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Minimum order amount
Why does ebay not allow sellers to set a minimum order amount? It's so dumb that I have to fill these small orders for 99 cents. They should let set a minimum order amount so that I don't have to deal with these small orders that don't make me any money or even lose money. Their customer service said to add a shipping fee. This would work in theory but would destroy your search impressions. When is this company going to start to do ANYTHING that makes sense
99 comments
kh-cathy
·1 year agoHi everyone,
Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.
Thank you for understanding.
gloryglorygifts
·1 year agoEbay actually does have a minimum, if you think about it. You can't list an item for anything less than $.99. That IS their minimum order.
You are the one that is selling items for $.99, not ebay. Why not just sell items at the lowest prices that you are willing to sell items at? If $5 is your minimum, then don't sell anything under that. Ebay can't do everything for us.
gone.c-33
·2 years agoWe get it you’re angry, but it’s 2024, no one uses the r slur anymore.
brightlightbookseller
·2 years agoFortunately it's been edited out of their post by the mods.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoThere’s a reason their stock price is always lagging compared to the market and they don’t grow. And that reason is they are **bleep** **bleep**ed
turtles-trading-post
·2 years agoI get your question, I think some folks did not. You are asking why you can't set a minimum dollar order of multiple 99 cent items, not that eBay should say you can only list an item for $2 or more. I go to stamp websites where it's $10 minimum order, you'd like to be able to do that.
I am in a similar collectors market, I sell covers to stamp collectors. In this kind of market the big thing is the number of followers you have, who then order on a regular basis. The big stamp sellers I benchmarked had thousands of followers. So things like penny auctions work for them. I only have 256 followers, and already my business is 30-40% repeat customers. And they order multiple items weekly to monthly.
I also fish in the low end of the collectibles field, with that same goal of people buying multiple items. I started out with 99 cent items, then once I learned about Send Offers, I raised my minimum to $1.29. That allowed me to offer 20% off on an item and still get $1.04 It didn't seem to affect sales at all.
Recently I moved my minimum to $1.39 per item (I upgrade listings the extra 10 cents when I do Sell Similar on them), and reduced my offer to 12% which gives me $1.14 for that once 99 cent item. Again, people seem to love a sale no matter how little! I run impromptu sales of 10%-15%-20% off multiple item sales. I have a coupon codes I give to people for discounts other times. I had a guy message me that he wanted to buy a dozen items, so I sent him a code for 15% off his order. He ordered 15 items this morning.
I do not do free shipping. I charge $1 shipping in USA, no matter how much you buy. I get $1.50 for International, with an extra quarter per item. When folks order a single item for $1.39-$1.99 they pay that dollar shipping. If they buy a dozen items, I'm still covered. If they buy 50 (which some do) I'm happy to kick in for postage!
As a stamp dealer, I buy my postage for 50-60% off face value. I don't mean the counterfeit Chinese stamps. I buy them from stamp dealers who bought large collections. So my cost to ship a single First day cover is 3 cents for the envelope, 3 cents for the filler card with my thank you stamp on it, my postage average out to 40 cents. I don't care about eBay shipping or tracking. Nor do most of the competitors. Add in the 30 cents for eBay transaction, and I'm at 76 cents total cost. Right now the eBay 14% is another 30 cents putting me at $1.06 per order. When I started offering the $1 postage 3 years ago I was making a few cent... postage has gone up quite a bit1
I don't rely 100% on the $1.39 items. I have a bunch of $1.99 items, and as of the first of this year I started concentrating on higher priced sets of items, which can run $4.99 to $100 or more.
You do need to benchmark your closest competitors. If you see one making a killing on penny auctions, you will find he has 6000 followers! In the meantime set up a plan like mine that allows you to make a few dollars! This is slow in the summer but I'm at $1232 the past 30 days. My goal is $2000 a month during the indoor months.
I do have some ideas on how to improve your business, but that was not the question. I did look at your inventory, your store and what's shown under ended items. If you'd like me to share my thoughts, let me know.
albertabrightalberta
·2 years agoWe understand exactly what @rmv5555 is asking. He wants to list cheap items but tell buyers they can't buy them unless they also purchase x-number of dollars of additional items. And that's not how ebay works.
