Help Please

[mistymeadowtreasures]

Hi I'm Misty Meadow Treasures. Last Thursday night I de-listed 106 items that had been in my store for over a year.  I've  slowly been revising some and writing off others.  In the meantime, I've been listing new items daily as I always do.  I'm Top Rated and approximately 25% of my store is Top Rated Plus. Here is the issue.  Beginning on Friday my sales literally died.  Since Thursday night I have made one sale.  I usually make 3 to 7 a day.  Ebay is SO difficult to get a hold of so I haven't called them.  My question, my plea for help - is for insight, clarity, knowledge and help.  What in the world?  I thought eBay didn't want stagnant listings so I unlisted them only to have my store... die.  Please, if you have any ideas, please advise me.  I don't count on this income but it is a side hustle and I'm getting a little panicky now that I'm on day 5 of absolutely no sales. (except the one outlier) Thank you so much everyone!

[mistymeadowtreasures]

Thank you, agreed!  I have been working through my listings because I agree, my titles could be better.

[mistymeadowtreasures]

I agree.  I think my best strategy is to start a sale and list, list, list.  It's not as if I don't have a pile! My husband's store has increased by 54% this month.  It's pretty discouraging to see mine, that I carefully curate - especially now that I have some experience, wither.  I appreciate your candid insight, I'm going to run a sale and list my heart out!  Thanks again!

[spreadlovelikefire]

I think it will recover.  Once you start listing and redoing the ones you de-listed.  From here on out I would do them in small batches, 5-10 a day at most.  I hadn't done it in a very long time and my sales starts becoming sparse.  So I started doing 10 a day and now I'm up to about 6-months out.  So I'll pull back on it a bit now and see if the sales still keep coming in.  My sales have been very consistent, knock on wood, since I started doing 5-10 a day.  I watched some guy on Youtube who was giving tips and that was one of his tips so I tried it.  He mentioned to not unlist a ton at one time because it will essentially make your store go into shock.  But you know, it's all theory.  Let us know if they start to tick back up though.  I'm interested to see if they do and how long it takes.  And a $10 sale is a $10 sale!!!!  Yay!!!!  And keep listing every day.  

[jaalex-2574]

Weird that eBay stock price is all time high but sellers not selling like 2022

[meme6253]

toysaver has the right answer, Welcome to the new normal, I don't see anything to panic about.

[inhawaii]

Your sales suddenly died?

I would try to contact ebay as soon as possible.

[turtles-trading-post]

First, there is no thing as "old" vintage item listings.  They only get better with age. Your merchandise just hasn't found the right buyer.  I have items in my store 3 years that suddenly sell.   I recently had a 2 year old listing with a quantity of 3 that 2 of them sold within a week!  It's fickle.

The first thing I suggest is to get the delisted items back out there.  There's a function called "Sell Similar" where you end a listing and do "Sell Similar" which generates a new listing number and puts the item back on top of the search as a new item.  Now "Relist" functions the same way and is easier because "Relist" will delete the old listing for you as part of the process.  With "Sell Similar" you had to remember to go back and delete the old item, and this is where some folks screwed up  and wound up with duplicate listings.

So pull your inventory up on Sellers Hub and search by oldest listing.  Take a quantity, I do 100 at a time, and go through the process described in last paragraph.  Your merchandise will have the "New Listing" banner and be at top of the listings.  Do that with all the listings you deem old... for instance don't have any listings older than 3 months if you choose.   This should help your visibility.

[christworks]

I do not think the issue is directly tied to you delisting 106 items. I think it has to do with the percentage of items you delisted in your store at the same time. I know sellers who end 200 listings every day, then relist them a minute later. They have thousands of items though, so the 200 listings makes up a small fraction. 

I have about 1100 items. I end about 50 per day, and sell similar again. That's about 4% of my store. 

I agree with the others that right now a lot of the things you are selling just aren't moving. They are not bad items. I've had some Christmas/holiday collectable stuff move recently, and I'm seeing view spike on the fall and Christmas stuff over the past week. Schools are starting back across the country over the next few weeks, so more buyers will start thinking about Christmas and maybe do some early shopping. It will be pick up as we go through Q3 and get ready for what I expect to be a booming Q4. 

[femmefan1946]

How were your sales in July 2024?2023? 2022?

Not last month. Not December.

From your Sold list, you have been selling two to three items every day all of July.

So check for number of sales but also value.

Ten $25 sales equals one $250 sale.

There are tendencies in retail.

You can't sell Christmas trees in January. BBQs are a hard sell after Father's Day.

And for your mental health, the best way to look at sales levels is monthly, not weekly or daily.

And make your comparisons on year to year.

[onefootflipper]

Looking at your sell through rate I can see that you have an incredible sell through rate for a glass and trinket seller, which are traditionally ridiculously slow categories. 

Either you just have a few bad days stacking up, or you are suffering from store rot, where all your good stuff or appropriately priced stuff is sold and only the mistake remain.

I sell $10K plus per month and every once in a while I still have a day where I sell nothing, or 3 ten dollar days in a row.

[chapeau-noir]

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@tobaccocardyahoo wrote:

Ebay will provide you with no answers to your questions. Customer service reps know even less than Ebay sellers about what governs your traffic and sales.

I would characterize what you sell to be "decorative accessories" and would expect most of your sales to come from broad searches or buyers who have saved you as a seller. You have a significant number of followers.

You can certainly use Ebay's performance measures to see traffic to your listing and to your store.

I have always found that adding more listings builds traffic and sales. Not always sales of the new items. If your attention is elsewhere, it could contribute to effects of your deliberate reduction in number of listings.

Theories about how that occurs can range from the plausible to the totally unlikely and no one knows the answer, probably not even the programmer who maintains that code.

I have driven my number of listings up over the past month, and seen an increase in sales. Will that work for you, if you do not try you will not know.

Whatever the problem is, the solution will come from you, not Ebay.

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This is about the only thing I'm really sure of around here. I'll work with eBay (i.e., trying to maximise search, stay on the right side of the law, etc.) but anything else is really up to me, and what I do with what I've got. 

[turtles-trading-post]

Agreed.  I have 8600 listings and will end/relist 100 a day.  The "new" listings, some of which have been recycled over and over for a few years, will suddenly sell because they are back on top again.  

I sell mainly first day covers to stamp collectors.  I generally save Christmas ones to list in October but always have a few in active inventory.  This year they have been selling all summer, so I'm listing stacks every week!  Their money is as good now as in the fall!

Another tip is the USA 250th Anniversary is in 2026.  Suddenly items from the 200th Anniversary- Bicentennial in 1976 are selling!   So think of anything patriotic.