NO BIDS FOR 2 WEEKS
HI I WAS WONDERING IF ANYONE ELSE IS HAVING THIS ISSUE.I USUALLY HAVE 200 OR SO ITEMS LISTED AND USUALLY GET 20 BIDS OR SO WEEKLY, NOW I HAVE HAD 0 BIDS FOR 2 WEEKS NOW.I KNOW ITS THE SLOW TIME BUT NO SALE FROM BIDS FOR 2 WEEK IS FAR FROM NORMAL IN THE 20 PLUS YEARS IVE BEEN ON HERE.ANYONE ELSE SEEING THIS?
73 comments
kh-tuna
·7 months 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.
soh.maryl
·7 months agoGiven the age of your message, and the nature of your complaint, checked your current status and I see that you are still selling here.
It's really hard to predict what will sell and what won't. To me, cameras are somewhat of a luxury item.
Best wishes for successful selling.
buyselljack2016
·2 years agoDid not read all the way through so not sure if anyone else commented , but:
Checking your sold listings............ I see 25 + sales in the past 2 weeks, so to me your post lacks a bit of credibility.
arkworkincs
OP7 months agoi sell 200 a month
theteamsetguy
·7 months ago@arkworkincs ,
200 items or dollars per month? Many sellers that come here and post about their slow sales would would be jumping up and down with 200 sales per month.
movieman630
·2 years agoMy Grandfather loved trains. I hate to say it but the popularity of the "model train" has suffered in recent years. My Grandfather passed away in 2015 and with him the last person to collect anything train related in my family.
In my humble opinion you're too heavily focused on an over saturated category with a dwindling customer base.
Years ago my Mother had a dollhouse shop. She sold a lot of high end doll house furniture and accessories. But after the hobby started losing interest her business started to suffer. I told her back then, start expanding into becoming a hobby shop instead of just focused on dollhouses. She didn't, and her business had to close a couple years later.
Evolve or close. Is the sad reality in business. My advice is to expand into other kinds of items. Bundle non-sellers into lots and auction them off.
arkworkincs
OP2 years agolol I was selling jeans for years then I switched to trains 3 years ago I average 80 sales a month lots of seniors like myself still collect
movieman630
·2 years agoLol... I stopped wearing jeans about 15 years ago. Another thing that is evolving. My kids, hate jeans. It's not that there's no audience, there's a dwindling audience.
rock-obsessions
·2 years agoI have went over your page to possibly help to achieve a solution.. My assessment is like that of everyone else.. Auctions are a past exploit that has unfortunately left the building.. Also, as another said.. Feedback is super crucial.. The way you are coming back at customers is not going to go over very well these days, with the new customer perspective.. My dad sold on eBay for over 20 years as well and has recently gave it up, due to auction style listings and not want to change with the times. Everyone can be wrong, or you can take constructive criticism and move forward or you will sink..
Good Luck
stevescho
·2 years agoI suggest you turn off all caps on anything you write, and in every listing say you allow returns and offer combined shipping. That should improve your feedback and reduce complainers. Many buyers won't touch any seller under 99% positive feedback. Good luck.
Unavailable member
·2 years agoFWIW... i see 249 listings
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoGood I had someone tell me they saw 12. I have been looking at groupings of a specific items I’m selling and did see some discrepancies in count of what I have listed and what I’m seeing in searching. Especially items that don’t paint the picture of the item when I search on my phone. I’m trying to see if there is an issue in the software which looks like there could be
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoYou have sold 43 items in the last 90 days and I currently only see 12 items listed but that may simply be a timing issue on when I looked. I have seen a slow trend not only on eBay but my other sites as well but simply a LOT going on over the last couple of weeks to include: NCAA tourney's, spring break, total eclipse and of course income taxes filing deadline rapidly approaching.
Typical ups and downs of ecommerce. Wait till the Olympics start. 🙂
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoSo you only see 12 listings? I currently have 229 listed how did you determine only 12.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoSo you only see 12 listings? I currently have 229 listed how did you determine only 12.
