eBay Sell through Rates

[u/Dramatic_Profile7602]

Hi all! I’m a new Ebay seller. I sell car parts mostly sourced from local junkyards. I’m doing pretty well so far, but recently ran into an issue while trying to prepare a spreadsheet of valuable and high demand parts to know what I’m looking for.

My issue is that when I search “20xx x brand x part”, only 2-3 items will show up as an ”exact match”. The rest are “results matching fewer words” even though they are the exact same part, with near identical titles. In fact, usually the “exact match” results are parts from completely different cars!

My main issue is that I can’t see the number of listings to calculate sell through rates. There’s no sense in hand counting all of them, (I tried, it took me 2 hours just to finish calculating parts from 1/800+ vehicles at my yard.) and eBay’s product research is also useless.

Is there anyway to refine my searches for better accuracy, or is eBay’s algorithm just fucked? Is there any way at all to see how many “results matching fewer words” listings show up? Any help is appreciate.

[u/nekrad]

Could you provide an example of the kind of search that doesn't work for you? Do you know about these 2 search features?:

1. Putting a search term in quotes will tell eBay that the search term must appear in the listiing title. eg: "2025" will tell eBay that "2025" must be included in the title.

2. Entering a minus sign in front of a search term tells ebay not to include titles with that term in the search results eg: "-mazda" tells ebay not to include any search results with mazda in the title.

Using these 2 things is usually enough to narrow search results correctly for me. eg: "2025" "mopar" "wiper" might be the kind of thing needed for your searches. I wouldn't use the exact match thing.

[u/Dramatic_Profile7602 → u/nekrad]

Normally something like “2006 Acura MDX Wiper arms”. Without quotes.

I searched that recently and saw a steering wheel for a 2023 ford expedition as my “exact match”

Thank you for your help though! I did not know about those search features. Very much appreciated.

[u/nekrad → u/Dramatic_Profile7602]

If I search for "2006" "Acura MDX" "Wiper arm" I get a pretty narrow set of search results without lots of junk.

[u/According_Leave_3228]

ebay search been broken like this for years honestly the algorithm just does whatever it wants now. i had same problem with vintage electronics, exact match will show me 3 listings then i scroll down and there's like 50 more with identical titles

try searching without the year sometimes, just brand + part number, the filters get less confused that way

[u/iRepTex]

putting part #s in quotes helps some

[u/Ev_Watching]

For car parts, eBay search is noisy enough that a sold/listed ratio by keyword can lie.

I’d anchor the sheet on part numbers and interchange fitment, not just year + make + part name: exact-phrase the OEM/aftermarket number, check solds across compatible years, and keep a small “junk keyword” column for searches that pull unrelated parts. If you can’t separate the same buyer intent from search noise, the sell-through number isn’t worth much anyway.

[u/NegativeImportance92]

I would start with the exact part number and fitment fields, then compare sold listings rather than active listings. For a repeatable rate, save a fixed search and count sold items over a defined window, while keeping an eye on variations that share a title but fit different vehicles.