Are any other Sellers experiencing a very slow period in selling items on EBAY right now?

[silversuzi]

My sales have practically slowed to a crawl - plus I am sorry to say but a couple of good area antique auctions have bit the dust in the past few months in our region.  Do any other folks notice this growing trend?  I am fairly new at selling items on EBAY  (a couple of years) but I have been attending estate sales and auctions for several decades - anyone else experiencing this downward trend?  Would love to hear other folks insight on this.   Thanks so much.

[tunicaslot]

Your face mug - add the words ugly in the title - people like weird ugly things for some reason. I mostly sell clothing but it's been slow since the holidays. Hopefully it will pick up in a month or so when tax returns come in.

[doubledz-a2z]

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@silversuzi wrote:

My sales have practically slowed to a crawl - plus I am sorry to say but a couple of good area antique auctions have bit the dust in the past few months in our region.  Do any other folks notice this growing trend?  I am fairly new at selling items on EBAY  (a couple of years) but I have been attending estate sales and auctions for several decades - anyone else experiencing this downward trend?  Would love to hear other folks insight on this.   Thanks so much.

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YEP I have been an auction goer and flea market seller for decades too.   I still do the flea market but many around me are turning into storage facilities using cold box containers.  Most buyers are now sellers and use FB groups OfferUP CL etc to sell.  Quick cash and no paper trail.  Most of the in person auctions are a thing of the past and opting for online.  I NEVER have placed a bid on an online auction.  I need to see who I am bidding against.  To easy to be the house jacking up the price especially on a soft close.  Times are a changing.  I still sell at the flea market but I see many newbies who buy storages etc, having to literally give away their stuff for free just to make it go away.    I have one more year before I go on Medicare and eliminate my high cost health insurance.  The day that happens I will be a ghost on ebay.   Such a shame.  Nothing is much funner than a good ole auction.

[anste35]

https://www.nbcnews.com/holidayshutdown

[yuzuha]

A couple of suggestions...

A lot of your photos are very dark, which makes it hard to see any details on the item and also mutes the colors a lot.  That gold filigree ring with the amethyst, for example... the photos are so dark that the stone looks brown rather than purple.  I would never even give that ring a second look because it looks so washed-out and muted in the pictures, but some good lighting would probably really make it pop.   Do you have an area with better lighting that you could use?  Even just taking the things outside when the weather is good and setting up a little photo area in some natural light would help.  Failing that, daylight bulbs are fantastic.  They're what I use for my own photos and you can see how nice and bright and clear they make the items look.  In fact, you can tell the difference between the older photos where I used just standard indoor lighting (the more yellowy ones) and the daylight bulb ones.

Also, add in measurements.  How big is the stone on that ring?  It's impossible to tell just by looking at it.  The measurements don't need to be exact to the millimeter, they just need to give potential buyers an idea of how big the ring is going to be on their own hand.

For that Annalee monkey, I would add in the item number from the tag as there are many Annalee critters and dolls that share names but are completely different, and collectors will often search by the number because of this.

One last thing-- I see that you have a five-day handling time.  I'm sure you have your reasons for this, but just be aware that that is going to be a turn-off for a lot of potential buyers.

There is a lot more competition on eBay these days, so you need to make your listings really stand out to get noticed.  I think brighter, clearer photos would go a long way towards that!

[mcdougle4248]

Thank you for the suggestion of using daylight bulbs.  I have been trying (for almost 7 yrs, lol) to take good pictures.  I am getting better at it, but sometimes I get so frustrated.  The white card my items are on look yellow today, and then maybe white tomorrow, gray the next day and every once in a while even pink or a bluish purple.  So far, nobody has asked for better pictures, but maybe they have just hit the back button.

[yuzuha]

You're welcome!  I discovered them by accident (they were the only thing the hardware store had that fit these particular light fixtures) and it was probably the best accident I've had in terms of my ability to take good photos.  I find they're great at keeping the lighting consistent across photos and also at portraying colors accurately.  I have them in the overhead lights where I take my photos but I'm sure they'd work just as well in a portable lamp.

[gdiesel70]

I struggle with white balance in my photos too since I shoot at night in a cramped corner of my house where lighting is terrible... and I use professional lighting. 

The suggestion about daylight bulbs is great! If you have  two lamps with a white shade, put them on both sides of the item to reduce shadows.

Blue colors always turn my white background brownish ...no clue why. 

Not sure what you use to take photos, but most digital cameras have white balance adjustments which will help with that. I use an iPhone for my photos and edit them in the phone by reducing “cast” 5-10% and increasing “exposure” 10-20% which gives me a white background. 

As for the murky tinge, try to keep  all of the lighting at the same color temperature, like if you shoot by a window on an overcast day (which is cooler temperature) but have a yellow lightbulb (warm temperature) on inside the house, the background will show a green or brown tinge. 

