Doggone it?

[fabelous_records]

Let me congratulate those claiming their sales has reached the roof and on their way to the space station. Their sales must be like the hot stuff flowing out of Mount Kilauea   We, on the other hand, We - that is- the nickel and dimers, potato fries and chicken feet sellers, our sales seemed to have vacationed in the North Pole and probably frozen to kingdom come.  Thing is, it also brought the 'feedbacks' feature of this wonderful selling paradise to Antartica not knowing when it will come back? Sales....,.sales.....galore...where art thou!

[tunicaslot]

I have seen many sellers say their sales are doing well and I don't see anyone attacking them. I usually post when sales are slow - try not to when they are going good as I know how I feel when people seem to brag and put the fault of no sales on the other sellers.

There are loads of advice we can offer - but much of it varies on the categories people sell in, the price of the items, the amt of competition they have and if they're visible at the moment. I can say list every day - use markdown manager - look at sold prices and even tho I do all those things - I still might not have sales. 

Some people refuse to believe that for some sellers - the seasons do make a difference. Clothing is slow in the summer - everyone has already bought their summer clothes back in April and May and won't be buying back to school until the end of Aug - whereas those selling golfing equipment, floats for the pool and camping accessories may do better in the summer. Except for collectibles - used items don't sell as well from Oct - Dec - in my experience - because people are buying new for Xmas gifts.

[classic_camaros]

the chickens come home to roost! ebays fine policies are running sellers off by the day. 

[meltedicecubes]

I don't know if my strategy will work in all categories, but here is what works for my stores. I sell in clothing...used clothing. I have sold on ebay since 2003. Over the years I have had to change by strategy several times. What worked several years ago, doesn't work today...so things are constantly changing. Today what I do to make a nice living for my family....I HAVE to list 100 NEW AUCTIONS (not buy it nows) every week. I have to price them below going market price. I have used Terapeak for about 8 years and couldn't live without it for pricing and sourcing. Terapeak will tell you the percentage of time an item is selling on ebay. That is very very very important. You do not want to be buying and trying to sell items that sell on ebay BUT only sell 8% of the time. That means it will take over 10 listing cycles to sell. I look for inventory that goes at least 30% of the time. That means my auctions have at least a 1/3 shot at selling each week. When pricing, I price as one of the lowest starting price. (I get my items for cheap...that means a lot of looking each week for my items to sell.) Out of my 100 auctions each week....I typically will sell 70% of them (because they are items people are looking for and are priced right.) I could price my items at mid to top dollar but that can takes months to get the right person to come along and buy it. Do the math.....at least 70 items per week making $15 to $20 net on (after fees, after cost of item) = at least $1050 a WEEK or selling 30 items (getting top dollar) a month makes $40 net on (after fees, after cost of item) making $1200 a MONTH. My average sells price is currently $26.20 an item. Don't get me wrong, it is hard work. Many hours sourcing and listing...but it works for me. Auctions are the only way to go.  Waiting for people to finally decide to purchase buy it nows can take FOREVER. They will watch your items for months and then when the item finally does sell, they will message you asking if it sold?!?! You have to force people to want your items by 1)  listing items people want. 2) pricing them at a starting price people love. 3) putting them on an auction so they are forced to not procraste on wanting the item since it is only on for a week. The only negative to doing this is that people do not always pay when they win an auction. I have chosen to look at it as the cost of doing business. I have unpaid item assistant turned on....just let it run and let it automatically relist items that aren't paid for. I have 2 - 3 of them a week. I try to not even think about them. The items that don't sell each each week...I do one of two thing with them. If I had a lot of watchers, I put it back out at exactly the same starting price on auction again. If I had no watchers on the items, I will put it back out and lower the starting price a little. If I have ran them on an auction several times with no sells, I put them on a buy it now for BOTTOM price of what the average price is showing on Terapeak and the item usually sells within a couple of weeks. It it doesn't I put it back on an auction for $3.99 (about the lowest break even price I can sell an item for on ebay) and get rid of it. NO old inventory, I have high sell through rates. You should see a tremendous increase in sells once you start selling more...it is like pushing a wheel up a hill once you get to a certain point everything starts selling easier and easier.  I do not get emotionally attached to anything I sell (I price from what I paid for the item not what it is worth)....I do not look at other sellers that are getting top dollar on their items. That will only entice you to price the item up and your sells will start slowing again. I sell about 385 items a month with this system but do work many hours every week.