No one suggested that the OP should only list items that are $2 or more, but instead, doing as he's doing (1-cent and 99-cent auctions) will be losses.
Clearly, the OP came here to gripe and didn't want to hear constructive criticism.
I wish the OP the best when he takes his business elsewhere.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoIt doesnt matter evay is too **bleep**ed to do something this helpful
rmv5555
OP2 years agoIn the words of tropic thunder you never go full **bleep**. Which eBay is definitely full **bleep**
reallynicestamps
·2 years agoI started out with 99 cent items, then once I learned about Send Offers, I raised my minimum to $1.29. That allowed me to offer 20% off on an item and still get $1.04 It didn't seem to affect sales at all.
...
As a stamp dealer, I buy my postage for 50-60% off face value. I don't mean the counterfeit Chinese stamps. I buy them from stamp dealers who bought large collections.
...
I don't rely 100% on the $1.39 items.
All excellent points for the seller of low value items, where the customer is price conscious.
But even the cheapskate is susceptible to a perceived bargain.
There are many stamp dealers on eBay who also sell discount postage. Look for those who are selling collectible stamps and as Turtle says, buy them as part of large collections or estates.
Having cheap items is nice to pull in the punters, but the profit is in higher value items which pack and ship for the same cost in labour and packaging.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoYou can’t fix stupid no which is what this site is
rmv5555
OP2 years agoYes finally someone gets it. I wish eBay did too
onefootflipper
·2 years agoThe entire 99 cent card market is based on two faulty ideas.
The first is card stores that feel like they need to put every aspect of their business online, including the junk box.
The second is just the unwillingness to change as the world changes.
If you did it right you used to be able to have 40 cents left over from that 99 cents shipped trading card (buying bulk stamps below face value, paypal microtransactions account, etc), and that 40 cents was worth twice as much as it is today. And Timmy working at the card store could manage it all during dead periods when he wasn't going to be doing anything anyway and his $6 an hour salary was otherwise doing nothing.
However over the years the selling price never changed, while the cost to sell at that price continually increased. To the point where it is today where every 99 cent order is a minimum of a 31 cent dead loss, which is only counting for ebay fees, postage and 15 cents for supplies and cost of good. Totally ignoring any other overhead the business has, much less any labor cost. That doesn't work anymore. In the physical card store in which that nickel box brings in browsers who might buy other things (most often supplies), but that effect just doesn't work on ebay.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoGoing to marketplace and whatnot. Done giving this idiot company any of my money
reallynicestamps
·2 years agoI agree.
When we had a B&M shop, we had a table near the door of Big Box'o'Fun lots priced between $10 and $250.
Nothing of great value, just a box from shoe box to banker's box,with the odds and ends from recently purchased estates after the value had been stripped.
There were usually about 20on the table, and we sold between two and ten every day.
But.
They were the junk and commons, no pretense at anything else.
We had no money in them since we paid for other parts of the estate.
Sometimes if a box had been on the table too long, we dumped the contents into another box.
We also had an old guy who would make up "nickel books " for us, putting single stamps into stockbooks that customers could choose from. He was a volunteer, btw, and we liked his company. Even there, we eventually had to raise the price from nickel books to dime books because our overhead rose. He volunteered with us for years until he died.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoI could do that. No one would ever see the listings though probably. Keep them up for a month and if I don’t get any hits I’ll just add them to the upcoming fire
johnrj1226
·2 years agoNow that's not the PMA you need to be successful. Kinda like I'm going to pick-up my ball and bat and go home.
momtoabeautifuldaughter
·2 years agoIt sucks to you because you are selling cheap little items. On the other hand I am happy as a clam with my sales......
johnrj1226
·2 years agoSeem to me that the seller need to determine the best way to make money. eBay just provides the venue and various option to pick to sell your stuff. When I sold on eBay never selected the "recommendation" that eBay presented. For example, eBay when I first started selling in 2080. eBay encouraged folks to offer "free shipping as it would increase sales by 11%. They never proved that claim. But year after year they promoted that 11% claim which is highly unlikley as %ages do not stay the same they go up or down. Never did offer "free shipping". My rationale:
1. In the case of a "remorse" return one could not exclude the shipping/handling portion.
2. One of the well known secretes for successful selling is getting shoppers to stop and read what your item is about vs some others. A few key factors are and attractive key photo that shows most of the product but not all - I call it the "show me the leg approach".
