eBay

deebeecollectiblesplus · ‎10-16-2015

i am ready to pull my hair out -I am trying everything and its just plain dead

grasshopperx · ‎10-17-2015

probably you are just not being shown in the search. I just checked a general search for my items and we are not there. No one can buy your nice items, unless they see them.

octochick · ‎10-17-2015

I also sell on Aunt Betsy and sales over there are super slow too. I was averaging at least 1-2 a week there for awhile then in the last few months I have had just 1 sale! It is really hard to say what it is exactly but I don't think it is just eBay. I am just glad this is just supplemental income for me.

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got_a_lot_to_sell · ‎10-17-2015

@grasshopperx wrote:
probably you are just not being shown in the search. I just checked a general search for my items and we are not there. No one can buy your nice items, unless they see them.

Why do you have three different locations? I can find all of your 13 listings under Best Match and Nearest First, but they're available from three different states.

I'd say volume is part of the problem, but it never was before Spring 2014 and hasn't made a dam bit of difference since either.

thevintagefarmer · ‎10-17-2015

Depressing???That was last week. This week? More like suicidal.

rusticscents · ‎10-17-2015

I have been selling for years and there are slow times. Usually the last couple weeks are slow in October for me I think that many people are busy with getting ready for Halloween and many outdoor activites are going on in the Fall after October it picks up again.

Rustic Scents

sin-n-dex · ‎10-17-2015

@drfrankensynth wrote:
Cut your prices by 1/4 and see what happens.

If you cannot afford to do that, then you paid too much.

You make your profit when you buy, not when you sell.

My business partner agrees with your perspective.

I usually do 10-20% on a sale. Sometimes we paid too much, we put those coins in the showcase for people to look at while they're waiting their turn to be seen at our counters. You'd be amazed at what goes out of there. He just said there's too much stuff collecting dust the back room (and some items too valuable to put in books for people to handle when we're busy), that it's better on eBay.

One might say "you list a $200 coin someone might steal it". Someone might steal ONE coin, it happens. In the store, someone might steal one coin every single day, and there's not enough space under glass for all the items we have. At a show we could lose thousands, there's no real security. Customers in the BM store get to handle the stuff that cost us less than $10. What we get if it sells varies.

And sadly we have many $400-$1000 coins in the back room that I'm too scared to list, but pretty certain I can sell (to the right buyer for the right price).

C.

onesweetfind · ‎10-17-2015

@drfrankensynth wrote:
Cut your prices by 1/4 and see what happens.

If you cannot afford to do that, then you paid too much.

You make your profit when you buy, not when you sell.

Uh, already done that, unfortunately, more than 25% if you add it up. I just keep lowering them. Handmade necklaces and other jewelry that were original priced well over a hundred in the gallery, marked at $13.99 on up and still not selling. One brand new bracelet I have with sterling silver beads would cost more to buy the beads and make it than what I have it priced at. Sure, I could take it apart and sell the beads, but those aren't selling either, even though my prices are super low in comparison with others.

The views just aren't there. For instance, a lot of times the first 1 to 5 people who view an item mark it as watching, so I'm thinking my prices are good, but you need more than 5 people typically before you get a sale.

keziak · ‎10-17-2015

I had good sales over the past holiday weekend but other than that it's been deadly dull and boring. OTOH having fewer packages to mail means it's more feasible to take them into the Post Office to get them scanned right away. Usually I go to the loading dock where packages are not religiously scanned upon receipt.

sin-n-dex · ‎10-17-2015

@onesweetfind wrote:

@drfrankensynth wrote:
Cut your prices by 1/4 and see what happens.

If you cannot afford to do that, then you paid too much.

You make your profit when you buy, not when you sell.
Uh, already done that, unfortunately, more than 25% if you add it up. I just keep lowering them. Handmade necklaces and other jewelry that were original priced well over a hundred in the gallery, marked at $13.99 on up and still not selling. One brand new bracelet I have with sterling silver beads would cost more to buy the beads and make it than what I have it priced at. Sure, I could take it apart and sell the beads, but those aren't selling either, even though my prices are super low in comparison with others.

The views just aren't there. For instance, a lot of times the first 1 to 5 people who view an item mark it as watching, so I'm thinking my prices are good, but you need more than 5 people typically before you get a sale.

Jewellery is the most difficult and one of the worst to get into. I don't sell jewellery on this account (actually I don't sell jewellery on any account, but I have some listed on ebay.ca).

