The Product Exchange Revenue Evolution Journal
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During the Revue Evolution study, you will have an opportunity to take a look at how real businesses grow and develop, using HammerTap market research and Infopia online business management tools.
Click a Journal Entry Below:
Entry One
Entry Two
Entry Three
Entry Four
Entry 1
The Product Exchange, Inc. specializes in providing exceptionally low prices on high quality, brand name golf equipment and many other consumer goods to retail customers. A good portion of our business is done through eBay and researching this marketplace is vital to our success. Two eBay specific goals for 2007 are to increase our listing sell-through rate to 60% and minimize listing fees.
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"...it seems HammerTap’s capabilities will prove extremely beneficial in increasing opportunities and success on eBay. We’re looking forward to learning how to use HammerTap data towards the achievement of our goals."
Jen's Comment: I'm excited to work with these guys. They're sharp, know their industry very well, and have already achieved a huge amount of success. It can only get better from here.
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At first glace, it seems HammerTap’s capabilities will prove extremely beneficial in increasing opportunities and success on eBay. We’re looking forward to learning how to use HammerTap data towards the achievement of our goals. We have been limited to eBay’s restricted completed listings data for product research and our own A/B testing for listing optimization. At this time, we feel that we know the areas where our business needs improvement, however we lack the tools to improve upon these. We also feel that we have a vast knowledge of the products that we sell and hope that HammerTap well reaffirm our own hypotheses about selling within the industry and open doors to new ventures.
Entry 2
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After one week of experimenting with HammerTap, we are pleased with our preliminary results. At first it seemed overwhelming, however with a little guidance we were able to organize the large amount of data in such a way that it became very useful.
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"...keeping tabs on our competitors is paramount. The Seller Search allows us to see what strategies are working or not working for other sellers within the industry..." |
For example, while listing a new item we discovered that “NWT” in the listing title produced a higher sell-through and also a higher selling price, than the word “NEW.” Similarly, “AUTH” produced better results than writing out the whole word, “AUTHENTIC.” These both came as a shock to us and so we tried listing the item accordingly. We should have some good supporting data after a few of these items sell.
We are very impressed with the amount of information provided by the Seller Search. A large portion of our goods are industry specific (Sporting Goods) and keeping tabs on our competitors is paramount. The Seller Search allows us to see what strategies are working or not working for other sellers within the industry and more specifically, concrete data for which items we have in common. We look forward to learning some new tricks with HammerTap next week.
Entry 3
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One of our initial questions regarding HammerTap was “How skewed is product search data?” For example, if we are looking for concrete data on a single unused product, how do we avoid results that include multiple and/or used items in an auction? HammerTap makes it very simple to omit certain keywords from your initial search and eliminate specific auctions from the results, making the data returned that much more relevant and significant.
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"...we have seen growth in auction success rate and eliminated some of the educated guessing when buying product that will work for us." |
Since starting with HammerTap, we have seen a growth in auction success rate and eliminated some of the educated guessing when buying product that will work for us. Product research has become quicker, more straight forward, and more valuable for our company. Next week, we look forward to discovering where our products are in their life cycles and making necessary listing/pricing adjustments.
Entry 4
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Our feet are no longer wet, we are waist deep in HammerTap. Product research with HammerTap is almost a daily occurrence at The Product Exchange. Once we learned our way around the software, searches and data organization become intuitive and the results are not only useful but necessary for knowing the eBay marketplace.
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"Our assumption was that our winter related item... was nearing the end of its cycle as we come into spring this March. On the contrary, HammerTap research shows that average sale price has remained steady..." |
Our main focus, thus far, has been researching other sellers within our field and new product offers. This past week, we looked into the product life cycles of two different items. Our assumption was that our winter related item, that we currently sell, was nearing the end of its cycle as we come into spring this March. On the contrary, HammerTap research shows that average sale price has remained steady from week to week over the last month.
We researched a second item, one that we are looking to buy, and found that it is at the beginning of its cycle. We based this on week to week analysis of total sellers and total items sold in the marketplace. Consistently, there were 3-4 sellers and only 5-9 auctions sold per week. This week we hope to examine our company and optimize listings that are not up to standards. With big goals ahead for ’07, we need fine tuned listings to raise our visibility and sell-through rates.
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