If Your Sales are Lacking - Try our Recent Approach

[katzrul15]

We have 2 Selling accounts - on the smaller one, sales had really stagnated to almost nothing over the past 4-6 weeks.  And that is the account we push a lot of discounted items thru, so it was surprising.

Our main Selling account was also slow - yet our sales on Amazon remained robust, this entire time.

So I decided to "test" a sale concept and see if I could get it to work.  I launched this initially on the smaller account.

I selected 10 orders from June that were nicer sized orders and the Buyers had left FB.  

I sent each Buyer an email letting them know I appreciated their Feedback (wanted a reason to write) and their order with us.

I also indicated that in appreciation, we were offering a "private" sale and that any order with us for the same type of widget, within the next 14 days, we would refund the shipping IN FULL.  Free shipping just for shopping with us again!  Stated "Limit 2 items".

(btw, for that type of widget, I did raise some pricing, but had profit room to make this happen).

Out of the first 10 emails sent, we received (2) repeat orders.  Both Buyers each bought (2) items and we indeed shipped them for free.

In the meantime, we received 2 new orders from random buyers.  

On the day on shipment, I sent an email thanking them for their order and letting them know, we were offering a "private sale" and if they purchased with us again (same type of widget) within 14 days, we would refund their shipping in full.  1 buyer immediately bought again.  (yay)

We have been doing this since July 15th and we have had 16 repeat orders as a result.  One Buyer bought several times, but 11 unique repeat buys and the odd thing is, when you say "Limit 2", they buy 2!

Tonight, we received an email from a Buyer stating they had been on vacation and it has been 16 days - can they still get the "private sale" deal?  Heck yeah, you can!   Woot!

Now clearly, you have to be careful "which" widgets you offer this on and lighter ones are clearly the better way to go.

I am now doing this (day 4) on the larger Selling account and have opened it up to Legos and will see where this goes.  (and yes, I adjusted some pricing to make this happen).

Realize this might now work for everyone, but REPEAT buyers ARE THE BEST BUYERS and I feel like I have tried all sorts of things to spark some interest and was not getting anywhere.

Just thought I would share - if you have things you have been doing to get buyers to come back and shop with you and would be kind enough to share your successes, would love to hear them!

Katz

[reallynicestamps]

Yes, every time we make a sale we increase the chances of making another sale.
I even have noticed that if I get  sale from a particular location, I often see another from nearby. The first time I noticed this I got two sales to Lichtenstein in a week from two different cities. I didn't know Lichtenstein was big enough to have two cities.

That's an excellent suggestion and I'm glad it's working for you.

[coolections]

Yes, anytime you lower the price the odds of getting a sale increase, especially when it is someone you know is already interested in what you have. The only problem with trying to help some of the sellers who come here they will let you know real fast they are not about to give their items away and immediately ignore your suggestion.

[katzrul15]

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@coolections wrote:

Yes, anytime you lower the price the odds of getting a sale increase, especially when it is someone you know is already interested in what you have. The only problem with trying to help some of the sellers who come here they will let you know real fast they are not about to give their items away and immediately ignore your suggestion.

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I did state that I raised my prices some to offset the "free" shipping offer in the email.  But I also had room to do the offer, which is "key".

I could have spent more money with e-Bay and raised my PLs again (nope), OR, I could do it this way.  Decided to do it this way and see if it works.

I stated above, I realize not everyone would want to try or embrace something like this, but with Buyers buying (2) each time, the free shipping has not been a burden, really.  

I am just delighted to see sales again and hopefully, it can work for someone else.  I am certain others are working hard to create sales in these "slow" periods and I really would love to hear some success stories from others also.  

And this is just about a month old sales test for us.  While 16 sales is not going to change the trajectory of our selling on this site - I do certain welcome the repeat sales we have garnered from doing this.

Going to keep at it to see if we can keep the sales moving along.  Pretty desperate here to find a solution.  

[katzrul15]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

Yes, every time we make a sale we increase the chances of making another sale.
I even have noticed that if I get  sale from a particular location, I often see another from nearby. The first time I noticed this I got two sales to Lichtenstein in a week from two different cities. I didn't know Lichtenstein was big enough to have two cities.

That's an excellent suggestion and I'm glad it's working for you.

---

We too often receive sales in clumps from geographic areas.  All those yesterday were TX or FL. 

[b86fiero]

Hey katz,

If eBay was giving an award for the most consistent seller helpful and relative posts on the Selling board you would win hands down.

Many of us appreciate your insights and posting about your selling journey.

Keep up the good work and thank you!!

BJ

[mr_lincoln]

@katzrul15   Nothing wrong with trying to stimulate sales through various means ... nice creative idea.  It requires some effort but if the results are sales then that's a good thing ...

Mr. L

[toomuchstuffagain35]

Great idea.

Of course for this to work, you first have to GET sales AND have the buyers leave FB lol

On this ID for some strange reason I rarely get FB, no idea why.

[katzrul15]

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@toomuchstuffagain35 wrote:

Great idea.

Of course for this to work, you first have to GET sales AND have the buyers leave FB lol

On this ID for some strange reason I rarely get FB, no idea why.