3. Your item price would be about 20% lower than a competitor by 20%. The third factor is to take as many good quality pics to describe your item and tell a story about your product - use all 12 if necessary don't skimp - they are "free". Yeah it takes more time and effort - but hard work never hurt anybody. Slackers earn lower sales results. 4. Make a shopper to "almost feel" your product. Your written description needs to short and sweet and to the point (benefits).
5. Avoid writing descriptions and conditions of sale that resemble the writing of "Gone With The Wind" or "Mein Kampf" people won't read it and more than like they will do the "walk on by" and go on and shop your competitors.
6. Avoid meaningless market puffery with words like Awesome, Outstanding, Heavy duty - just write or "gime me the facts and nothing but the facts"
7. Last thing to remember. IBM, a very successful company, trained their sales organization that they had 3 minutes or less to close the deal.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoeBay sucks
johnrj1226
·2 years agoNo one is holding you captive - it is what you make it within the policy and procedures of eBay's User Agreement. You don't need to pay one thing not even a "Yankee Dime" if YOU DON"T SELL one thing. You picked the products to sell - trading cards sellers have been around since Hector was a pup and tons of competition out there. A successful fisherman/woman don't go fishing where all the other fisher persons are. eBay did not promise you a rose garden
rmv5555
OP2 years agoeBay sucks
brightlightbookseller
·2 years agoAs noted, no one is forcing you to stay here. Being rude to the other sellers trying to help you is just going to mean you get no help at all, and if you don't listen to the wise advice you've been given, you'll continue to have orders where you lose money, and it will be no one's fault but your own. Not ours, not eBay's: yours.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoEbay is dumb
brightlightbookseller
·2 years agoThank you for continuing to spam the boards with your anger. Please take down your 8,500+ listings if you're so sure of this.
johnrj1226
·2 years agoYour sales volume is just fine. BUT you need to learn how to make a profit. It is not an eBay issue You picked the how, what, where and who (as in you) to sell., the HOW is up to you. eBay clearly defined their procedures and policies for their forum
rmv5555
OP1 year agoI didn't know you had access to my financial data? That's crazy. I also don't care about your opinion
albertabrightalberta
·2 years agoSays the person (in more than 1 post) who has over 8500 listings.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoIt does suck. I had 17k last week. And by end of next mont have 0 on this stupid platform
momtoabeautifuldaughter
·2 years agoHow about not selling things for 99 cents?
rmv5555
OP2 years agoyou don't understand what I'm doing and that's ok
momtoabeautifuldaughter
·2 years agoI kind of do and kind of don't understand.
I see you have a $5 off 10 items coupon. Let's say I win 10 items on bid at 50 cents each does that mean my order is completely free?
onefootflipper
·2 years agoIf you want to switch to gaming cards then TCGplayer customers will actually buy multiple cards to get to $5 free shipping, and it is an ebay company so I don't think mentioning it breaks any rules.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoI've sold a few things on there. They are way better to use than eBay. I just don't have enough gaming cards nor do I know anything about them like I do sports cards
onefootflipper
·2 years agoGaming cards are honestly a way better category. My old boss opened a baseball card store in 1999, today he has a Magic/Pokemon/yugioh store that fills 5 slots of a 6 slot strip mall with one little corner that does sports. He doesn't play or care about any of those games but they started beating the sports card money from the second one of his guys got him to start carrying them.
rmv5555
OP2 years agointeresting
rmv5555
OP2 years agoThat's also comical they run that company so well meanwhile this one is trainwreck dumpster fire
onefootflipper
·2 years agoYou can list 300 cards per hour, so what. Does it matter how many items that sell at a loss that you can list per hour.
You lose 17 cents on every order assuming a 5 cent cost of goods/supplies. If somehow all your envelopes and sleeves and labels are free then you only lose 12 cents per order.
