What is a Watch Count?
Every eBay item (auction, Buy It Now, Store listing, Classified Ad, etc.) has a couple of "Watch This Item" links on the listing page that users can click to keep tabs on the item. The item is then listed in their My eBay console as a reminder for future reference.
eBay shoppers use this to "bookmark" interesting items for a variety of reasons, including getting a reminder email from eBay shortly before the item's listing ends ("Watched item ending soon - don't forget to bid!").
eBay sellers tend to use this feature to keep tabs on their competition (how much did this item ultimately sell for?) and as one of many ways to generally monitor the market.
This total number of watchers of a certain eBay item is often called the "Watch Count".
Why should I care about an item's Watch Count?
The Watch Count can be an informative metric to use when evaluating market demand. Seeing what items others have heavily (or lightly) flagged for watching can help both buyers and sellers alike make more informed decisions in their activities on eBay.
For example, when comparing similar items on eBay, if one has a much greater Watch Count than the others, that may indicate a disparity worth investigating further (does it possess a more valuable feature? a more popular color? a more attractive listing? a better listing title?).
Also, when combined with the current Bid Count, one can garnish some more insight into item popularity. For example, if an item is a few hours from ending, has only a few bids but a high Watch Count, there may be a greater potential for subsequent bidding or sniping to occur in the closing moments of the auction.
And if you like cruising around eBay checking out miscellaneous listings, know that sometimes it can be fun to gaze at how many watchers some items accumulate. (See "
What are some examples of items/categories with high Watch Counts?".)
Why would I want to use this site?
As an eBay shopper, you may find it helpful to "peek in on" how many people have flagged an item as 'watched'. It can be an added factor when comparison shopping, even more so if you want to see how an item's Watch Count changes over time, or if, say, you're a collector who needs to be aware of competing interest in a target item.
If you're a seller, you can use the results displayed by WatchCount.com to add another edge to your market research efforts. You're already watching important items; now you can see how many others are, at various points leading up to auction ending. And, naturally, high Watch Counts on an item may be a relative indication of consumer appeal, suggesting a hot item, attractive listing/photos, or intelligently selected title keywords. (See "
Why should I care about an item's Watch Count?".)
Additionally, you may also have an interest in getting one of your items to
eBay's Pulse page for your category. (When this can be done, through a variety of methods, it's reputed to be great exposure for you.) See "
Can this site help me get onto eBay Pulse?".
Some sellers like to use us as a way to prove to shoppers how popular a certain listing of theirs is, either by running a search on our site, or by displaying the Watch Count in their listing via our
Widget.
Even if you're not selling on eBay, if you are involved in ecommerce at all, you can use our site as a quick market research tool to see what's hot on eBay and what kinds of listings/ads amass the most number of active eyeballs.
eBay already displays highly ranked popular items at
eBay Pulse (by category only) - but without Watch Counts. You can use WatchCount.com to see exactly how many people have "voted" on those very items - or to search by keyword(s), something that can't be done at eBay Pulse.
What constitutes an item as "popular" enough to be displayed as a search result on this site?
eBay aggregates Watch Count information on its listings and makes a decision as to whether an item is "popular" enough to be included in WatchCount.com search results. While eBay has several undisclosed criteria in the mix for how it ranks and publishes popular item data (criteria which can change), the item's Watch Count is the most important one.
Even an item with a zero Watch Count can appear in WatchCount.com search results! Conversely, an item with a relatively high Watch Count can be absent from our search results (for example, if it's a Stores inventory item, or an auction-style item with zero bids). eBay therefore has other considerations in mind when collating and ranking the results that we display. For example, it appears that for an item to even be considered minimally "popular", even with a zero Watch Count, it must have at least one bid and/or previous sale.
I don't care about Watch Counts. Can I still use this site to find popular items on eBay?
Of course! WatchCount.com is a site geared to accept your search query and display items that eBay deems as popular, with Watch Count being the primary factor in eBay's ratings. If you wish, you may ignore it as a specific or comparative metric while still knowing that our site returns live popularity rankings, voted by eBay users.
How do I know the Watch Count is correct/accurate?
Probably the easiest way to verify the accuracy of the Watch Counts shown on our site is if you are an eBay seller. Try to bring up one of your items in the search results on WatchCount.com
by searching for specific keywords in the titles of your items (or even simply by searching by item number). Then, compare the Watch Count with the number listed in your My eBay console that shows the number of watchers. The numbers should be identical; if they're not, please
let us know.
