A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Sales Reports
by Zigmund
eBay Staff Member

If you run a business, you know
the importance of having good information. Knowing what items are selling well, how much they're selling for, and whether you need to order more or less of a certain kind of inventory can make the difference between doing well and doing great.

With the introduction of Sales Reports in October 2004, sellers now have information to measure their eBay sales performance over time, understand the main drivers of their businesses, and identify opportunities and areas for improvement. This month, the Chatter team went behind the scenes to understand how Sales Reports evolved.

“The need for more information first came up at the very first eBay Live! in Anaheim in 2001,” said Lily Shen, Senior Manager of Platform Solutions for eBay. “It was one of the top things sellers said they needed to help grow their businesses.”

The creation of Sales Reports, a new subscription-based tool for sellers, was driven by this demand from eBay sellers. Prior to this tool, sellers had to develop ad-hoc methods of collecting and analyzing important data about their eBay businesses. eBay wanted to provide sellers with information to help them understand what was working well about their businesses, and what areas needed improvement.

“Members had to piece together information from different places on the site to get an understanding of their sales,” said Kristine Chin, Product Manager for Sales Reports. “We wanted to provide a centralized place where they could go to get a snapshot of how their business was doing.” Sales Reports is a tool that can give sellers a competitive edge. Added Shen, “The goal was is to make all sellers more successful. Having the right information is a critical piece of the puzzle.”

But developing such a comprehensive tool proved to be a much bigger challenge than originally anticipated.

The first hurdle was the eBay's information infrastructure itself. “The technical challenges in collecting so much information and providing it to our members were huge,” said Chin. “First we had to rethink the way we manage data in our systems so that we could use it for Sales Reports. And then we had to build a brand new mechanism for us to provide the data externally to our sellers.”

The second major challenge was less technical. “It was important to make the right data available to sellers,” Shen said. “There's so much information we can provide, but in the end, the information needs to be valuable and actionable so that sellers can use it to improve their business performance.”

The Sales Reports team had to balance information that would be useful to most sellers with requests for specific kinds of information that they had received from a few advanced sellers. As Shen said, “We had to find a happy medium where we'd give enough to help everyone, but not so much as to overwhelm them.”

To get there, the team hit the road to talk to sellers in their business environments. Chin explained: “One of the ways we researched what information was most important was through what we call ‘follow-me-homes.' We went to sellers' homes and businesses and observed them going through their normal eBay selling routines. We watched them put up listings and saw their methods of keeping track of information.

Our team was amazed at the many creative ways in which sellers had evolved their home-grown methods to track their sales-related information. Some sellers had elaborate spreadsheets, while others were just keeping notes around the computer,” recalled Shen. She added, “Some sellers tracked sales but not inventory, and many simply didn't know what to look for or even where to start.”

The team also used other methods of research to identify sellers' information needs. Surveys were sent to 20,000 sellers, and focus groups were held with Voices members and other sellers. In addition, the team was out in force at eBay Live! in New Orleans, in June 2004, showing sellers prototypes of their designs and listening to their input.

Finally, eBay's Customer Support played a key role in relaying sellers' input. Chin explained, “We got ideas from Customer Support representatives across the company, because they're constantly talking to members. We learned a lot from them about the questions they were getting from sellers and what sellers seemed to want.”

After months of research and collecting input, the efforts of the team bore fruit. This fall the team was ready to unveil a two-week beta (or pre-launch) version of Sales Reports. Over one hundred sellers were invited to sign up for Sales Reports and provide input. The results were very satisfying to eBay, as well as to the participating sellers. Shen exulted, “They had some suggestions on areas we could tighten up, but overall the beta was very positive, and we knew we were on the right track.” At the conclusion of the beta – and two years after its inception – Sales Reports was finally introduced to the Community in late October 2004.

Sales Reports currently offers two tiers of reports. The first tier is free for all sellers who have a feedback score of at least 10 and a minimum of one listing in the last four months. This tier provides general information about your business, such as total sales, total number of listings, average sale price, and total eBay and PayPal fees. The second tier costs $4.99 a month and contains more detailed information, including sales data by category, listing format, sales by ending day, ending time, and listing durations (for auctions). It also offers information on buyer counts (number of total, unique, and repeat buyers).

Shen pointed out some of the benefits that are already helping sellers adopt Sales Reports in a big way: “We offer analysis by the different listing formats – online auctions, Fixed Price, and Store Inventory, so members can compare and contrast how their sales performed across these formats. This information has also encouraged sellers to experiment with various strategies and evaluate the results.”

While the first release of Sales Reports has been received favorably by the selling community, the Sales Reports team is already looking at ways to make the product even better. The team urges members continue providing input and ideas about Sales Reports on the Sales Reports discussion board or by sending us email at salesreports@ebay.com. Said Shen, “We simply want to ensure that the new Sales Reports help members accomplish their goals – and there's always room for improvement!”

You can sign up for Sales Reports by going to My eBay and clicking on Manage Subscriptions in the left-hand navigation bar. For more information about Sales Reports and to see a preview, please click here.