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A-Better-Way
Posts: 3363
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 Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 2:14 pm Post subject: |
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| BelleAndTheYank wrote: | I love the Balderdash, I am not sure I ever typed that word before.
Sure sounds like you are on top of your numbers, probably way more than I analyze them.
Do you think the fall off was directly related to Google Shopping going for paid listings only? Or was it another point / event in time? |
When ecrater had to add the secondary "marketplace" website to accommodate google pressing for paid ads, or adwords.
As a way for ecrater to collect a fee and balance revenue in light of google forcing things on them. |
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thelivesandlovesofmaggiethecat
Posts: 10159
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| Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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Sometime in the past couple of days a man on Charlie Rose was talking about the decline of TV in favor of mobile gadgets. I don't think people will ever go back to brick and mortar shopping because we have filled our shopping hours with other things and have gotten far too lazy to go traipsing around malls and antique fairs. The man was talking about the affect on advertising dollars.
In the long run I think people will increase their dependency on mobile shopping for routine purchases but decrease their use for non-typical purchases such as collectibles. Such things need more than a miniscule picture on a phone to assure me of the quality and condition of the item.
The interviewee went on to talk about how Netflix and similar companies were changing viewing habits because people were watching on the small portable screens. So I am left wondering why the TVs keep getting larger and larger. Certainly you don't buy a 50 inch TV screen solely for Super Bowl. |
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tigercreekgifts
Posts: 6293
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| Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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Looks like my store traffic is about the same as it was when I last ran the shop here back in 2012, although some things have changed. There has definitely been an increase in the amount of traffic & sales generated by Google but overall sales seem to just be steady & they should have increased greatly by now since the shop has been open & actively promoted since 2010 & there are a greater number of products available for sale too.
I know my sales were great in 2012 & my cousin said they continued growing right after she took over but that they dropped back down in 2013 after Google made a bunch of changes to product shopping feed & started charging for everything. I spoke to her about that back in December when I realized Google Checkout was gone. Looks like sales were great in Dec. for my shop as usual but this Jan. has been worse than I've ever seen it. Still had decent sales but, nowhere near as many as in the previous Januarys. |
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BelleAndTheYank
Posts: 88
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| Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 5:06 am Post subject: |
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Excuse my newbie, Don't think I know about a secondary marketplace.
I thought eCRATER always had the marketplace feature and it was almost a cornerstone of the overall concept.
Isn't having the marketplace a good thing? |
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Periwinkles
Posts: 2907
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| Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 9:11 am Post subject: |
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| Things are not that great in the big E either - I listed about 18 items there and relisted them a couple of times. No sales and they were items that were selling a month ago. I have been having a few sales on my eCrater stores. |
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MoonwishesStore
moderator
Posts: 17389
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| Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 9:20 am Post subject: |
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Belle, I don't know what he meant by ecrater adding the secondary marketplace either. Ecrater has always had the main marketplace and the individual stores both carrying the same items only the marketplace carries everyone's items (and if someone purchases something there you are assessed the marketplace fee) while our stores carry only our goods. If you can pull someone into your store exclusively, they won't see anything that is in the marketplace, nor will they have a way to get there.
| Quote: | | Do you think the fall off was directly related to Google Shopping going for paid listings only? |
For several years in a row, Google made some significant changes in their search, one being called Caffeine. Can't remember the other one. My Google analytics showed the changes almost immediately in relation to the changes.
I rarely check the analytics these days as it is too depressing. The same time Google got rid of GCO they also seemed to change how to get to your different accounts in Google, like analytics, AdSense, Adwords. I feel like I am going around in circles when I want to check out how much I have earned in AdSense. I literally can't find the link. I finally realized that if I went to my blog account and clicked on earnings, there would be a link to take me directly to AdSense, so that is what I do now instead of wasting time looking for it. I don't have a clue where Analytics disappeared to so that makes it really easy to not bother looking for it. At one point my analytics were showing that I had more direct traffic coming to my store than traffic sent by Google. I felt pretty good about that as I equated that with the work I had been doing for years promoting my store. Last I looked though that had flipped to Google bringing in more traffic than direct traffic. |
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BelleAndTheYank
Posts: 88
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| Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 10:07 am Post subject: |
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Thank you MoonwishesStore.