Interesting, now I see 222.
rugerskick
·2 years agoHi,
People may not be collecting train items as much as they used to. They may not be spending as much on non-vital items.
Being almost all train items you've got a narrower segment of potential buyers.
Also most if not all your listings are auction style. It may have worked better for you in the past, its not as popular as it once was.
movieman630
·2 years agoYou bring up a good point. I rarely bid on auctions anymore. It has to be something I REALLY want for me to bid and I'll bid right up to the last second. But anymore I get discouraged on lots or items that I may have clicked the BIN button on if they don't offer that and it's auction style. ESPECIALLY with shipping calculated. I just won't do it. It's not worth my time to "be there" when it ends to make sure I get it.
I say at the very least start your auction listings with a BIN or BO option. Give someone the chance to just buy it and forget it. I don't want to have to set an alarm to come back and bid on something at 2 AM when it's just a "meh" kind of purchase.
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoeveryone of my offers are no
Unavailable member
·2 years agoJust one example - 6 bids on this item.
 
pastcache
·2 years agoI believe that is an example of what @arkworkincs means by sales with "bidS". It's sales that end higher than than the starting bid.
So going back 2 weeks from today there are about three, the prior 2 week period about 15.
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoThat’s correct
fashunu4eeuh
·2 years agoThere may be some kind of correlation between the manner in which you are handling unhappy buyers in your feedback responses, with the slowdown in bids you are currently experiencing.
Being defensive, or angry, name-calling/putdowns, and/or blaming behaviors do not showcase one’s customer service skills to great effect. Instead, it can lower the seller’s prestige in the eyes of the next buyer.
Arguably the most important audience one encounters in feedback is one’s future buyers. It is they who consult feedback records prior to purchasing to get a handle on the seller’s customer service skills.
Things like directing follow-up comments to other sellers as warnings, or chastising/lecturing the buyers who authored the poor reviews, will not have a positive effect on sales. Instead it can leave behind a skewed and unflattering image of a seller’s inability to manage buyer problems and concerns.
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoI sell an average of 80 items a month if Ypu review historical ratios it’s acceptable. I deal with customers that are retired and not always easy to talk to. Usually most are easy to deal with and resolve the problem. But in some older folks the conversation starts your a crook that doesn’t start to good results. And being in my 70s also it’s sometimes tough to called a crook
janet9988
·2 years agohttps://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_ssn=arkworkincs&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1
I see bids for your items in the past 2 weeks.
alacorne0
·2 years agoI'm a buyer outside US for many years and when trying to search specific comics the response is flawed (only shows a tiny amount of responses e.g. Spiderman = 550 responses - should be 100,000+ and most of those are for Superman related titles). Also if I try to make a purchase from US I am unable now (bar a recent offer I accepted). Settings have changed in eBay and screwed things up
Unavailable member
·2 years agoYou have multiple auction sales every day - how are people winning auctions if they don’t bid?
12345jamesstamps
·2 years agoIt is tax time and my sales are so-so also.
And....feedback can be important...you need a little improvement on that.
theteamsetguy
·2 years ago@12345jamesstamps ,
My oh my!
12345jamesstamps
·2 years agoLyrics: of Camila Cabello
They say he likes a good time
(My, oh my)
He comes alive at midnight
(Every night)
My mama doesn't trust him
(My, oh my)
He's only here for one thing
But(so am I)
Yeah
theteamsetguy
·2 years ago@arkworkincs ,
I have a question for you. Since a great majority of your items only get one bid and sell for your minimum bid amount. Why are you still doing auctions instead of fixed price with buy it now? I have yet to see a good answer from sellers who still use auctions for most of their listings.
The days of listing a 100 items via auction and getting bids for 95 of them on eBay are long gone. Buyers don't want to bid and wait days to see if they win. I rarely do auctions anymore and have plenty of sales with fixed priced with buy it now. Just list at the absolute lowest price you will accept and I bet your sales will increase. Also, for every item you have up for auction I'll bet there are 3 other sellers with the same item listed as buy it now.
