Are you willing to lose money to sell merchandise?

[b86fiero]

eBay Q3 report not so rosy for sellers.

Buyers down 5% - merchandise volume up - number of sellers up.  How do you compete during the busiest selling time of the year?

Aside from the usual suggestions, are you willing to lose money to move merchandise?  Do you drop the price below what you paid for it hoping to get some of your investment back so you can invest in new merchandise?  There are myriad reasons why merchandise seems to lose popularity.  Do you lose a few dollars to keep your sell through rate up so eBay will hopefully keep showing your items to prospective buyers? 

Do you list a few loss leaders hoping to get buyers into your store and really hoping they will purchase multiple items?  Loss lead one item hoping they will buy a collection?  PJ's and slippers and robe or train set plus extra cars, etc.  Remember the much ballyhooed eBay Collections promotion from years ago?  Do you create and list multi item collections or related or complementary groups?

In my 20 year eBay selling experience buyers usually buy only the loss leaders and nothing else.  In all the years I've had an eBay store I have had a handful buy totally unrelated items from my store giving the impression that they did look through it.  I do have quite a few who purchase multiple same type items at the same time and are given a discounted price.  

So, what do you think?  Is it worth losing a bit of money to move certain merchandise or wait for a buyer to pay your asking price and take a chance your merchandise becomes outdated and less desirable and maybe doesn't sell for a long time?

With all the eBay changes being made, more sellers saying they are leaving or diversifying, and the Q3 numbers, do you see a sliver of opportunity for your eBay business to thrive and grow?

[postingid7659]

Selling at a loss defeats the purpose of selling the stuff. 

[b86fiero]

---

@buyselljack2016 wrote:

I will take a bit less money to get some things off the shelves, but I don't purposely sell to "lose" money.

---

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Exactly.  Are you willing to lose money to sell items.  If five sellers have an item similar or like yours and their prices range from $20 to $24 are you willing to sell your for $19 to move it?  Even if your profit margin bottoms out, are you willing to sell it to recoup whatever money you can plus a tiny profit to get it off your shelves?

Not that you will necessary sell it for less than you paid for it.  Of course nobody intentionally sells to lose money - except for stores that advertise loss leaders to get you in the door.  Think grocery store and general retailers like Walmart, Target who regularly advertise loss leaders. 

[b86fiero]

---

@kensgiftshop wrote:

To lower the price just to make a quick sale, no, I don't.

If an item has been listed a couple years, I might lower the price a little then.

---

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This begs the question:  how long should an item be listed before the price is lowered?  I know there are many items that must wait for that special person to find them.  So do you list them and forget about them or do you occasionally update the title, description and photos or relist them? 

[b86fiero]

What is the oldest listing in your store?  What is it for and when did you first list it?  Have you adjusted the price downward or upward over time?  How long will you keep it listed?

I wonder what the oldest still active listing on eBay is?   Does anybody know? 

[inhawaii]

---

@yuzuha wrote:

I never buy anything to resell at a price where I would lose money on it in the first place unless I were to cut the price by about 75% percent. If I can't mark it up for at least three times what I spent on it, I won't buy it.

---

That's very interesting.

Your requirement  and my requirement is different but very much the same.

My requirement is...

I wont buy anything unless after all fees/expenses I can at least double my money.

Often when i break that down, it does come out to your requirement...

I have to be able to sell the item for about three times what i spent. 

Great minds think alike.   😃

[reallynicestamps]

We are in an unusual position,because most of our stock is unsold material from our shop which we closed on retirement some years ago.

But our purpose in selling is to turn all that stuff into money.

Sometimes we will sell for less than we paid, because we want money more than we want stuff.

That being said, in 35 years in business, we did find that have a sale meant we sold about the same amount of stuff, but got less money.

As a result, we used other promotions rather than discounts.

The only ones I think that could carry over to online selling would be

• mailing lists-- in this case including a printed list of similar products that may or may not be in our eBay Stores which can be purchased directly--
• Promoted Listings -- which seem to me (and anecdote is not data) to bring eyes to the Store, but not necessarily buyers to the Promoted item. They do, however, seem to buy other unPromoted stuff, which costs us less in fees
• batching similar items-- either by putting five or six cheap items into one lot, reducing listing time and shipping fees-- or by listing several similar items together, so that a visit to the Store, shows five or six similar lots in a row, before switching to another type of merchandise. 