[castlemagicmemories]

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@caninekopz wrote:

Lucky,

Havent really seen anyone accused of lying or being shills, but I have seen a lot of people trying to tell others how to operate thier business becuase times are thin here and telling them their prices are too high, or they are trying to sell in a saturated clothing market ect.  Did you happen to see those?

I have great love for those in the spotlight right now, but I don't need to be told to lower my prices, or that my market is saturated or try getting a premium account and pay FREEBAY any more fees just so they can do what they already promised.......to put my items on a global selling platform where they can be seen and sold.

Rich 

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But that does happen all the time on the Boards.  Someone doesn't like or agree with something that is posted, and then the other posters are all Ebay employees or shills, and/or lying, especially if they use a posting id.  Then they are told they couldn't possibly know anything!

[awishingwell]

In order for someone - a potential buyer - to purchase something - they have to be able to find it.  If your items are not appearing in search you probably can't sell them unless a buyer knows to search for your store by name. Period and yes ebay hides listings - I can prove it

[tunicaslot]

I'd like to know what your proof is because as far as I'm concerned - Ebay does not hide listings. Now you may not be on the first page with every listing but every seller on here deserves their time to shine.

Under this acct - you have 133 items listed. Do you know how many millions of items are listed - an average of 112 million items. The fact that some of us have any sales makes me stop and think how lucky I am to get that sale. This acct has been active a little over a year - for so few items - you're actually doing quite well. I know it's not what you want to hear - but have you tried the other venues? They are a lot of work and even then you might not get any sales as your visibility is focused on likes, shares and followers.

[awishingwell]

well first of all let me say that this is not my only account - I'm TPS for what that's worth on another account.  19 years here. The reason that I have so little on this account is because I'm in the process of closing it. I've been working very hard to move everything out as my subscription is up 7-16.

On my other account - I noticed last week that a particular item wasn't showing up in search.  Of this item I have 21 different styles listed. 2 were in search.  I called ebay and spoke to a rep who said that was odd.  I let it go and moved on.

Today I have an item that I wanted to list so I did a search to check pricing - wanna stay competitive right?  There actually is one identical listed.  It's $48 - geez I said - let's get mine listed because I'm pretty danged happy with $24 and still turning a good profit. AND the field isn't flooded - there's only 1 other.

I start looking at the search results since I have 4 others but different style/colors ect.  I can't find one stinking one on the search results. Not a one.

I call ebay again - the c/s rep says let me look - we don't hide lilstings - we can't make money if you don't make money.  She looks - states that's really odd. I'm upset this time. I've jumped thru every single hoop ebay has thrown at me -free shipping - free returns yada yada.  She just doesn't understand but she's going to "look" into it and call me back.

[yuzuha]

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@tunicaslot wrote:

I'd like to know what your proof is because as far as I'm concerned - Ebay does not hide listings. Now you may not be on the first page with every listing but every seller on here deserves their time to shine.

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Personally, I have had numerous things sell within just a few hours of being listed.  And just the other day, a remake was announced of a video game for which I had a particular piece of merchandise listed (and I'd had it listed for nearly a year at that point) and that item sold within two hours of that remake announcement.  That right there is evidence to me that eBay doesn't hide things from buyers.  It wasn't not selling because no one could find it, it wasn't selling because there wasn't enough interest in it to spur someone into buying until they announced the remake.  The buyer clearly had no trouble finding it right away when they wanted to purchase it.

[awishingwell]

not sure how to correctly state this - my items do not show up in search - period - good for all of you that think ebay doesn't hide listings - that's ok - I know they do

[yuzuha]

When I search "Lowrider magazine June 1980," your listing is the only one that comes up.  When I search "hematite bear figurine," yours is #1 out of two listings.  When I search "Camel shot glass," yours is on page three.  When I search "George Strait Bud Light poster," yours is third from the top.

