Sales Is it perhaps JUST ME, or are sales down.. I am strictly vintage & antique smalls
I would like to know what I am doing wrong... Sales are down to sometimes 1 every other week.
Inflation ??? I use to be 4 to 5 a week, Kindly reply. Thanks
35 comments
fashunu4eeuh
·1 year agoOld thread from last July.
cine-montage
·1 year agoI sell pop culture, vintage,sales are terrible, I have up 2400 items up if I get one sale a week,I'm lucky, whatever ebay has done to there site, is insane,I feel they want to push the small time sellers out, so ebay can sell there sneakers,Rolex watches, and have high end sellers,and corporate company's, take over, this is about the big fish swallowing up the small fish, my stuff should be getting more views, but no dice the fix is in,as Gordon gecko,in wall st, if your not inside your outside,and by the way ,(GREED IS NOT GOOD) ITS KILLING SMALL BUSINESS. The reason why big business is doing well is because they have the wealth to exploit what is going on and capitalise on it.
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daret_6481
·2 years agoDead as a Doorknob
laurabeardsley
·2 years agoI have posted several times in similar discussions. I sell on Ebay and 1 other site and sell the same type of things. My other site has sales every day and hardly ever on Ebay. Last week I finally sold 1 item, a ring which I listed carefully because it was an expensive ring. Measured the size exactly, etc. Today they opened a return because it did not fit. Now on the other site this would not be allowed since I listed the correct size. This is a problem here without doubt. Ebay does not even review the returns just approves them instantly. I paid extra money to insure and sig. confirmation which I won't ever recover. Hopefully I get the same ring back. Ebay really needs to improve in many areas.
simba6
·2 years agoThe lighting in your photos is very poor. One can not tell the condition of the items with the pictures so dark.
Your prices are on the high side too.
splendidthreads
·2 years agoI looked at your first page of items, sorted by newly listed. You haven't listed anything new (maybe some sold) since June. Also, you've listed very few items each month this year. Looks like about 6 for June, 3 for May, 14, 12, and 6 for the 3 previous months, excluding sales.
Maybe list items more often so that some are on the top more often. I can't provide any stats at all, but I usually get sales after I've listed new items. Usually they aren't the items I listed, but things that have been in my store.
sfau
·2 years agoDo you have any fall stuff? I have been doing good moving fall and Halloween things.
cambriachick
·2 years agoHi Clem,
I looked over your listings and agree with the previously made comments . Frankly, I would go through your listings one by one and check the prices against what is currently listed, revamp titles, retake photos, if needed. Check how long those same listings have been running. The longer they run, the further down in the search results they appear. You might consider ending some listings, I like to wait a week or two, then relist.
Good luck!
lux.ra_14
·2 years agoCan't speak to your other listings, but most of the books you have listed are overpriced relative to other copies for sale. You also routinely confuse copyright dates with actual publication dates. And you tend to call most older books a 1st edition, even though they are common reprints.
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoOK, the bulk edit thing - I've done it now and again but haven't noticed a difference. Maybe I'll try it again - it doesn't hurt!
boomersbiz46
·2 years agoI looked at your listings and I sell the same type of items as you do, except I have a lot more listed (like 1200). MY sales are slow also. I only sold 7 items in the past week. (I had my store on vacation till today) Very low priced items but sales nonetheless. Just trying to clean out the inventory.
I run sales, send offers,allow offers on most of my listings, but never promote. We both have unique type items so if anyone is interested they aren't going to find many more similar items. IMHO.
johnrj1226
·2 years agoIt is summer time - people take vacations. Most recently more people traveled on the road or in air for the week of the July 4 than ever before. Second reason I suspect in many Southern states -school will be starting the first week of August.Temperatures have been unusually high throughout the US - those electric bills will be HIGHER as usual this time of year and automobiles are over heating and more tires blowout due to hotter driving surfaces (just threw that last one in there but it is a fact). Plus those EV don't get that advertised millage per battery charge due to the air conditioner running. Talked to a guy charging up his nuevo Telsa (less than a year old) - he told me he is only getting 109 miles per charge now when it is in the high 90s here in GA. Plus it takes a little over an hour to recharge when the battery is low. (yep he's sitting in the sun in his black vehicle or at McD's a quarter of mile away chillin' out. Oh UGA starts first day off classes on August 14 - college ain't too cheap.
Me thinks items like vintage & antique things can wait.
selsa84
·2 years agoGo Dawgs!!
adamcartwright
·2 years agoYou have some nice items listed, but I think there's some room for improvement in the photo department.
Your photos strike me as adequate for the buyer who comes to eBay looking for that particular item, but possibly inadequate for the casual browser who's waiting for something to catch his eye.