Auctions was a novelty in the beginning of eBay until Amazon and other websites came along that offered faster delivery to satisfy buyers who want instant gratification.
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoI auction pretty much and do best offer also I’m not even getting bids I looked at a specific thing I sell and did not see my listing
theteamsetguy
·2 years ago@arkworkincs ,
You haven't answered my question. Why are you still using auctions?
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoHistorical for me I have been using auctions for 22 years. My average listing amount is 200 at any given time and an average of 18 bids weekly. Now in the last 2 weeks olive gone to all sales were offers and zero bids and as of today zero bids on 240 items. I had one response here that a responder stayed he only saw 22 items listed
theteamsetguy
·2 years ago@arkworkincs ,
Like you I started here selling 100% auction style many moons ago. Like I said in my earlier post, most of today's buyers don't like auctions because they have to wait until it is over to see if they even get a chance to buy the item when there are many other options to buy it today and in many cases get the item before the auction end.
It would make sense in your case if most of your items have multiple bids but in your case over 75% of them only have one bid. Why not list it buy it now at your minimum bid price and let the buyers buy immediately? I know change is hard for many people but I'm willing to bet if change you will sell more. I switched along time ago and haven't looked back.
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoI tried it a few times and the results were not that good but I’ll give it a try I know a lot of sales are impulse . I generally see 80 sales a month on auction I’ll give it a shot
mr_lincoln
·2 years ago@theteamsetguy
I can provide you with at least one good and proven answer to using Auction formats from my own multi-year experience selling. For me it's simple. The starting prices on my auctions are the same as prices I would generate for BIN listings. This is also the advice I give Sellers who get caught taking eBay's advice for starting auctions at 99 cents and wind up being unhappy with what their item sells for. So in my case, if an auction sells on day 7 for one bid it would be the same as a BIN selling 7 days after I list it. The advantage to auctions is that they have the opportunity to bid higher and a certain % of my auctions do that ... and some have gone rather high which makes it well worth using the auction format.
The other advice I give Sellers using auctions is to determine when they should end. Back in 2016 eBay posted the splash page below on sales and ending auctions on weekends, specifically Sundays.
For my categories the end time is not as critical but time of day is. For example knowing who your Buyers are helps there. For example, Pyrex might work best ending during the day for mainly women who shop at that time while hobby stuff for guys might do better ending during evening hours when they are surfing the internet. But in general, weekends have always yielded the most sales.
Doing a quick check on my recent sales since about March 17th over 20 auction items sold for more than one bid.
But to your point, I am not advocating selling EVERYTHING auction format but Sellers have to figure out what "might" sell as well or better Auction style instead of BIN.
pastcache
·2 years agoDon't 7 day auctions generate more traffic than the same item BIN at 7 days? I find they get an ending soon boost and appear higher up in search results.
mr_lincoln
·2 years ago@pastcache
That is possible, I just know that since they changed the way Views are counted sales on my BIN items have fallen off drastically. In my categories nobody seems to be in a big rush to get their items so waiting for an Auction to end is not a big deal.
mr_lincoln
·2 years ago@arkworkincs
My sales have been in a slow steady decline for over 2 years. How well do you pack your train items for shipping?
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoI have pretty good response . I just typed in a specific item I sell and it didn’t show C in items for sale
mr_lincoln
·2 years agoHi @arkworkincs
Sorry, but I am confused by the reply above, maybe it was intended for someone else? My post and question was:
"My sales have been in a slow steady decline for over 2 years. How well do you pack your train items for shipping?"
ckimodog
·2 years ago@arkworkincs
No. I use buy it now fixed prices, so I never see bids.
Happy Selling
femmefan1946
·2 years agoLooking at where the areas of high employment are- and unemployment in the USA is at its lowest this century.
What are you charging to ship to the areas where there are buyers with money?
Remember those employed persons are not paying income tax-- that was taken out of their paychecks every week last year-- they are looking forward to a rebate.