Your items are showing up in searches just fine.

[awishingwell]

I'm not ta king about this store - - read the entire thread please - it's my big store I'm concerned about - it's the one I've been throwing all my efforts at 

[yuzuha]

Then give some examples of what you have listed in that store and I will search for those things too.

[audioarchive]

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@yuzuha wrote:

Then give some examples of what you have listed in that store and I will search for those things too.

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You'd have to actually know his username. Otherwise, you could be getting a made up title to an item that doesn't exist in order to prove his point. If you got an actually title and you find it, then you've disproven everything. The only way to know if it's a legit item is to see them on his actual username and that isn't going to happen.

The thing about seller's searching for their own items is that Cassini thinks it knows what you want. It's assuming that you don't want to see your own item, so it doesn't place it very high in the search or show it at all. Stands to reason, why would a seller want to search for his own item when they already have it? The ONLY way to know for sure is to have random people search for keywords in the title and get the results...and chances are it will almost always be shown. Not in the same position, but I can guarantee it will.

[awishingwell]

Hello everyone - thanks for all the input - well I did get a reply from ebay - not the phone call they said but a written message in my mail - thought I'd share it with some of you who are interested in how things are apparently working now - I swear I have ebay whiplash - I thought I was doing the correct thing revamping my store the last 3 months - was actually told by more than 1 rep I was and that I was on the right track - apparently not. It is quite apparent to me now that shutting down this particular store is the right path for me since I rarely have anything listed in it with multiples. Anyway here's some of the suggestions on how to increase my sales on ebay that they sent me today

Here are some suggestions for how you can get a higher listing placement on the search results page for your item:

1. Number of recent sales: The more sales that are made from a multi-quantity listing, the higher that listing appears in search results.

2. Keyword relevance: This is based on the items that buyers clicked on and bought when doing the same search in the past.

3. Price/value: The better value a listing is, the more buyers it is likely to get, and therefore the higher its recent sales score.Sellers who price items low and try to make up for it with high P&P costs will score poorly in the P&P DSR, and will feature lower as a result.

4. Listing duration: We recommend listing items with longer durations to help you increase your recent sales score while minimizing insertion fees and time spent on listing maintenance.

 There was also this:

If you've seen a decline in sales, or a loss of business since the previous year, the decrease may be due to:

• Change in listings or inventory - a 10% drop in listings should result in a 10% drop in sales, but sometimes the shift is in type of inventory and not quantity.
• View item details - a drop here suggests that the seller's listings may not be as desirable as they used to be. Could be change in inventory, or a change in the market - maybe they are no longer competitively priced.
• Change in seller performance - a recent uptick in reported defects or duplicate listing take downs can have a broad impact on the seller.
• Check that the item is in the best category - nothing will hurt a listing's performance like being in the wrong category.

So maybe this will help you out - for me it doesn't as I'm more confused than ever

[caninekopz]

You see, even if Ebay admits it the Ebay Cheerleading Squad can not accept the fact that EBAY THROTTLES search and search engine results, has blackouts and complete control over how your products are seen.

Yes Ebay will decide who gets seen depend on their metrics of comparison.  Those metrics change weekly if not daily or hourly.

We have no control.  Just please pay as you go.  Ebay does what it wants with and to whom it wants.  I do not pay for this kind of service.  Maybe you might be happy but I am not........and I have decent sales.

Until we as sellers require Ebay to answer to what it is they do, it will continue. 

So, Ebay Cheerleaders keep cheering.  One day something will happen and you eyes will be open.  Not enough that Ebay puts it in black and white.

Again, you can say.....See ya, don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.......but I have worked hard to make a viable business here.  I am not going to let them just push me out with the balogony practices.  I have invested a lot here.  I pay a lot here....about 35% total which is as much as it cost for me to have my Brick and Mortar.  NOT JUST WALKING AWAY.

Rich