If you're not a seller, you may wish to contact the seller for one of the items you find on WatchCount.com and politely ask them what the Watch Count of the item is. They may tell you.
A clue to the timeliness of our Watch Count results can be seen if you do the following: View the Watch Count of an item
from our site; click on it to be taken to eBay;
login to eBay; click "Watch This Item"; wait about 5 minutes; return to
WatchCount.com and redo your search. You should see the Watch Count increase by 1. (Be sure to login to eBay before clicking "Watch This Item" as Guest Watches don't count.)
What are some examples of items/categories with high Watch Counts?
Are you curious what the most popular item on eBay is? While one could easily argue the validity of other "popularity yardsticks" such as Bid Count and Hit Count, we and eBay see Watch Count as being the primary factor for on-the-spot comparisons.
To that end, the most popular eBay item at any given moment can be found simply by visiting the
main eBay Pulse page and knowing that what appears in the "Most Watched" section are likely the top dogs. (Know that there are separate top-level Pulse pages for each eBay country-site, as well as eBay Motors.) Which one has the highest Watch Count? See "
Can I see the Watch Counts of items on eBay Pulse?".
You can also see some lower (in the 100's or 1000's), but also veritably impressive, Watch Counts in some other places on eBay. Check out the following (eBay US) Categories and Keywords here at WatchCount.com. You may even come across the occasional 500+ Watch Count (usually for big-ticket items like boats, homes, motorcycles, etc.) :
What are eBay Daily Deals?
Each day, eBay offers a small collection of specially arranged, heavily discounted items for sale on several of its sites. The
eBay Daily Deal (named differently per country) always offers merchandise with free shipping/postage, in Fixed-Price format, from hand-picked top eBay sellers. Because of the depth of the markdown, quantities are very limited, and the items often sellout within hours of going live.
You can always see the current eBay Daily Deal(s) for your country
here on our site. Of course, we'll also show you how many watchers the items have accrued, as well as how close the items are to selling out.
I'm not getting the search results I expect (or I'm getting none at all).
Keep in mind that eBay decides on and limits what items are considered popular enough to appear on WatchCount.com. (See "
What constitutes an item as "popular" enough to be displayed as a search result on this site?".) For example, if an item hasn't even received its first bid, it probably won't appear in our search results. That said, here are some things you should consider when inputting your search query:
* You can search by
Keyword only, (top-level)
Category only, or a combination of Keywords and a Category. If you want to find out how popular books about (or by) Abraham Lincoln are, after you enter '
Abraham Lincoln' in the Keywords box, be sure to select "Books" as a Category. If you leave the Category box empty (or select "Coins and Paper Money"!), you may not get the specific results you seek.
* Looking for the Watch Count of a
specific item? Try entering the Item Number in the Keywords box. (See "
Can I look up the Watch Count of a specific eBay item?".)
* Don't be shy in using the asterisk character * as
a wildcard in your keywords. Can't remember whether to spell it 'Rihanna' or 'Rihhanna' or 'Rihana'? Just search by '
Rih*na'. (By the way, her name is spelled '
Rihanna'.) Know that you'll need to put at least 2 characters before the asterisk.
* You can use quotation marks " " to
bind keywords together in their proper order so that when you're looking for an
"xbox 360" you don't see items named "360 Ways to Hack an XBox" (although maybe you'd find the latter interesting as well).
* Consider whether or not to use plurals in your keywords.
Singular vs. plural may return different results.
* Being specific with your choice of keywords will usually yield more informative results and make Watch Count comparisons more meaningful than simply using generic keywords. For example, in your quest to find popular golfing equipment you may search for '
golf club', not realizing that your search results may be intermingled with people selling Club Car golf carts and trial memberships for golfing clubs. Subsequently, you may consider searching for '
graphite driver' or '
King Cobra iron*', for example.
* Use
negative keywords by specifying a hyphen "-" to weed out undesirable terms. For example, '
organic food -baby' will remove any baby food from your search results.
* To specify a
logical or in your search, follow this example: As a coin collector, you may be looking for "wheat penny" or "wheat cent". You can perform these two queries in one search: '
wheat (penny,cent)'.