If 10 percent of those sell and if you are really fast and could pack 30 of those suckers per hour you could lose $10 an hour.
The best thing you could do with those cards is either throw them directly in the garbage or use them as packing material for cards of value that do sell.
I have already made the mistakes you are making right now. Since they are already listed that is a sunk cost. If you want to try to salvage that then raise the price of all your cheap cards to 1.99 plus 84 cents shipping. They are worth pulling and shipping at that price. Anything lower and you are doing better just working at McDonalds.
You are wasting your time chasing pennies down sewer drains instead of earning dollars.
And there is literally NOTHING you can do to get the average cheap card customer to purchase more than 1 card at a time on ebay. I have put my 10,000 card store buy 1 get 1 free and 90 percent of the customers did not take the free card.
Looking at your store you sold 284 cards for real money in the last 90 days and 601 cards that you shipped out at a dead loss and 84 in that inbetween zone between $2 and $3 shipped which will pay the salary of the kid working at the card store but still is barely worth dealing with.
What if you just hadn't listed any of the ones under $3 in the first place?
rmv5555
OP2 years agoYep. Closing up the store on end of August. Whatever is left goes to bonfire night. That'll feel awesome high on cocaine and drunk as well
onefootflipper
·2 years agoWhen I was a card specialist my monthly sales doubled within one month of not listing bottom of the barrel cards anymore.
A 99 cent shipped card loses 17 cents.
$2 shipped makes 72 cents.
$3 shipped makes 1.60
$4 shipped makes 2.48
Time yourself, how fast can you fulfill those orders? I can do about 24 per hour. The fastest guy at the card shop I used to work at could do 30. The larger you scale the longer it takes to fill orders as there are more bins.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoyep I'm just going to get rid of it. I hate doing it. Going to try and sell everything by Sept 1st and burn whatever is left
pjcdn2005
·2 years agoYou could charge a minimal amount for shipping and then set up your promotions manager to have free shipping with a minimum purchase of $xx or a minimum of 5 cards or something similar. That would encourage buyers to purchase more than one card.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoYes except I'd get destroyed in search results because everyone sorts by lowest price + shipping
reallynicestamps
·2 years agoYes except I'd get destroyed in search results because everyone sorts by lowest price + shipping
So instead you get destroyed by selling cards singly for less than it costs you for procurement, LABOUR*, packaging and shipping?
Interesting business plan.
Not every sale is worth having.
*Minimum wage here is 29c a minute. Do you have that much profit at the end of each day?
rmv5555
OP2 years agoyes because I have 9-10 people use the coupon everyday. Which makes probably $100 or so. If I could make everyone use the coupon or have a minimum order I'd make even more. If I change my prices I'll make less because less will use the coupon.
onefootflipper
·2 years agoA little math done on your number of sales shows that if 9-10 people a day were using your coupon then it would be 100 percent of your orders. Looking at your feedback left it looks way closer to 5-10 percent of your orders are using the coupon. Which is the same sort of results I got with card coupons and every other card seller I know has gotten.
rmv5555
OP2 years agook sounds good
mam98031
·2 years agoThat is part of the problem. You want to "make everyone use the coupon" and you simply won't consider any other alternative. Certainly your right to do that. Many have tried to help you. I think you are just looking for a way out. Which is also fine, you have every right to quit whenever you want.
FYI Make sure you know when your store subscription ends [unless you are on a month to month] so that you don't get hit with cancellation fees for closing the store early.
rmv5555
OP2 years agook great. please stop replying i don't care
redlinear
·2 years agoLots of 25 for $20 would cure that
rmv5555
OP2 years agothat's true but they take forever to move. and it's way harder to decide what 20 items that 1 buyer wants to buy are. It'd be better for both parties if they could pick the exact cards they wanted. and just have to pick x amount of $ worth.
mam98031
·2 years agoWell that is a bit confusing. If you don't want to fill small $$ value orders, don't set your listings up that way. If you aren't making any money on them, then YOU are not pricing them correctly.
1 cent auctions is not a good business plan, especially with free shipping.
99 cent fixed price listings with free shipping is another bad business policy.
Those types of listings was something lots of sellers did a decade or two ago. They are no longer a viable business plan. You should not list for less than what something costs you to sell it to the buyer. That is a recipe for disaster.