So, there is just one marketplace. I did not know of another, I come to the forums to see what is new.
Am I correct with the following?
When our item is viewed in the Marketplace, it shows as a "hit" on our eCRATER product, but only when an item is viewed directly that it shows in Google Analytics page view? The hit numbers seem higher than what is shown in the anayltics report. If so, using only Analytics alone doesn't seem very accurate as they don't include the views on the marketplace pages. |
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A-Better-Way
Posts: 3363
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| Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 11:55 am Post subject: |
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No there are two websites now, it used to be ecrater, search, that only goes directly to the persons store.
Well we still have the stores, the same old website, but now on top of that there is the site that uses the magnifying glass for zoom, all different graphics
But the one in the background, where you can ,"see sellers store" is the original site.
They needed to setup an interface between all the stores that would fall under a way to isolate a way to add a fee, and new links (because of adwords) , site wide to an item.
So in there is a duplicate site, the new site will direct your item to the marketplace site in google search first so it can link you to te marketplace site and not the store.
Two sites
Example
New link new site
http://www.ecrater.com/p/19425227/vogue-sewing-pattern-1336-misses-womens?keywords=sewing+patterns
Old link old site
http://moonwishesstore.ecrater.com/p/19425227/vogue-sewing-pattern-1336-misses-womens |
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olyguy
Posts: 55
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| Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 12:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Periwinkles wrote: | | Things are not that great in the big E either - I listed about 18 items there and relisted them a couple of times. No sales and they were items that were selling a month ago. I have been having a few sales on my eCrater stores. |
I listed about 20 items on eBay last month and had $600.00+ dollars in sales. And I'll be the first to admit I sell junk. EBay has been very, very good to olyguy. |
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elpereles
Posts: 3430
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| Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 9:39 pm Post subject: |
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eBay has some advantages over eCrater:
1) It is a worldwide brand. Even in some modern movies is mention. They have a powerful promotion.
2) Traffic.
3) Membership. And its a balance one. You have sellers and buyers. The conscription is high.
Now as I said before. The 2013 was bad in eBay and eCrater. At least what I saw in my numbers. I don't remember read a lot of people in any marketplace telling that 2013 was their best year. |
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SheilaDeesPostcards
moderator
Posts: 4620
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| Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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| BelleAndTheYank wrote: | Am I correct with the following?
When our item is viewed in the Marketplace, it shows as a "hit" on our eCRATER product, but only when an item is viewed directly that it shows in Google Analytics page view? The hit numbers seem higher than what is shown in the anayltics report. If so, using only Analytics alone doesn't seem very accurate as they don't include the views on the marketplace pages. |
The hits that show in your Admin are hits to that item page both on the marketplace and in your store. They also include hits to the item page by you. Using Analytics, you can filter out your own hits, unless you are using an internet connection that changes your IP everytime you open your browser. When our items are shown in the marketplace, there is coding to register the hit in both eCRATER's Analytics AND in the seller's Analytics. When our items are shown in our own store from somewhere besides the marketplace, they only contain the code for our seller's Analytics.
When you are in your Analytics account, on the left column click on Acquisition. Next click on All Traffic, then click on Google / Organic. Above the grid is a drop down box that probably says Secondary Dimension. Click on the arrow, select Behavior, and click on Landing Page. Now you can see the link to the items that are getting the hits from Google. When the link ends with ?gps=1&id=xxxxxxx(a long number) then that link came from Google Product Shopping (and went to the marketplace). The links without that information came from the main Google search but I don't know if they went directly to your store or the marketplace. You can actually determine the number of hits you are getting direct and from Google Shopping. At one time we could filter for these, but I can't find a filter that works. I think we are getting a lot more traffic from Google Shopping than some of us realize.