I used to sell sterling jewellery at the market in my city. On one side of me was a woman from Central America selling Mexican fake silver (all stamped, no real silver) with glass "stones". I used to snicker every time a customer called her a crook for selling metal and glass for $30. On the other side of me was a woman from Turkey who bought silver fill and silver plate stuff from China and passed it off as sterling (also stamped, she said "it has a stamp, see, so it must be real).

Those two vendors did me in. People would tell me my prices are too low to be silver. They'd compare the silver necklaces in packaging that hadn't oxidized with their tarnished chains they were wearing and tell me my silver is too shiny to be real silver. I used to put vintage charms (salvaged from scrap jewellery brought into the BM store) on sterling chains I paid $7 each for. I bought 200 several years ago when silver was a good price and I'm still trying to sell necklaces made from them for about $15. (So in the end, $5 profit on each sale, if no other expenses). I was lucky to see two of these walk away from my market stall in the same Saturday.

There's reall no way to educate people about why your items are genuine and how to spot fakes, because fakes have become so commonplace out there that everyone thinks they're buying the stuff you sell from someone for a much lower price. I can't tell you how many people called me a rip off artist for trying to make $5 on a $15 sale. (The favourite claim I heard was "I can buy real silver chains from the PRC for $1 each on eBay". I have restraint, the market is a public place. Otherwise I'd say "sorry honey, that ain't silver." No need to escalate matters. One vendor got tossed for yelling loudly at two kids that stole stuff and mom helped.)

So believe me, you have my deepest sympathy for trying to make a living among all that.

Cheers, C.

harris-house · ‎10-17-2015

i have searched my items-- they do not come up. When I do google... etsy comes up way way ahead of ebay...

gopetersen · ‎10-17-2015

onesweetfind wrote: "Handmade necklaces and other jewelry that were original priced well over a hundred in the gallery, marked at $13.99 on up and still not selling..."

Except for unique or trendy items, the jewelry market is hard hit by the FLOOD of cheap jewelry from Asia (China, Thailand, India).

They are selling about 60 pendants, brooches, chains & earrings per minute (not counting watches and findings). That's one per second through most of the day, many of them for less than $3.

That's about 65,000 per day, about 24 million per year. And that's just eBay. The numbers are higher on the River and there's also bEtsy and other sites.

So, American consumers buy more than 100 million jewelry items per year from major online venues and have been getting used to cheap prices from Asian sellers over the last five years or so. How long before everyone has so much jewelry they don't want any more (or their buying slows substantially)? I used to buy jewelry as gifts for my relatives but I've stopped doing that because they've bought so much for themselves, they don't know what to do with it all.

onesweetfind · ‎10-17-2015

@sin-n-dex wrote:
@onesweetfind wrote:

@drfrankensynth wrote:
Cut your prices by 1/4 and see what happens.

If you cannot afford to do that, then you paid too much.

You make your profit when you buy, not when you sell.
Uh, already done that, unfortunately, more than 25% if you add it up. I just keep lowering them. Handmade necklaces and other jewelry that were original priced well over a hundred in the gallery, marked at $13.99 on up and still not selling. One brand new bracelet I have with sterling silver beads would cost more to buy the beads and make it than what I have it priced at. Sure, I could take it apart and sell the beads, but those aren't selling either, even though my prices are super low in comparison with others.

The views just aren't there. For instance, a lot of times the first 1 to 5 people who view an item mark it as watching, so I'm thinking my prices are good, but you need more than 5 people typically before you get a sale.
Jewellery is the most difficult and one of the worst to get into. I don't sell jewellery on this account (actually I don't sell jewellery on any account, but I have some listed on ebay.ca).

I used to sell sterling jewellery at the market in my city. On one side of me was a woman from Central America selling Mexican fake silver (all stamped, no real silver) with glass "stones". I used to snicker every time a customer called her a crook for selling metal and glass for $30. On the other side of me was a woman from Turkey who bought silver fill and silver plate stuff from China and passed it off as sterling (also stamped, she said "it has a stamp, see, so it must be real).

Those two vendors did me in. People would tell me my prices are too low to be silver. They'd compare the silver necklaces in packaging that hadn't oxidized with their tarnished chains they were wearing and tell me my silver is too shiny to be real silver. I used to put vintage charms (salvaged from scrap jewellery brought into the BM store) on sterling chains I paid $7 each for. I bought 200 several years ago when silver was a good price and I'm still trying to sell necklaces made from them for about $15. (So in the end, $5 profit on each sale, if no other expenses). I was lucky to see two of these walk away from my market stall in the same Saturday.

