Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 6:53 pm
Post subject: Sell-through-rates

Folks,

As you know, historically our STR has been abysmally low. We charged so little for the auctions that we did not feel too badly about it. But we set about making some changes, and they seem to be working.

A few weeks ago we had our first day with sell-through-rates over 10.0%.

Then last week we had our first day with sell-through-rates over 20.0%.

Yesterday our sell-through-rate was 31.0%.

I believe (but want to be corrected if I am wrong) that this is now slighly above eBay’s. That is, a third party reports eBay’s closing rate as being about 40%, but their calculation seems to be more generous (in that a Buy-It-Now can get relisted up to three times, and the first two failures do not count against the STR score). Is this true? Does anyone have any knowledge you can share with me on this?

Now that we (collectively) have an auction site that is viable, and letting sellers get acceptable closing rates (at last), I hope you are spreading the word in the eBay buying community that there are good deals here, without the overwhelming competition (yet) from other bidders that eBay has. I think that is the right message to send the eBay buying community: when you bid on auctions at Overstock, all the best deals do not get bid away (or sniped) from you.

In any case, thank you for sticking with us until the fire began to burn.

Patrick