[luckythewinner]

---

@b86fiero wrote:

eBay Q3 report not so rosy for sellers. Buyers down 5% - merchandise volume up - number of sellers up. 

---

Not sure I follow. 

If eBay was able to see an increased GMV with fewer buyers, this means that on average each buyer is buying MORE. 

IMHO that is a good thing for sellers.  

[vintagecraze50]

Yeah, they made up for the loss of buyers and made better by having goods that also sell for high prices as well. The sneakers, the watches, the designer handbags and the rest of us who sell stuff for more than 10 dollars.

[yuzuha]

---

@inhawaii wrote:

---

---

That's very interesting.

Your requirement  and my requirement is different but very much the same.

My requirement is...

I wont buy anything unless after all fees/expenses I can at least double my money.

Often when i break that down, it does come out to your requirement...

I have to be able to sell the item for about three times what i spent. 

Great minds think alike.   😃

---

Yeah, the 75% isn't a completely hard and fast rule for me-- if I think I can flip something fairly quickly, then I'm willing to pay up to 50% of the selling price for it. Either way, I'm not willing to cut my margins any more than that. I find it helps make the purchasing process very easy for me and saves me from agonizing over whether or not something is worth buying.

[chapeau-noir]

I don't keep 'duds' around - it's more than just the money, but how much storage space is it taking?  How much maintenance and tracking in inventory does it require?  Is it even realistic to invest any more into it or does it come under the Sunk Costs Fallacy?  I have both limited storage and am in a pretty rapidly cycling market - just keeping stuff to collect dust doesn't work for about 60% of what I carry, so some things I move out on clearance because I have to make space for the next season.  The rest are items that admittedly have to find their buyers.  Clothing and accessories is moving off of eBay and disseminating into other markets and I follow that, too.

Yep, broad brush doesn't really work in this situation.

[vintagecraze50]

I think ebay and their sellers will continue to thrive and grow as long as they are attracting more high end buyers who have big money to spend. No more thrift shop reputation.

[justafemster]

Yup, the river still does that.  Insist on a sellers contacts, the undercut the prices until the seller can't compete.  Repeat with any item that has any sales.  3rd party sellers take all the changes, the river gets all the benefits.  

There's the problem with being in competition with your online platform. 

[justafemster]

I sell at flea markets and acquire my merchandise through couponing.  I sell for about half of retail. 

I have a $2 or 3 for $5 table that includes most toothpastes.  Granted, most of these toothpastes sell retail for $5+ each, so by retail price, they should be on my $3 or 2 for $5 table.  Here's the thing though, stores PAY me to take toothpaste (with coupons and store promotions), so I do.  So the store pays me $1 to take every tube and my customers pay me $1.66 to take it away.  

The customers THINK they are getting a great deal (which they are) and keep looking at other sections, most often buying much more than that original $5.  Which is WHY I have that cheap(er) section to start with. 

I sell hundreds to tubes of toothpaste every weekend, average profit $2.80, because of negative cost.  I sell hundreds of bottles of shampoo, average profit $2 because of acquisition costs.  

You never know what someone's acquisition costs are.  

[ekmadonna]

My answer is NO to every question you have asked. Rarely if ever have I lost money on what I sell. I would never sell something for less than I paid and that includes pricing my items with with fees rolled in. The only way I have lost money is due to BUYER THEFT through False Ebay Money Back claims. 

[keziak]

Not sure about taking a loss when selling but I"m in a situation in which I spent a lot of money on inventory in 2020. Since I have continued to buy and now have a new commission, stuff still comes in and I have to make a point of removing stuff from my storage unit to list.  I have found that to some degree what sold well last year during quaranteen for $X may not get that much now that I think buying may be simmering down. 

Not being great about keeping detailed records of everything, I would say broadly that I am benefitting from having a ton of inventory that I bought last year and now have to sell so this year my income is way up. 

Where it comes to fresh inventory  then no, not selling at a loss. I get quite a lot of batch orders and auctions are the engine for that. I don't have loss leaders.