Summer is supposed to be slow, in any event.
krazzykats
·2 years agoPerhaps the items you have listed are the left overs after all the good stuff has been bought? Long tail stuff...
windycityart4u
·2 years agoI think we are all in the same boat unfortunately with the ups and downs. Hang in there. Refresh all the listings multiple times a day, list multiple items a day, make sure your packages are being scanned by the postal service. I also end around 50 items a day and “sell similar.†Send out offers when you have potential buyers. Once in a while buy a couple of items from eBay to keep your store active. I notice I get more sales when someone leaves me positive feedback. These are all my methods/ secrets. Hope they help you.
a_c_green
·2 years ago@windycityart4u : How do you "refresh all the listings multiple times a day"?
windycityart4u
·2 years agoHey, here is the link for bulk editing. I refresh multiple times a day. It sometimes helps with watchers/ views/ sales. Hope this helps. https://community.ebay.com/t5/Ask-a-Mentor/Refresh-your-store/td-p/32198904
turtles-trading-post
·2 years agoThe only comment I can make about your listings is that the title of the book should be the listing title. For instance I'm looking at your "Picture Dictionary for Children" 1945 title isn't in the listing title or even in your description text. Expect people to search by title.
Also your descriptive text... first line should be about the item, I repeat the item title on the first line. Then skip a line before the description of your company.
Overall the collectors market drops during the summer months as people are doing vacations and outdoor things. And it's not just "stuff". My wife and I go to a restaurant we like every Wednesday. Most of the year it's a long wait for a table. During summer, if it's nice outside, we can just walk in and sit down!
Also the thing I found that drives sales in collectibles is the number of followers you have. I found the top sellers in my categories, often selling duplicates of my listings and for more than I have it listed for, have thousands of followers. Those are folks getting eBay emails etc promoting their goods. I've got mine up around 250 and I notice a good percentage 30-40% of my sales are to repeat customers. Good Luck!
theteamsetguy
·2 years ago@turtles-trading-post ,
Also the thing I found that drives sales in collectibles is the number of followers you have. I found the top sellers in my categories, often selling duplicates of my listings and for more than I have it listed for, have thousands of followers. Those are folks getting eBay emails etc promoting their goods. I've got mine up around 250 and I notice a good percentage 30-40% of my sales are to repeat customers.
This is so true. I have over 2,100 followers and my repeat customers fluctuates from 30 to 40 percent of my sales.
pls-consignments
·2 years agoI'm in the same category so I won't share all my secrets 😉. But I would start with better photos. Solid backgrounds with more light should help. You might want to redo your titles as well. Avoid coma's and quotation marks, which you use frequently. Also try to keep your font consistent. NOT the EASIEST to READ. Hope that helps.
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 years agoAlthough most of the items in your listing have merit, I do not see many which I would expect to sell quickly.
Some of them would have sold more quickly 10, 15, or 20 years ago.
With the number of items you have listed, steady, predictable sales levels are unlikely to be possible.
These fact would be true if this was good economic times or bad economic times.
My listings and their sales behave much like they did in past hard times. But there are always sellers who wish to debate whether we are in a bad economy.
This past week has been the week when the largest number of Americans take their vacation each year. Many of us are affected.
I would expect that your current listings are selected on the basis of what you have been able to acquire to sell, and they vary with time. I could not discern real depth in any area of evidence of a specialty. You have enough followers that if you had several specialties you might have better sales, but some specialties, like railroad collectibles are dead at this point in time. It is one which always dies in hard times unless you have rare and highly collectible railroad items, which sell slowly in both good and bad times.
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoYeah, my sales are usually quite steady despite my market, but I keep opening and closing my store due to tearing up the house, going out of town, etc., so it's all stop and start here and there. I expect buyers are the same.
Maybe Clem will come back and talk to us.
silverstatetreasureboxes
·2 years ago@clemsantiques
Clem, you have such lovely things and good knowledge behind them. I looked at your listings thinking I could spot out something to bring up but " naw you done good"!
Hang tight, the weather could be playing a role here why folks are laying low. Out west we are burning up, it was 119* today and even I don't feel like shopping, my brain is on 🔥 fire!!!!
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoThe photos can use some improvement - in fact, I think that's the one biggest thing that can help listings pop and draw the eyes. Many are dark or look cluttered. Photos IMHO are one of the toughest things to do well, yet one of the most important.
Use the time to experiment around - you don't have to have a white background, but a couple of pieces of poster board would really enhance your items and try brushing up a few listings.
johnrj1226
·2 years agoTotally agree with you. Your listing is your best sales person. Your key picture should be interesting enough to stop a prospective buyer. and read more. Called it a "show me a little leg picture" like a close up of a label plus an indentiful bit of the product. As a back ground used mainly a solid light blue vs white - no pretty flowers in the background. If it was a gold jewelry piece a black worked best - made the item pop. Used a Cannon one shot camera that knew well - a camera is as good as the lens - Canon and Nikon are top drawer IMO.
a_c_green
·2 years agoI browsed a random assortment of your listings and can't find much room for improvement; I think they do a good job of conveying the item for sale, and it's just a matter of time to find your buyer. The thing is, collectibles can be a rather volatile market, depending on how much discretionary income the average buyer has in any given week, so I think you may just need to wait it out for sales to pick up again.