* Combine search syntax for focused results. Following the example above, a coin collector might be interested in eBay listings for "wheat pennies" (or penny) that don't have cent(s) in the title. '
wheat penn* -cent*' would do the trick.
* Our
Advanced Search page offers
more detailed search options for those eager to drill down further into live eBay data. For example, you can specify deep categories, or include/exclude additional ones. Using the various example search syntax above with Advanced Search options, you can pull out some very narrow search results.
* Know that even intentionally
misspelled auction listings receive watchers!
Try a search on '
dimond', for example, and gaze at the results...
* Be sure you have the correct
eBay site/country selected (the selector is in the menu bar). (See "
Which eBay sites are searched from this site?".)
What does the Keywords box search for?
Words and phrases entered into the Keywords search box are queried against item titles only. However, if you enter an eBay item/listing number, you'll activate our Item Lookup service. (See "
What is the Item Lookup feature?".)
Which eBay sites are searched from this site?
WatchCount.com searches the main
eBay US site, as well as a growing number of international eBay sites. Keep your eye on the eBay site/country selector in the menu bar, located on every WatchCount.com page, to see what countries we currently support.
What is a "Permalink"?
At the bottom of WatchCount.com basic search results is a link you can use to directly call up that search at a later time – without having to retype your keywords into the search box up top. This "Permalink" is just a special direct-search web address (aka "URL") that you can drag to your desktop, or add/drag to your browser's Shortcuts/Favorites/Bookmarks toolbar or menu.
This makes it easier to check up on searches that you like, always showing you the latest results. For example, if you regularly search WatchCount.com for
Reborn dolls, you can perform that search once, then drag the Permalink to your desktop or Favorites bar for easy access next time. (You may wish to quickly rename the title of your new Bookmark/Shortcut, whether it's on your desktop or in your browser.)
Why is my eBay listing not appearing in WatchCount.com search results when other listings with fewer watchers are?
Can I see the Watch Counts of items on eBay Pulse?
You bet! And sometimes they can be sky high. Just
click here to see top-level eBay Pulse items here on our site.
Can this site help me get onto eBay Pulse?
We may be able to lend a hand.
As a seller, you'd like to get one or more of your items onto
eBay Pulse to get greater exposure since Pulse showcases top-watched auctions/items across many categories and sub-categories. (Did you know that the Pulse pages are often syndicated 'round the net on many 1,000's of eBay affiliate websites?) But what does it take to get onto eBay Pulse?
You can use our site to get a feel for what kind of Watch Counts current Pulsers have accumulated to ascend to their revered placements. (See "
Can I see the Watch Counts of items on eBay Pulse?".) You can then strive to achieve similar Watch Counts on your own items.
Know that eBay maintains some additional, undisclosed, criteria for what items "qualify" for inclusion on Pulse pages. While Watch Count is currently the primary ranking factor, we've seen that other things come into play as well. For example, it seems that a listing may need at least 1 bid and/or a "Contact the Seller" email before it's considered for Pulse placement.
Those are just some casual observations that have been made. eBay's complete set of qualifying criteria aren't disclosed and could change at any time.
What is the Item Lookup feature?
Item Lookup (ILU) shows you a collection of eBay listing details to assist with your specific-item research endeavors. Including both active and completed items, ILU shows a number of standard specs (such as title, seller, current price, etc.), but also some data that may be harder to find on eBay's View Item page, such as item quantity sold/available, category ID, or exact end time.
In line with the theme of our site, we may also be able to include the current Watch Count in ILU search results as well. However some such details, like how many watchers or viewers the item has accrued, may be unavailble to us, persuant to privacy thresholds in place by either eBay or the individual seller (thresholds which can change at any time). If eBay makes said data available to us via our data-feed with them, we'll likely be able to display it in search results.
To access Item Lookup simply go to
our main search page and paste your item/listing number into the Keywords box and click the "Show Me..." button.
Can I look up the Watch Count of a specific eBay item?
Maybe.
While our site is geared to display the Watch Counts of queryable popular items (a large number of eBay items qualify as "popular" to some degree), many times you can see the Watch Count of a specific item simply by entering its complete title or eBay listing number in the Keywords box on our site. (See "
What is the Item Lookup feature?" above.) It may also be worth trying a search using a few unique keywords from within the title of the item you are researching.