Basically, don't sell to poor people.
They don't have any money.
Unavailable member
·2 years agoI like that one - maybe good advice. For me thinking - maybe poor people, on average, spend more. That’s why many of them are poor?
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoWell I get all sales fro 99 cents to 300 dollars and I haven’t even sold 99 cents
inhawaii
·2 years agoI seem to get slammed every time I answer a post like this, so i'll sit this one out.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Unavailable member
·2 years agoMe as well..... i have advice from the Buyers perspective and since I make alot of purchases I would think there would be some value to it but alas my Feedback is private.... i'm a low life scammer on these boards.....
have a great weekend inhawaii
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoWell I think it’s the new change from sponsored purchases has a software glitch or maybe intentional.
ckimodog
·2 years ago@6al-4v-96
You are NOT a low life scammer on this forum. You are helpful and that means a lot. Sometimes people just don't like the answers they get even if the replies address the issue or problem to the tee. My advice if people don't like the answers they're getting (most are respectful)... simply don't ask.
Happy Selling and Weekend! @6al-4v-96
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoThanks much unfortunately most of the replies are from younger folks and short timers been on here 22 years. First time on the forum looking for answers and not getting good responses. Last time I’ll use this
broto_64
·7 months agoI will sit with you.
annabelles-attic
·2 years agoWell I’ve been on here for 25 years. Selling and buying. Haven’t been on here in a while selling but I did put a few things up and I have got 0 views. How does that happen? I’ve never had it happen. Now I have. Times are tough for many.
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoI’m getting views but no bids at all
Unavailable member
·2 years agoTwo things.
1. Your caps lock is stuck...makes your post difficult to read.
2. It's tax time many folks file last minute. And are more focused on getting their taxes paid instead of buying stuff on eBay.
There are no guarantees in online sales. One week you sell like your stuff is the hottest thing since apple pie. The following week its dead silence.
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoWell in 22 years on here I have never gone from 20 to 25 bids a week to zero bids for 2 weeks
hartungcards
·2 years agoWell, now you have.
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoOk thanks for your help rockstar
hartungcards
·2 years ago"Ok thanks for your help rockstar"
What kind of "help" were you looking for here?
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoA suggestion on what’s wrong and how to correct it
hartungcards
·2 years ago"A suggestion on what’s wrong and how to correct it "
I'd suggest there's nothing wrong, and nothing to be "corrected" here. As Mr. Powell pointed out, you've had at least a dozen sales in the last week or so with bids on them, which kind of refutes your assertion that you've had "0 bids for 2 weeks now." If you can figure out a way to "correct" the inevitable inconsistencies of retail sales, then by all means, please share with the class.
Unavailable member
·2 years agoWe all go through it.
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoWell I haven’t in 22 years
chariot_badges
·2 years agoThere is a LOT of things different from 22 years ago.
I could write a book on the subject, but nobody would read it because ... well, who'd believe it?
We used to have the healthiest economy in the world. It used to be that the USA was looked up to. Respected ... or at least feared.
We used to have the strongest currency, the world standard. No more. The Chinese Yuan just passed up the US dollar as the most used on the planet. (not a lot of news coverage on that).
We used to have a place where hard work was actually rewarded. No more. We reward thievery, graft, bribery. laziness and drug addiction - especially in our clergy and politicians.
It's been in all the news. I'm surprised you haven't heard it.
We have a Communist and a Fascist running for Prez. Pick one.
Check out CNN, Fox, Al Jazeera, Wall Street Journal ... Economic Times.
As business people, we need to understand the environment we have to function in.
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoI get it I follow out economics a lot but this is to drastic in a 3 week period I know it’s slow time I’ve review all the historical stats and was a retail business owner for 30 years from 200 dollars sales in a day to zero is not normal
Unavailable member
·2 years agoAnd you still haven’t - you’ve had 11 sales in the past week, right?
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoNo I have had 6 sales all offers not 1 bid
arkworkincs
OP2 years agoCorrect all from offers no bids