It’s Just a Metric (on eBay): 0.28821879382889200561 (28.8%) - Percent of Listings with Watchers

I track a number of metrics on eBay. Probably a debated one is the number of listings that have watchers. The reason is because the competition often follows similar listings, either to watch what they sell it for, they are preparing for a future listing of a like item, or perhaps (on a rare occasion), someone is actually watching an item because they are interested in it. I actually watch items similar to new acquisitions so I can use it as a comp and unwatch after I list my item.

In the above picture, I have a new high of roughly 28.8% of my listings having watchers. My only indicator is that it can’t be a bad thing, but just one of the things I watch. I used to keep a close eye on average item selling price, but got discouraged as we tend to sell a good bit of lower end items that I get at auction and just list them as they are reasonably good potential sales, so abandoned that for my own sanity. 

Other things I keep an eye on daily:

• Rolling weekly sales $
• Promoted vs Organic impressions (30 days)
• Operating costs (shipping, taxes, global transaction fee, final value fee, promoted listing fee)

Thats all I gots for today. John