Sellers- How do you feel about people watching your items but not buying, making offers, or bidding?

[danslittleyoshi]

Buyers- why do you watch?

I've been a buyer on ebay for years, but I'm a new seller. All my listings atm except the 3 I uploaded this morning have at least 1 watcher each. I wanna know how sellers feel about watch. Does anyone else get really fed up of people watching their decently priced items but not buying, bidding, or making offers? I do especially when with my fiancé's help, all my items are now at a better price! I always thought the whole point of watch was to keep a eye on something you want to buy, or at least that's why we use it!

I genuinely think it's time that ebay get rid of watch and add a new feature, one that makes it crystal clear to sellers that people do want to buy, bid, or make offers on your items. I find it really unfair that watch doesnt make it clear that people want to actually buy your things. It's embarrassing and frustrating when you notice you have watchers, drop your prices or send offers to tempt them, but nothing happens. I would probably call the new feature something like Want to Buy. And for auctions, i would have ebay ask anyone that clicks Want to Buy, "Are you willing to bid on this item?" and if the potential bidder taps no, they should not be allowed to put the item on Want to Buy. This will remove the frustration sellers feel when they are basically being strung along by watchers who have no intention of ever buying or bidding. Watch is super frustrating for sellers. I don't think any of my sold items have been bought by any watchers i have had. When I only did buy it now, I had the ability to send offers to watchers. So I sent anywhere between £5-£15 discounts on items! None of my watchers accepted my offers

Currently 3 of my auctions have a start bid of 99p. Each one has at least 1 watcher, but none have bid. It's 99p!

Im probably ranting now but seriously, who agrees that watch needs to go and what is the point of watch? All it does is build a seller's hopes up, and that's just plain wrong

[kake100]

It's the  "Watchers" that watch 'Buy it Now' items at £1.75 (previously 99p before BPF of course) with 87p postage that blow my mind!

Nothing is going to change .... the price will not go up or down and there is only one of the item. What is the big decision to make?  LOL!

It has baffled me for years!

My record number of watchers for something at 99p a few years ago was 19. I think postage was 70p or 75p at the time. I really could not get my head around how 19 people could watch a 99p 'Buy it Now' item with 70p postage! It did sell on the second day, but possibly not even to one of the watchers ........ maybe it was just a very decisive person that took a chance! ......... while the others were still watching!    LOL!!

"There's nowt as strange as folk" as they say!

[zed1015]

There's a million and one reasons why people will passively watch an item but who really cares ?

Having views and watchers is better than no activity on your listing and coupled with the view count will indicate the real level of interest in your item as a percentage.

One of many reasons i use it is to bookmark certain items from sellers who i may buy from more regularly, especially businesses.

For one it gives quicker access for repeat transactions of a particular item rather than trawl through my purchase history or long list of items of a saved seller.

[pinemarten56]

why watch? - maybe the answer is..... Because they can!

[johnwash1]

Now that a whole year has gone by since @danslittleyoshi asked us, hopefully they understand that people watch for a variety of reasons.  And that there's rarely any cause to get hopes up if there's lots of watchers (or indeed lots of views).

• Some people watch because they expect to return and bid/buy/offer, e.g. after pay day
• some watch because they have a similar item to sell, as well as looking at completed sales etc
• some watch because they expect to see the seller carted to the funny farm and relish schadenfreude
• some watch because they have a hand tremor and hit the wrong button
• some watch because they hope ebay will encourage the seller to send them an offer

And no doubt other reasons too.  I sometimes watch items from business sellers that I want to buy.  I watch them because I then search everywhere else online that I can, in hopes I can avoid buying from ebay, but recognising that if there's no alternative I'll need to return and purchase.  Of course that's a relatively recent change in my behaviour, ebay used to be a preferred venue for me.  There's none so angry as a lover spurned.

On the rare occasions I get watchers myself I don't anticipate a sale.  I'm just happy that my unpromoted item has, for once, not been sent to oblivion in ebay's evil skewed search results.

[toolboss15]

An easy answer, as eBay is so bad now, I save some items in my watched list that I'm interested in and then go to other platforms to purchase cheaper. Now I only spend about 5% to 10% max of what I used to purchase on eBay. So eBay is good for reference for me but defiantly not purchasing. PS, I used to be a seller on eBay but the changes and fees started to pee me off so stopped selling completely some 11 years ago and it is far, far worse for seller now.