Selecting and measuring performance metrics is a key part of monitoring your own progress, assessing your business and planning for the future. Getting access to external measures to benchmark yourself against competitors is really rare.
Fortunately with ShelfTrend, meaningful comparable metrics are available in our reports for yourself and your competitor. Here are a few measures we would recommend as a starting point.
1. Weekly sales velocity is a great way to assess performance.
Run the Average Weekly Sales report for yourself and then for a competitor’s eBay seller ID. The Average Weekly Sales report takes a the largest possible sample of listings with sales to to gauge a weekly sales average. Weekly sales data is presented by
sold items by week (#sold/week), or by
Sales revenue per week ($sold/week).
For a more precise comparison, add keywords or constrain by category before running the report. For example, if you sell fidget spinners, make sure you use those keywords for yourself and your competitor so that you are comparing the same product type.
2. Dominance of shelf space means that your products are both ranking well and grabbing buyer eyeballs. Run a Top 500 Live Listings report for a your most vital products. Download to csv to keep track of this list for future reference.
Compare the number of listings you have within the Top 500 Report versus your competitor.
Compare rank and how your listings are positioned against your competitor.
Filter rank to the Top 50 and Top 100 to see how your share of listings change. It is more critical to dominate within the Top 50 and 100, representing page 1 and 2 of search results than it is to be present in outlying pages where most buyers will hardly navigate to.
3. Rate of inventory renewal. Investing in new products and more stock on eBay is a sign of a confidence in the marketplace. Confidence that is likely inspired from success. Run a New Listings report for your competitor’s eBay seller ID.
Schedule to run this report regularly every 8 days to get an idea of how much product they are bringing onto eBay on a weekly basis. Compare this rate of inventory renewal to your own. Not only will this give you an idea of their investment in new inventory and categories, but it will also give you a strong impression of the size of their overall operations.
Track success metrics regularly for yourself and your direct competitors to validate sales and business optimisation efforts you may have initiated. Over time, you’ll be able to be see how your actions may have helped you gain ground on your competitor - or not.