You have nice things, but chances are people cannot find them because they’re miscategorized, lack item specifics or need more descriptive words in the title, e.g., “Sarah Coventry Book Chain Bracelet Silver Tone Vtg Victorian Revival Bookchain”.

The search engine matches people’s search queries to listing titles. People aren’t searching for ‘spectacular rare very nice old thing’ they’re searching for brand, item, color, size and unique features.  So if things have slowed down, try revising some listings and  item specifics to see if it helps to increase traffic. 

My sales have been “feast or famine” since mid-December. 

[gdiesel70]

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@gdiesel70 wrote:

I struggle with white balance in my photos too since I shoot at night in a cramped corner of my house where lighting is terrible... and I use professional lighting. 

The suggestion about daylight bulbs is great! If you have  two lamps with a white shade, put them on both sides of the item to reduce shadows.

Blue colors always turn my white background brownish ...no clue why. 

Not sure what you use to take photos, but most digital cameras have white balance adjustments which will help with that. I use an iPhone for my photos and edit them in the phone by reducing “cast” 5-10% and increasing “exposure” 10-20% which gives me a white background. 

As for the murky tinge, try to keep  all of the lighting at the same color temperature, like if you shoot by a window on an overcast day (which is cooler temperature) but have a yellow lightbulb (warm temperature) on inside the house, the background will show a green or brown tinge. 

You have nice things, but chances are people cannot find them because they’re miscategorized, lack item specifics or need more descriptive words in the title, e.g., “Sarah Coventry Book Chain Bracelet Silver Tone Vtg Victorian Revival Bookchain”.

The search engine matches people’s search queries to listing titles. People aren’t searching for ‘spectacular rare very nice old thing’ they’re searching for brand, item, color, size and unique features.  So if things have slowed down, try revising some listings and  item specifics to see if it helps to increase traffic. 

My sales have been “feast or famine” since mid-December. 

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Whoops! Sorry, I’m using my phone to post and hit the wrong reply-to button. This reply was intended for the OP @silversuzi  

[mr_lincoln]

@silversuzi   No, not experiencing that ... however, local auction houses are a little thin on quantity and quality this time of year and the number of estate auctions with personal property has dropped off but that's to be expected too ... nobody wants to stand out in the cold for 6 hours to bid on items being pulled out of a house.

[patd3283]

and to piggyback on your suggestions, google prefers white backgrounds or at least solid.  Big items put against a white wall.  No one wants to see the inside of your house no matter how lovely it may be.  Core  board from Michaels or WM makes good background.  DH made little holders out of paint stirrers and angle arms to hold the board upright.

Patd

[mam98031]

I think you have received some great suggestions here on how to improve your listings which will most likely in turn help your sales.

Crisp, clean, CLEAR pictures.

State the sizes of your necklaces, brooches, earrings, etc.  People need to know this when looking for the type of stuff you sell.  Think like a buyer.  What would you like to know about the item if you were shopping for it?  

Your shipping on many items seems high.  

Your titles are PRIME real estate.  Don't waste the space.  For example, you have a titled called Feather Earrings Sara Coventry.    You might consider FEATHER EARRINGS ~ Silvertone Lightweight Dangle 2" by Sara Coventry

Just some quick observations, I hope it helps you.

Oh and I think the Federal Shut Down has lots of people concerned and they are hanging onto their money.  Another thing, people are starting to concentrate on getting their federal taxes done.  So things can slow down this time of year until after tax day.  Some people are certainly concerned that their refunds won't come back very quickly either, again due to the Federal shut down.

I hope things improve for you and the rest of us soon.

[foreveryoungdesigns]

I think some of it may be due to the Federal Government Shutdown.

[turquoisetulips]

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@tunicaslot wrote:

Your face mug - add the words ugly in the title - people like weird ugly things for some reason. I mostly sell clothing but it's been slow since the holidays. Hopefully it will pick up in a month or so when tax returns come in.

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Yes , many sellers will  be hearing from me  when that happens  🙂   Tulips 

[turquoisetulips]

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@mcdougle4248 wrote:

Thank you for the suggestion of using daylight bulbs.  I have been trying (for almost 7 yrs, lol) to take good pictures.  I am getting better at it, but sometimes I get so frustrated.  The white card my items are on look yellow today, and then maybe white tomorrow, gray the next day and every once in a while even pink or a bluish purple.  So far, nobody has asked for better pictures, but maybe they have just hit the back button.

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I was using a photo booth[ photography lighting kit]   to take better pictures  since I  sell mainly small items like jewelry.   Pardon the pun but it worked like a charm  🙂 They are inexpensive and do a really good job at blocking out shadows as well as produce  brighter and more colorful  photos . The light bulbs finally burned out on my old one  so I'm going to be replacing it soon . I believe I paid about 15 dollars for  my old one and it was worth every penny . Tulips