Are your search impressions more important to you than making money? You may need to revisit your priorities too.
What would help is to increase your item price, charge a shipping charge and then offer Combined Shipping savings. State that in all your listings so your buyers know you will give them a discount on the shipping if they buy multiple items
rmv5555
OP2 years agoIf they let me set a minimum order then customers could pick out the exact cards they wanted. I wouldn't have to sell lots of cards hoping someone wants that exact lot. Or artificially inflate the price with shipping that would kill my search impressions. It'd be a win win
mam98031
·2 years agoYet that is simply NOT an option on Ebay. You need to learn to work within the rules and tools this site offers if you want to sell here.
I never said you were wrong to want this option. I said it doesn't exist on this site. You are always free to contact Ebay and put in your suggestion if you want.
https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/member-behavior-policies/unsolicited-idea-submissions-policy?id=4256
rmv5555
OP2 years agocombined shipping is a nightmare I'm never going back to that. the other stuff you're saying makes sense though. the 99 cent listing do make me money whenever they buy in bulk. If I lot them up or artificially add a shipping charge then my search impressions and sales plummet. The most helpful thing would be ebay letting me set a checkout minimum so I could sell cards for what they are worth and the buyer could pick out exactly what they want. But that's never happening so I'm probably just going to take all my cards worth less than $2 and set them on fire. That'd be enjoyable at least and it'd be a huge step in getting off this platform
mam98031
·2 years agoI'm not sure why it is a nightmare for you. I've used it for all the years I've been selling. It works great for me.
Let's say you sell 15 different items to one buyer. Send them an invoice to contain combined shipping. It doesn't have to be an overly complicated thing. Lets say shipping on the first item is $1.00 and 25 cents for each additional card. Shipping would be $4.50.
You are only hurting yourself with these penny auctions and free shipping. Or 99 cent listings with free shipping. You are self inflicting issues that don't need to be there. You have the power to fix it. Your buyers will follow, give them a little time to adjust and they will be fine.
kensgiftshop
·2 years agoSince you have a store, can't you set it up to where if they buy so many of the $0.99 cards, they get a little discount?
rmv5555
OP2 years agoYes I have a $5 of 10 coupon which no one uses hardly.
gone.c-33
·2 years agoKind of brings to mind that old joke:
Patient: Doctor, it hurt when I do this.
Doctor: Stop doing that.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoyou're not following but that's ok
12345jamesstamps
·2 years agoHow do you know if buyer clicking on your site looking at .99 cent items but in fact makes a purchase of say 20 bucks instead but those .99 cents items drew a buyer to your site.
And I do sell .99 cent items with free shipping and I do make a small profit...and wouldn't adding a 'repeat buyer' who sometimes make purchases over .99 be a 'profit'?
slippinjimmy
·2 years agoAll good reasons to do it but still not a good reason to come here and complain about how it's not worth it.
12345jamesstamps
·2 years agoTotally worth for me to sell items for .99 cents.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoI have thousands of 99 cent items. The best way to sell them would be to list individually and let the collector pick out exactly what they want. But that backfires for me unless they use a coupon on buy multiple. If they let me set a minimum order amount it'd solve all that. Buyers would get exactly what they wanted and I wouldn't waste time on small orders
albertabrightalberta
·2 years agoWouldn't variation listings accomplish what you're wanting to do? Buyer picks from multiple items in ONE LISTING. They can pick and choose.
https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/creating-managing-listings/multiquantity-listings-listings-variations?id=4150
onefootflipper
·2 years agoIt still doesn't work.
If you ever want to plow 2 solid days of work into creating a listing that will get $8 worth of sales and is very hard to update then make one of those variation listings with every single card in the set like some sellers do.