There's reall no way to educate people about why your items are genuine and how to spot fakes, because fakes have become so commonplace out there that everyone thinks they're buying the stuff you sell from someone for a much lower price. I can't tell you how many people called me a rip off artist for trying to make $5 on a $15 sale. (The favourite claim I heard was "I can buy real silver chains from the PRC for $1 each on eBay". I have restraint, the market is a public place. Otherwise I'd say "sorry honey, that ain't silver." No need to escalate matters. One vendor got tossed for yelling loudly at two kids that stole stuff and mom helped.)

So believe me, you have my deepest sympathy for trying to make a living among all that.

Cheers, C.

Thank you, C.

It just astonishes me people are able to get away with that type of thing. Even if you don't have something to test it at hand, the fake stuff can be pretty obvious. Then again, China is getting better and better at producing believable fake silver, especially when it comes to "collectible" coins, in which case, a magnet often comes in handy. Buyers just don't seem to understand, China can't get real silver any cheaper than we can, so those 99-cent-with-free-shipping jewelry pieces cannot be genuine. Do they think China is magically mining it, but not asking market price of the next person in their supply chain?

Ugh. I'm thinking of going back to making and selling digital graphics files on Betsy. Also a flooded market, but at least I don't have to buy anything, just invest time.

onesweetfind · ‎10-17-2015

Sadly, that is too true, gopetersen.

sin-n-dex · ‎10-17-2015

@onesweetfind wrote:

Thank you, C.

It just astonishes me people are able to get away with that type of thing. Even if you don't have something to test it at hand, the fake stuff can be pretty obvious. Then again, China is getting better and better at producing believable fake silver, especially when it comes to "collectible" coins, in which case, a magnet often comes in handy. Buyers just don't seem to understand, China can't get real silver any cheaper than we can, so those 99-cent-with-free-shipping jewelry pieces cannot be genuine. Do they think China is magically mining it, but not asking market price of the next person in their supply chain?

Ugh. I'm thinking of going back to making and selling digital graphics files on Betsy. Also a flooded market, but at least I don't have to buy anything, just invest time.

What China became the first to produce was "silver fill" There was no such thing on the market at the time those chains started being sold on eBay. There was always either "plated" or "real", but with China's silver fill, the silver never came off the chain to reveal it as electroplated. When I got my batch of chains (because I was naive enough in 2004 to think I'd save money buying from China instead of from the USA where they get them from somewhere in Asia, you know, cut out the middle man). I took a saw to one of the chains and did not like the brassy coloured core. (We did try many measures to remove the plating, including scraping the chain). To make sure I saw correctly, I took cutters and went through the big lobster clasp and I proved it correctly, silver-fill. We did lots of tests on different types of chains to see how they behave, and the Turkish lady's customers who bought silver fill chains from her never complained, but when she got silver plate in one order she had tons of complaining customers. She told all her customers that I was her silver supplier and that I sold her a bunch of fakes. I complained to the market owners, but they did nothing about it. It's hard for me to describe a fake to my customers because I don't have fakes, and even in Mexico where I had the opportunity to get them, I wasn't paying $100 for a fake charm that might have $5 in silver in it, if it were real.

As for the collectable coins, I was in Vietnam in 2010 and a guy on the street was trying to sell me one for $50. I offered him $5 and he was very happy to accept. Wait a minute, he is willing to take $5 for a coin that can be melted for $15? Can't be real. I refused the transaction. Later on that week I went to a museum and found a bunch of fakes in their boutique that they were selling for $2 a piece (and admitted they were not real coins, but they were not too obvious either).

We get fake coins in the BM store. Usually they come in, in an unscrutinized collection. Since the prices on unchecked stuff is usually lowball, as we don't know what we're really getting when we buy it, the existance of the occasional fake is not a big problem. The BM store has an appraiser that weighs and tests coins and scrutinizes anything that looks weird. I'm the last line of defense to look at it before it get listed, but I have confidence that it's checked out before I get it.

Cheers, C.

andrewabroad · ‎10-19-2015

I've been selling on ebay for 10 years and right now seems like the slowest it's ever been. I think that younger people are not very interested in antiques, collectibles, or other things that are not tech gadgets.