Do "long tail" items affect overall store sales?

[hoosier*mama]

I'm interested to know any thoughts on this.  I have about 2,080 items.  All the typical items such as collectables, clothes, shoes - pretty much anything and everything.  

The store has the "top seller" rating, and 100% feedback.  I list on a daily basis, and do all the recommended maintenance such as upkeep of older items.  

My concern is this - I have about 680 Life Magazines in the inventory as well.  Given these are very "long tailed" items, is the entire store penalized and brought down in the algorithm?  I typically sell only two or three a day, no matter how much I increase my inventory.  I'd appreciate any thoughts or feedback on this.  I've wondered if moving the magazines to a separate store would help pick up sales.  

[siamjane8]

Over the years we have noticed that eBay imposes not disclosed selling limits on the amount that sellers can sell. No real growth is ever possible. Once you hit your allotment for the month you go down in search results placement to keep you within your monthly limit. Before this went into effect with the cassini algorithm years ago, we grew in sales month over month like clockwork. The more we listed the more we sold and grew. Since then...... We make the same amount of gross sales every month with 4000 listings as we did with 1500 listings. This is not organic and is not the way sales typically work and we can see the manipulation in the eBay charts and graphs. If we have a high dollar item sell- we will have no sales for several days until we are back on track to meet the sales limit "goal" for the month. We normally would sell 5-10 items per day 7 days a week.... Now it's sporatic.

eBay is in control of who sells what. 

[dhbookds]

No way to tell.........except remove them for a while and see what happens.......  I've always "thought" that too many items in a store discourages people from browsing, but since we have no traffic metrics on the store....again no way to tell.   I don't "think" the store has anything to do with algorithms...nor the # of items.....search has to be based on the items themselves...so what the other listings are shouldn't matter........until/if a buyer determines to look at other items..... 

[laststopgeneralstore]

No, it wont. It's all about what you are selling. You can increase your inventory all you want but if it's not good solid in demand items then your most likely not going to get sales. That being said, If you don't mind waiting a long time for those items to sell then go right ahead and list them. If you are only getting 2-3 sales per day with a 2k+ item store then I would consider either niching down or sourcing better inventory because that is a horrible daily sell thru even though, as a whole, online sales are down about 30% you should be selling at least 10 per day. I would go back and start fixing your titles, prices, photos etc... before going and listing more items. People don't realize how important those things are. I have just under 2300 items in my store & I'm averaging about 12 per day. Usually around Late August I'll pick back up and By Q4 thru mid Q1 I will average about 20 or more per day.

[mrsbmcv77]

Long-tail doesn't affect your flow at all.  Lots of high dollar sellers have had items in their stores for years.  If I had it to do over again, I'd have kept everything up instead of purging.  Of course, I would have to have a separate warehouse space by now.  Unless you have great speculation abilities, you can not truly tell when an item is going to hit or dip.  If it's not effecting your bottom line, just keep going.  

[gamersbaystore]

Supply and demand, not everyone wants a vintage life magazine. Try offering some sort of promotion, they do help to drive sales. I do buy 2 get 1 free promos with my media listings, it works, they often by 3 or more at a time. Why not do a buy 2 get 1 free with those magazines?

Given you have so much inventory to list, I recommend listing all of it first, then running sales promos afterwards. That's what I'm doing right now. Once I get all this new inventory listed, I will run a 15% or 20% off sale.

Competition has gotten really tough since ebay opened the flood gates to free listings galore for store subscribers. For example, my category limit for media related items is 50,000! Some sellers have inventories like that too. No doubt, there are more active listings on ebay today than anytime in history.

As for those Life Magazines, search results showed 110,000+ results. I sell DVD's, and there's an estimated 3,700,000 dvd results. This is what we have to compete with it.

[1tuna]

you seem to be doing OK but I am unsure how you feel

My theory is that a very active/successful seller can sell 10% of there inventory per month

that woud be 200 items a month.........it seems you have sold 90 items a month

in my mind thats a 5% sell thru rate per month which is still very good

if you want to keep the same rate you woud need to be listing 90 fresh items a month

keep in mind that its the fresh stuff that gets sold  before the older stuff

my theory is for used items only.I have never sold new items

@hoosier*mama 

[hoosier*mama]

Very, very much appreciate the feedback.  So, in your opinion, it is not my long tailed items holding back my sales?  And you would not advise breaking them out to sell in another store?  

[hoosier*mama]

Thanks for that input, too!  It's all very helpful information.  I'll try the buy two get one free idea (I've never tried that).  

[m60driver]

None of us is privy to Ebay's algorithms or how Ebay uses AI.  Thus, like all humans, we make up explanations for what we do not understand by creating things like sky gods and cargo cults.  My own totally unsubstantiated belief is that long tail items occasionally need to be ended and then relisted by using "sell similar".

[bashort]

I tend to think that none of it matters.

In my opinion ebay's programing as a whole is very crude compared to other online marketplaces and is basically uncapable of such sophisticated algorithms that would be required to factor in such things as how many long tail items you have.

[hoosier*mama]

Thank you!  What you're saying makes sense.  

[hoosier*mama]

Thank you for the input!  I'm just scratching my head at why...whether I have 200, 500, 1000, 1500, and now OVER 2000 - I STILL only get a half-dozen or less sales each day.  It's almost as if the store is being throttled and I see no obvious reason it would be. 

I've started taking my inventory to other platforms to see if I can move them there.  I have very little incentive to keep growing my eBay store when the number of sales each day just never grows.  Very disheartening.  

I welcome any other thoughts or ideas! 

[b86fiero]

Just a thought or two ......

Used to be the old adages "list more, sell more" and "the more you sell, the more eBay allows you to sell" because you were making money for eBay through final value fees were true.  Maybe not so much anymore. 

eBay has expanded its bottom line by generating promoted listing fees, managed payment fees, increased final value fees in some categories, focusing on high dollar items which generate higher final value fees, not to mention eBay receives a fee increase every time the USPS, UPS and FedEx raise their prices.  Low dollar items may not be receiving the same push as higher dollar items. 

eBay placated sellers who demanded more free listings for years with exactly that. I pay for a Premium store which gives me around 100,000 free listings.  Even if I hire an army of workers to photo and list all the merchandise I own I'll never use anywhere near that number. Drop shippers might. Given all the free listings the site is bloated with items, some of which will probably never sell.  However, since nobody knows when a buyer might happen along looking for that long tail item sellers are reluctant to remove them. I understand that and especially in the antique and vintage categories it is necessary.

And then there are desperate sellers looking to list anything and everything in hope of making some money.  Any money.

Over the past few years I have removed all of my listings for hardcover adult fiction books.  Nearly impossible to sell my bought new, read once books even through my price was $3 plus shipping.  Too many of the huge book sellers to compete with.  I removed my vintage needle work magazines and pattern books.  I also removed lots of new craft supply items and other brand new items.  Donated all to the Salvation Army.

As for your Life magazines, I feel the older collectors are literally dying off and few in the younger generations have a desire to collect and store large amounts of older magazines.  e-Readers are on a path to make printed material obsolete in the future.  Yes, older magazines should be preserved and enjoyed.  And yes, collectors are out there.  In some categories patience is a necessity. 

Have you tried bundling them into a years worth or other bundle size?  There is always the tv infomercial way of selling:  Pay $50 for this special collector issue and we'll give you all the issues from that year for free. 

Best of luck to you  🙂  

[monica-sells]

@b86fiero 

I enjoyed reading your advice.....well thought out and should give the OP, as well as anyone who takes a minute to read it, some insight into marketing "Life" Magazines (as well as other similar items)

Thanks...........