Having said that, I strongly suggest that you keep yourself busy with making more listings for all kinds of things, to keep stirring the pot and attracting new buyers who will then look around at what else you have for sale.
I have seen posts from others here who point out that one reason for declining sales can be that your popular or appealing stuff will go first, and then the less-interesting stuff will sit there. When uploading a whole bunch of assorted stuff, you can expect some things to sell fast while others will linger.
Keep yourself active with listing a few new things each day, and maybe people coming to look at those will find some older items of interest as well. For example, I had a few recent sales of items that I've had listed for a year or more. It was just a matter of time, and I don't know if my buyers found those items in a direct search or because they were browsing my other listings, but hey, a sale is a sale.
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoCollectibles are probably even more supersaturated than clothing (which is mostly what I sell). Sales are good for me on my other site and picking up here - I suspect it's just the time of year, but people have been posting this complaint almost daily for the 15 or so years I've been here, so being proactive is good.
My advice is to rejig some of your listings, take fresh photos and brighten them up a bit, just refresh all around and stay active on the site.
redlinear
·2 years agoOne of my employees recently listed several of his wife's clothing "stuff" (sorry, neither one of us really knows anything about women's clothing).
Three items per week for a few weeks.
On an account that's only sold car parts for many years.
They sold so fast, he was ready to hit yard sales.
So, he listed about 50 more of her clothing stuff. (basically same same same as the 1st items of hers that he listed).
He's no longer interested in pursing that market 😂
chapeau-noir
·2 years ago@redlinear Did the other clothing stuff sell?
redlinear
·2 years agoThe initial three garments per week sold very quickly.
Sold so fast he thought "WOW, Selling women's clothing on eBay is awesome!!
He then got serious about it and listed over 50 garments, all at once.
Those are now selling at about two items a months.
When he started "back" working for me couple years ago. He had not listing anything in several years.
He listed all the parts off of a Volvo, for me....on an account that already had a thousand car parts listed.
The outcome was good moneywise, but the amount of parts sold off of this Volvo was typical (20ish parts per month).
He knew where another one of those cars was, Cheap.
Wanted to know if he could part it out, for himself, at his house, on his account. Basically asked me if that would bother me.
I said "Knock yourself out, I'm not buying another Volvo"
So he did.
He listed the same parts, on his empty account, and sold well over 100 parts in the 1st two months.
@chapeau-noir
You know I have several theories about this kind of thing. (most are probably wrong though...LOL)
I do believe, the quickest way to double your sales is to end half of your listings, open a new account, and list the ended items there.
chapeau-noir
·2 years ago@chapeau-noir
You know I have several theories about this kind of thing. (most are probably wrong though...LOL)
I do believe, the quickest way to double your sales is to end half of your listings, open a new account, and list the ended items there.
I've noticed that huge long lags between my selling here (not last time when it was only 3 weeks, but the time before when I was gone for two months), then I relist everything in big batches, stuff sells right out. You may actually have a good point there. It's tempting.
But yeah, clothing is really tough - most of it doesn't sell and what does sell changes. I've run out of other markets, though.
sin-n-dex
·2 years agoAt my shop (where we deal with collectibles in a brick and mortar setting), we have way more coming into the shop for us to buy, than going out to customers. We are paying less and less for what's coming in because we are getting over saturated.
My job at the shop is to look through stuff coming in and figure out what I can list on eBay. My shop doesn't do eBay, they are more of a "trade show" type of dealer. So I'm giving them an outlet to sell more stuff with my tenure here backing up our reputation.
You mentioned they were saturated, so I wanted to point out I see that too. I've also noticed stuff that's big and more bulky is much harder to move than little things. We still have lots of customers buying tokens, those move no problem, but big items like collectible toys don't do quite so well.
C.
selsa84
·2 years agoSorry to hear that sales are down. Some blame the economy, some eBay and others blame the lack of interest in one's items , but could be a bit of all three. Try ending the items and relisting with new pics and titles. I hate to say try using promoted listings , especially if your in a over saturated category. Running sales may help you. I personally don't put much blame on the economy as my sales have been fairly good till the last week. Search is a lot different than what it was years ago and promoted listings hasnt helped. It's a pay to play for a lot of sellers these days. Hope things pick up for you.
goldxxxsilver
·2 years agoGreat overall Comments...
1 Day at a time here on Ebay..
Happy to say this is only a Hobby for Me!!!
Of Course until Tax Time....😄