mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
penguins_dont_fly is a Volunteer Community Mentor
I just wanted to add something regarding your pictures.
It doesn't take a professional camera or fancy equipment to take good pics.
Jewelry (and other reflective stuff) is hard, but there are a few things you can do.
Turn off your flash.
Use indirect lighting - "daylight" bulbs not directly focused on the item.
Use a plain background - black works best for silver items.
And bring the camera to the item, not the item to the camera.
I took 2 pics of one of my rings - with my phone - first with the flash on and hands (yuck) in the pic on a busy background - second on a lucite stand with a cheap piece of black satin cloth underneath. I also ran the ring through the sonic cleaner in between pics (and cleaned my wedding set while I was at it - they definitely needed it LOL) 🙂
Besides the cleaning, it took me about a minute to set it up and if I had taken a bit longer, I could have messed with the lighting and background to make it better. And a lucite ring sizer would help, but I digress 😉
The 3rd pic is just zoomed out form the second to show the setup.
@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:I didn't look at your listings, but from the posts it appears you sell jewelry, so just one quick suggestion: If you have stuff that is appropriate for Valentines Day gift giving, maybe play up that angle in your title (you can revise them again after the Holiday), Item Specific and/or description. Maybe a store category.
People are definitely searching for Valentines Day gifts /decor right now.
Why? Do buyers actually search for stuff using Valentine's day gift in their search? It is a serious question, I'm not trying to be snarky or anything, I sincerely don't understand why one would but this in their titles. And if the items didn't sell by Valentines day, then there is all the work to revise the titles.
@reallynicestamps wrote:There is a huge series of storms though, for real, and people are hunkering down.
Although hunkering down was the reason for the pandemic surge in online buying
Interesting... our eBay surge at the start of the pandemic was in cleaning supplies and toiletries. Even with calculated shipping (so dim weight rating wouldn't kill us), we still were selling at a significant percentage above normal. Continued for about a year, then started slowly dropping off. Got real slow 5rd & 4th quarter in '23, but it's stabilized and starting to climb again since late December. We sell a bit of everything and anything, so we don't get a lot of repeat buyers.
-Bob.
@penguins_dont_fly wrote:
I just wanted to add something regarding your pictures.
It doesn't take a professional camera or fancy equipment to take good pics.
Jewelry (and other reflective stuff) is hard, but there are a few things you can do.
Turn off your flash.
Use indirect lighting - "daylight" bulbs not directly focused on the item.
Use a plain background - black works best for silver items.
And bring the camera to the item, not the item to the camera.
I took 2 pics of one of my rings - with my phone - first with the flash on and hands (yuck) in the pic on a busy background - second on a lucite stand with a cheap piece of black satin cloth underneath. I also ran the ring through the sonic cleaner in between pics (and cleaned my wedding set while I was at it - they definitely needed it LOL) 🙂
Besides the cleaning, it took me about a minute to set it up and if I had taken a bit longer, I could have messed with the lighting and background to make it better. And a lucite ring sizer would help, but I digress 😉
The 3rd pic is just zoomed out form the second to show the setup.
I definitely need to try something like this. We've got a few hundred pieces of silver jewelry, mostly chains & bracelets, and I know the pics aren't the best, but they were the best I could do with what I had on hand. Now I've got a better idea to try, and I love the reflection in the Lucite!
My other thought was to make the boss a cash offer (no fees, no shipping) and then take the lot to a jewelry buyer here in town. Just not sure if Sterling Silver is worth all that much.
-Bob.
@electrola_man wrote:I know exactly what you mean. I'm experiencing it too on some item. Zero views on items that should be getting lots of attention. Changes to titles or other things makes no difference. It makes no sense at all. I don't have any advice or knowledge of why this is, but wanted to say I've seen exactly the same thing.
Well even without views, you have managed to get almost 20 sales so far this month.
@rosachs wrote:
@reallynicestamps wrote:There is a huge series of storms though, for real, and people are hunkering down.
Although hunkering down was the reason for the pandemic surge in online buying
Interesting... our eBay surge at the start of the pandemic was in cleaning supplies and toiletries. Even with calculated shipping (so dim weight rating wouldn't kill us), we still were selling at a significant percentage above normal. Continued for about a year, then started slowly dropping off. Got real slow 5rd & 4th quarter in '23, but it's stabilized and starting to climb again since late December. We sell a bit of everything and anything, so we don't get a lot of repeat buyers.
-Bob.
In bad weather people don't always have power.
@electrola_man wrote:
@inhawaii wrote:I have a wild, crazy theory.
No views = Nobody is interested in the item.
That's a good theory, but there is something going on here. I'm seeing it, too. Zero views on items for which it makes no sense at all.
My experience tells me that when there are significantly more listings than there are searches/buyers, view counts will drop. It has to do with Best Match not showing the exact same listings every single search. If Search comes back with 100K listings, it's got to rotate thru that so that all the 10's get even exposure, and the others under that do too.
I've also noticed that Search is getting better at matching new/old listings that use the same keywords but just in a different order. That would make the new listing rank the same as the old listing -- just as stale, just as unlikely to make first page.
Retail has never been a slam-dunk (or no store would ever go out of business), but online retail is worse. IMHO.
-Bob.
