eBay

percgrabbe-0 · ‎02-01-2018

How to drive slow sales in February on EBAY higher? Anyone have any ideas besides huge markdowns? Traffic to EBAY seems unusually slow but it is only the beginning of February. Christmas season is over. Valentines day buyers only if you sell jewelery on here otherwise you wait until March-April for Spring buyers. If you know of a way to drive site traffic to EBAY other than them buying banners on other sites I would love to hear it?

papyruspapillo · ‎02-01-2018

No solution. Lots of buyers are as frustrated as are sellers with trying to use ebay. So they don't bother. I predict slow sales in spring, this year, with televised awards shows, the Superbowl, basketball playoffs, and the winter Olympics as competition for users' attention. Maybe the ice will melt in April.

little_angel · ‎02-01-2018

I track my sales daily for the last 4 years and Feburaray and July are my slowest months for me. I used this time to do inventory, and take a break from the craziness from the holidays and vacation. Can't work 365 days a year so some down time is OK once in a while.

orangehound · ‎02-01-2018

wrote:
How to drive slow sales in February on EBAY higher? Anyone have any ideas besides huge markdowns? ?

Offer free shipping
Offer free return shipping
Offer guaranteed delivery
Use promoted listings

And, the #1 thing that you can do ...

In your title, put things like L@@K or ~~~~~~WOW~~~~~~ or special characters like 💋

(Yes, that last thing is a joke ... don't do it ... it's annoying, and special characters are against eBay policies).

pdxbuys · ‎02-23-2018

How can you afford to offer free shipping?

kensgiftshop · ‎02-23-2018

You just add the cost of shipping to your item price.

Have a great day

fbobsmail1983 · ‎02-23-2018

There's nothing special about Ebay anymore. Their desire to be the next Amazon is going no where since they sell nothing other than ad space and their constant meddling and bewildering updates have alienated many sellers and drove countless others away from this site. So in the end Ebay has morphed itself into just another website peddling predominately chinese junk. And Ebay simply is not equipped to compete with actual online retail operations.

richard1rst · ‎02-24-2018

@percgrabbe-0wrote:
Anyone have any ideas besides huge markdowns?

I ask every new hire the same question: “what is the primary function of a salesman”. Inevitably they answer “to make sales’. That is entirely the wrong answer. The correct answer is “to make profit”. Now it is true you only make profit by making sales. But if you become so focused on making a sale that you offer discounts or other freebies you are only hurting yourself.

Remember, a discount comes exclusively out of profits. Your cost remains the same.

Mathematically, if you cut your selling price by 10% you need to increase your sales volume by 33% just to make the same profit you would have made if you just left the price alone.

Do you expect your discount or freebie to increase your sales volume by 33%?

As another poster mentioned, use the slowdown to take a vacation, or inventory count, or freshen up your listings, etc. When I had a slight slowdown I went and drove a NASCAR racer, then I went skydiving, then I piloted a P-51 Mustang, then I went water jet sking. Get the idea?

shayandjazzy · ‎03-13-2018

It does seem unusually quiet right now for March, for sure. However I have an idea for you that has not been mentioned and that is using Markdown Manager without actually having to mark your items down further.

I had a crazy busy fall selling season from late Aug - Dec which quieted down in mid -Jan quite a bit. I refuse to pay the 12% trending rate for Promoted Listings and so I came up with a new strategy for gaining more exposure....

Markdown Manager 😉 I ALWAYS get an initial sales boost using MM because

1) ebay notifies your watchers

2) ebay promotes items with sales

3) you seem to get better search placement

Now here is the things...most of us Ebay sellers are ALREADY marking down our items below full retail value, so my question is "Why not let shoppers know this?"

So what I did, with good success during Feb - beg of March, is to mark-up my items to their true retail value and then mark them down accordingly using MM.

This is NOT a sham because I do sell my items FAR below retail value. But no one knows that, right? By using MM to set my pricing, I am letting customers know they are receiving a nice discount and I am also getting an increase in exposure vs just listing at a lower than retail price with out using MM.

Now here is what I am finding...It is starting to wind down a bit so I am thinking it is likely best to let your MM sales run for 2 weeks and then RESTART again. It seems like this sort of reindexes things again and items start selling again. It appears if you just leave MM always on, it eventually looses the traction.

Hope that helps.

luckythewinner · ‎03-13-2018

@percgrabbe-0wrote:
How to drive slow sales in February on EBAY higher? Anyone have any ideas besides huge markdowns? Traffic to EBAY seems unusually slow but it is only the beginning of February. Christmas season is over. Valentines day buyers only if you sell jewelery on here otherwise you wait until March-April for Spring buyers. If you know of a way to drive site traffic to EBAY other than them buying banners on other sites I would love to hear it?

If I were attempting to drive traffic, the last place I would drive that traffic is here. If you are doing all the work to drive traffic, why would you give eBay a commission on it?

castlemagicmemories · ‎03-13-2018

When I had a slight slowdown I went and drove a NASCAR racer, then I went skydiving, then I piloted a P-51 Mustang, then I went water jet sking. Get the idea?

WOW.

coolections · ‎03-13-2018

@papyruspapillowrote:
No solution. Lots of buyers are frustrated trying to use ebay. So they don't bother.

Where did you get that from ? Maybe you meant sellers are frustrated ? As a buyer I have never been frustrated using Ebay. OP if you are in the jewelry category there is not much you can do to drive traffic other than having close to the lowest cost. Buyers usually search lowest first as they see no sense in paying more if the same item is cheaper from another seller.