---

Since I was contacting Buyers from June - I used 10 who left FB and seemed happy.  We often do not get a lot of FB either. 

You could just thank them for their purchase.  I was afraid to reach out if FB was unknown, but so many never leave FB, so maybe not something I should have vetted by. 

[eunster1313]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

We have 2 Selling accounts - on the smaller one, sales had really stagnated to almost nothing over the past 4-6 weeks.  And that is the account we push a lot of discounted items thru, so it was surprising.

Our main Selling account was also slow - yet our sales on Amazon remained robust, this entire time.

So I decided to "test" a sale concept and see if I could get it to work.  I launched this initially on the smaller account.

I selected 10 orders from June that were nicer sized orders and the Buyers had left FB.  

I sent each Buyer an email letting them know I appreciated their Feedback (wanted a reason to write) and their order with us.

I also indicated that in appreciation, we were offering a "private" sale and that any order with us for the same type of widget, within the next 14 days, we would refund the shipping IN FULL.  Free shipping just for shopping with us again!  Stated "Limit 2 items".

(btw, for that type of widget, I did raise some pricing, but had profit room to make this happen).

Out of the first 10 emails sent, we received (2) repeat orders.  Both Buyers each bought (2) items and we indeed shipped them for free.

In the meantime, we received 2 new orders from random buyers.  

On the day on shipment, I sent an email thanking them for their order and letting them know, we were offering a "private sale" and if they purchased with us again (same type of widget) within 14 days, we would refund their shipping in full.  1 buyer immediately bought again.  (yay)

We have been doing this since July 15th and we have had 16 repeat orders as a result.  One Buyer bought several times, but 11 unique repeat buys and the odd thing is, when you say "Limit 2", they buy 2!

Tonight, we received an email from a Buyer stating they had been on vacation and it has been 16 days - can they still get the "private sale" deal?  Heck yeah, you can!   Woot!

Now clearly, you have to be careful "which" widgets you offer this on and lighter ones are clearly the better way to go.

I am now doing this (day 4) on the larger Selling account and have opened it up to Legos and will see where this goes.  (and yes, I adjusted some pricing to make this happen).

Realize this might now work for everyone, but REPEAT buyers ARE THE BEST BUYERS and I feel like I have tried all sorts of things to spark some interest and was not getting anywhere.

Just thought I would share - if you have things you have been doing to get buyers to come back and shop with you and would be kind enough to share your successes, would love to hear them!

Katz

I'm not trying to rain on your parade.

You are allowed to thank a buyer for their feedback and discuss the item

or items they did buy and that in itself might get you a repeat customer.

But you are not allowed to offer them a "private sale" special deal on their

next purchase without violating this policy.

---

Spam policy

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/member-behavior-policies/spam-policy?id=5033&st=12&pos=1&query=Sp... 

[reallynicestamps]

A reasonable rule but I would think a one-off offer, for on-eBay deals, would not offend most buyers. Particularly if they had been in a successful transaction with the seller.

Not so much rules as guidelines.

[bauble-babes]

BRAVO for a creative solution to overcome slow/dead-in-the-water sales! I'm inspired, Dear!

I've tried this over last 3 days to try & boost my record low sales:

I had a LOT of listings that had been on awhile. Read an article where eBay experts at a convention told sellers that old listings bog down all their listings in search results. I figured wth, I'll try anything at this point!

Ended 75% of my stock (even if they had tons of watchers which many did), used SELL SIMILAR feature (not Relist) and spent the last 3 days tweaking prices, etc. and getting those listings back on.

Day 4: I've had a few sales and see that people are actually noticing my stuff as I'm picking up new watchers every few hours. PRAYING this works, but going to try your approach as well. I'll get back to you with my results...

[toomuchstuffagain35]

Yet ebay themselves spams us non stop each and every day.

[katzrul15]

It is no different than giving them a coupon with their order, offering them a coupon after a purchase, etc.

They receive the offers inside their orders (and we include paper coupons on the packing sheet all the time as that is how e-Bay has them set up), etc.

As for me and my accounts, I will continue to offer them free shipping on subsequent purchases for up to 14 days, 2 items max.

Until such time that e-Bay decides to actually DO marketing for us as Sellers - we will continue to work to draw repeat customers.  We are paying a small ransom with no traffic and no views.  How is this any different than the custom coupons that e-Bay allows a Seller to send thru e-Bay messages?  And I am sending everything thru e-Bay messages with no issues, what so ever.  

[nuclearomen]

@katzrul15 sales were down like all others here also, what I did to get get them raised involved zero offers, zero price reductions, zero sale events...no, I did two things, went through listings and ended all listings a year or older (still have some to do) and created new listings for them (not sell similar). Next I ended and created a new PLS campaign and raised my elections between .5% - 1% -  sale in the past 2 weeks have gone from -24% to +32.7 with page views up 26.3% and impressions up 13% as of today. And for the record, I raised prices on most everything while back. Price doesn't matter on ebay as much as getting the listing to be shown/viewed and most definitely what your electing for PL's. But other wise, all the glitches created the past few months made everyone's sales loose momentum - you need to build that back up, works the same for PL's.