Up until now, you might have thought being able to see how many watchers an item has on eBay was standard information eBay always made available. But, of course, when you really want that data slice, it’s nowhere to be found. What gives?
First, let’s talk about where, if present, you can find the number of eBay watchers via the eBay listing, and then we will dive into what to do if that information is mysteriously missing.
Finding How Many Watchers on eBay
If present, watcher information on an item will either show in the search results, on the item listing page, or both.
For example, look at this search for Julio Rodriguez rookie cards—1987 designs, specifically:
On the bottom card, you can see “11 watchers” stated under the “Authenticity Guarantee.” The card above it, though, does not have any watchers listed.
If you click into the bottom listing, you’ll see “11 watchers” under the “add to watchlist” button.
And in checking the other listing – the one that didn’t show watchers in the search results – just for grins, you’ll see…wait! You’ll see “20 watchers,” but in a different spot, and a little to the left of where it is above. In addition, you’ll underneath the title that “12 watched in the last 14 hours.”
So to recap so far, one of the listings showed the number of watchers in the search results and the other didn’t, but then both of the listings ended up showing the watchers in their detailed listing pages.
Now, here is the thing, if you scroll down a bit, there is this listing, which doesn’t show watchers in the search results or on the listing page. So, what do you do now? Do you just assume there aren’t any watchers?
Finding Watchers When eBay Hides the Information
To illustrate, here is the listing in question—it’s the bottom one here listed at $749.
As you can see, there aren’t any watchers listed, and when you click into the listing, there aren’t any watchers listed. So, if you were to end your research there, you’d think the card didn’t have any watchers, but there is still one more resource to check.
Go to watchcount.com and then plug in the title of the listing into the search bar. This is what you’ll see:
Voila—Watch Count reports 3 watchers on the listing; the same listing that didn’t have any watcher information reported on eBay.