Experienced customers hate variation listings because almost invariably the item you want is out of stock, the item you want is overpriced, or the listing is seeded with a very cheap garbage item in order to show a lower price in the price range. Eventually you just stop clicking on them.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoVariation listings suck even more. I’d still have to make a million and the software don’t 300 an hour like individual
rmv5555
OP2 years agoNo those are dumb af and take a million years to make.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoit is when they buy multiples
rmv5555
OP2 years agoTotally worth for me to learn grammar
rmv5555
OP2 years agoI could care less anymore about this store. ebay has been a nightmare. all my efforts are towards firesaling what I have to and getting off of here and on to another site
mam98031
·2 years agoYou are making it a nightmare by not working within the tools and rules of the site. You want something the site does not offer. Stop that. Reset your mind and find a way to work within the site options and you will have less stress and likely make more money along with having happy buyers.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoThat could happen. It’d be easier if they just let me sell a minimum amount. You at least grasp the concept unlike the rest of the room
rmv5555
OP2 years agoI mean that's why I do it. But the amount of single item orders is 95% of the orders.
pickapaper
·2 years agoYou are a long time seller with great feedback. I don't know how long you have been selling low-dollar items but I'm surprised you would come on here and complain about something that you yourself have control over.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoIt’s just a dumb place to sell stuff. That’s what I’ve concluded and im
just going to close up and move on
albertabrightalberta
·2 years agoDon't forget to end those 8500+ active listings before you move on!
rmv5555
OP2 years agoI can't set a minimum order amount. Thus I don't have control over it
evry1nositswindy
·2 years agoPlus you have $5 off 10 items. At those low prices, you will be giving away cards.
rmv5555
OP2 years agoA $5 card shipped for 70 cents is ok
monroe67
·2 years agoTrying to find a bright side . . . . . .
that Ted Williams card has been bid up to Six whole Cents now.
Congratulations ??
slippinjimmy
·2 years agoThe only B2C sites that have a minimum order size are those that offer Free Shipping is you order more than x amount. Those sites still don't have a hard minimum, if you only want a single $2 item then you will be paying for shipping.
Nobody is forcing you to offer items for 99 cents, nobody is forcing you to offer these 99 cent listings WITH Free Shipping, nobody if forcing you to offer a $5 coupon if you buy 10 of these 99 cent listings with free shipping.
I have thousands of items in reserve that are not worth more than a couple of Dollars, since there is no profit in that I don't and probably never will list them for sale (maybe one day as part of bulk lots).
kensgiftshop
·2 years agoYou're the one that decided to list them for $0.99.
I agree it's dumb to fill $0.99 orders, so don't do it.
You're complaining about eBay's suggestion to sell at $0.99 when you have auctions starting at $0.01 with free shipping??
Yeah .. that makes more sense🙄
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoFirst it would be detrimental for eBay to set a minimum since that would result in reducing their revenue. If you are loosing money that is on you, adjust your cost models, bundle items, quit selling $.99 items. You have more control over your listings and sales than eBay does.
rmv5555
OP2 years agobundling sports cards makes them even harder to sell. it's better just to let the buyer pick out exactly what they want.
burbankshouseofhobbies
·1 year agoAfter ebay fees, packaging and labor I lose money on single items below $5.00. I have Items that have MSRPs, that's what I have to charge, if i charge more, i dont sell them. So, no, I don't have more control over that because I would like a $5 minimum order, or, ebay doesn't charge me fees - and I can't do either of those things.
frodobagginskennedy
·2 years agowhy do you waste your time even listing something for .99 cents?
rmv5555
OP2 years agoWith my scanner and software I can list 300 cards an hours. So it's worth my time. It'd be worth my time even more if I could guarantee a minimum order amount without adding shipping or artificially inflating my prices. If I do it their way I don't get the search impressions and my sales plummet
mam98031
·2 years agoYou need to accept that this is NOT going to happen. Instead of keep insisting this is your ONLY way to be successful learn to work within the tools that ARE available to you. You are so fixed on this that you can't see there are other ways to make money within the current set of rules. Stop being so myopic and open up your mind to new ideas that ARE available to you.
inhawaii
·2 years agoWhy don't you not sell things for 99 cents?
chariot_badges
·2 years agoGasp ... freedom of choice?
LoL
Yer not from around here, are ya?
inhawaii
·2 years agoFreedom of choice is a wonderful thing.
The op has a choice to sell their items for 1 cent, 99 cents, or whatever they want.
But then to come here and complain about it, calling it "dumb" is kind of strange.