| MoonwishesStore wrote: | | I rarely check the analytics these days as it is too depressing. The same time Google got rid of GCO they also seemed to change how to get to your different accounts in Google, like analytics, AdSense, Adwords. |
Here's a link to sign-in to your account: https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin On the log-in page, make sure you do not have a check in the box to keep you logged in. Once you have signed-in, click on Data Tools, then on Dashboard (View account data) in the right column box. This will take you to a page with all the "stuff" you have associated with that account. When you are finished viewing and are ready to leave Google, Make sure you go to the upper right corner and click on the down arrow by your name AND SIGN OUT. If you don't sign out, it's next to impossible to sign into another account with their new system. If you go to log in and find an email in the log in, make sure the box to keep you logged in is unchecked, and proceed to log into the account showing. Once in that account, Sign Out, close the tab (or window) and start over. You can now sign into another account. (It wasn't that easy when they first made the change, but they have made it a tiny bit easier now.)
| A-Better-Way wrote: | No there are two websites now, it used to be ecrater, search, that only goes directly to the persons store.
Well we still have the stores, the same old website, but now on top of that there is the site that uses the magnifying glass for zoom, all different graphics |
No, there has been a marketplace since at least the fall of 2008 plus your own store. They had the same look (except the marketplace showed items from everyone and your store was just your items) until the spring of 2013 when the new look for the marketplace was introduced. At some future date sellers will be able to select the new look in their own stores, but for now we still have the old look. Also, there have always been links in Google Organic Search to both our items in our eCrater store and to our items in the marketplace. |
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MoonwishesStore
moderator
Posts: 17389
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| Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 1:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | A-Better-Way wrote:
No there are two websites now, it used to be ecrater, search, that only goes directly to the persons store.
Well we still have the stores, the same old website, but now on top of that there is the site that uses the magnifying glass for zoom, all different graphics END
No, there has been a marketplace since at least the fall of 2008 plus your own store. They had the same look (except the marketplace showed items from everyone and your store was just your items) until the spring of 2013 when the new look for the marketplace was introduced. At some future date sellers will be able to select the new look in their own stores, but for now we still have the old look. Also, there have always been links in Google Organic Search to both our items in our eCrater store and to our items in the marketplace. |
Sheila is quite correct. What A Better Way showed as examples of two websites, is a perfect example of going either to the ecrater website or directly to a persons store. I very much want the customer that I have gotten by my own efforts to stay in my store and not have a chance to go elsewhere in ecrater. Ebay actually worked like this I believe for awhile with those that paid for a store. Who knows what they do these days.
Anyhow, there isn't a new website. It has always been this way and you can see from the beginning of the link. The one that says Moonwishes takes people directly to my store and the one that just has ecrater goes to the item in the ecrater search.
Belle, glad Sheila could answer your questions about the analytics, as I didn't know how they counted hits. |
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MoonwishesStore
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Posts: 17389
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| Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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Sheila, knowing myself I would always forget to sign out of Google! It used to be so easy to find those things like AdSense and Analytics and now it just seems like they deliberately made it more difficult. Apparently their software designers got bored one day  |
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BelleAndTheYank
Posts: 88
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| Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 3:05 pm Post subject: |
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thank you both. I did think the webistes were the way they always were, aside from the design changes on the Marketplace Page. Which I think is better for small screens.
As for the GA, I appreciate the detailed information. I printed so I can look at is more. I am not the type though that gets caught up in the Analysis Paralysis I knew in the corporate environment, but ignoring it totally is foolish.
I still don't see where something happened that put eCRATER into a death spiral as some seem to postulate.
Yes, Google is always changing and always will. Fighting and resisting their changes seems to be counterproductive. Wouldn't that same energy and passion be better served trying to make the changes work for us? |
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A-Better-Way
Posts: 3363
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| Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 5:31 pm Post subject: |
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The way it used to work you would search, click on the item, and end up directly inside the store.
Now you have to go to the old site by having to click on a whole other button on the new duplicate site.
A different link, for the same item. two sites, different server files. |
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