have the item up as say...Spongebob and through my stats with Sellathon once the item is up and running I see no hits coming from the search of Spongebob but I do see hits coming from Sponge Bob. If the auction had no bids, then I would of course know to change the title of the auction to Sponge Bob, thus getting my auction out into eBay searches on a much more accessible search term.

And as we all know, searches on ebay need to be spelled a certain way to bring up searches correctly. I don't want to take any chances of losing sales due to saving a character on a title or not using strong keyword searches.

Then again..that's my opinion.

Also, and this is just my opinion, time does matter with BINs to me, however that's my opinon and that's what I've found works for me by doing my homework. I can tell you down to the half hour when my items get the most views..so to me...why put something up for BIN at 3:00am when the most hits come from another time of the day. You'll be down in the searches and lost if it's at a time closing or opening if your at a time of the day when few searches go on with eBay.

I know which part of the country is more apt to buy a certain item by experience of selling for almost 8 years. What is different is what parts of the country purchase items more than another depending upon the product.

When I see that a certain part of the country shops more at a certain time that readily buys a product more than another area of the country (Did you know that eBay shoppers drop by around 50% during American Idol viewing time and that rises and falls through the viewing times across the US?) then of course I want my item to go up at that time so it'll be viewed in the top percentage of new items listed or ending now items.

There are too many items on eBay to choose from and I want my items to have THE best chance of being viewed and seen and purchased.

Just my two cents,
Donna

As far as I can tell, something like Sellathon would be of much more benefit to me then Mpire because I sell to such a small market that researching at Mpire never helps me. However, if somebody (Sellathon) could tell me what search terms let people to my listings, I can see the benefit in that.