NO SALES

[hi_406979]

I cannot get anything to sell on eBay and I have sell worthy items! I think I'm going to get away from eBay altogether and try other avenues. Any help would be appreciated. I'm totally sick of this!

[retailtechoutlet]

Before listing something you have to look at the sales velocity. Look at sales in the last 90 days and determine if its worth your time. Simple as that. 

[chapeau-noir]

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@gamersbaystore wrote:

VHS tapes do still sell, I sell them all the time. I sold 3 to a single buyer this past week. While its true they don't sell very fast, they do produce exceptional profits. They're cheap to obtain and to ship. They are also easy to package and unlikely to get damaged during shipping.

I pay 50 cents on average for my VHS tapes, then I sell them for an average of $5 to $10 each.

While VHS may be dying off, some companies have started producing VHS players again. Theres also a lot of older films on VHS that had very little or no production runs on DVD/digital.

VHS tapes aren't a first priority for me though, its usually what I list when I run low on new inventory.

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It's a great market for those movies that were never released on DVD, and there are quite a few excellent films that haven't been for various reasons and they're hard to find anywhere.  The cinemaphile market isn't big for that kind of thing, but it's devoted, all ages, and will pay for a rare film.  It's cool to find them and I'm thrilled when I do. Generally those VHS, at least in my experience, have been in excellent condition, too. 

[monster-deals]

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@hi_406979 wrote:

I have sell worthy items! 

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Hate to be the bearer of bad news but not from what I can see.

[stacy_pme]

I only see 11 items now, so you must have sold something in the last day.  Great!  That's 10% sales in 24 hours!   List more things.  If you want to sell lots of things, you need to list even more.  I have 255 items currently listed, and I usually sell a couple a day on average.  I also list as I go along, so I try to get as many items listed as possible and keep my "store" packed with items.  The more things you list the more things you will sell.  Knowing what you have and putting it in the listing also makes all the difference in the world.  So research, research, research.  And make sure you fill up with photographs.  EBay gives you 12 spaces for photographs, use them.  So like for your vases, make sure and provide close-up photographs of the rims, the designs, photographs of the bottoms, photos of any maker's marks, etc.  Backgrounds are also very important.  Plain backgrounds allow more detail of the item to shine and don't take attention away from the item you are selling.  Consider using even just a plain white bedsheet as a background....  Fill in detail about the company that made them in your description, it can help to attract buyers that may not be familiar with a particular brand, and it will make your item seem more unique than mass-created items.  Books & VHS are hard sells.  I still can't gain success in that area, but I am seeing results with some second-hand items.  It just takes time (lots of time) to really get maximum potential from your items, and make it all worthwhile.  

[pikabo-icu]

@stacy_pme   That was a very kind & thoughtful reply.. 

Sadly I checked and the OP sold a book on auction for .99 cents with free shipping..

That's rough..

@hi_406979  PLEASE disregard any starting price that eBay recommends for auctions.  Take a look at sold items that match your item, for selling price & start your books a little under that. At least at a price to cover your shipping cost. 

[fm2000]

Mainstream Hollywood movies on VHS are almost always worthless; eg. Top Gun, Titanic, Disney's Aladdin etc. It is the rare, obscure, niche, and weird stuff that sells on VHS, and sometimes first VHS releases of popular movies from the 1970s and early 1980s.  Look for horror movies, DIY/instructional, movies you never heard of,  movies never released on DVD/Blu-Ray/streaming, maybe unusual releases of popular movies (like those in the Fotomat packaging) etc. Don't waste time with the common stuff.

[2013grotz]

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@pikabo-icu wrote:

Sadly I checked and the OP sold a book on auction for .99 cents with free shipping..

That's rough..

 I saw that when I made my post way up the thread while I was looking at OP's stuff.  OP is probably at the "playing with the system" stage of things, yet felt somehow they were entitled to sales given the post.  They'll realize they need to think a lot more about what they're doing on the system when they find that they just paid to get rid of that book.  Buyers will definitely notice something that heavily advantageous and jump on it.  Hopefully they realize the duplicate listings need to go too or someone's going to really bust on them for that.

To wit though, people make mistakes and I made a similar one.  I had the intention of switching something from free shipping to calculated one time and found out pretty quickly I made the mistake of not switching off the free shipping tab but got the price lowered to "calculated rate".  I was pretty upset when I saw the sale go through, but pretty much learned my lesson to seriously double-check and take slow all of my listings and listing changes.  And yes I honored the deal.

FWIW, auctions and books really don't go that well together, unless it's something rare that people are going to desire.

[gamersbaystore]

Yes, there's a strong market out there for this stuff, especially the rarer titles. Even laser discs seem to have a cult following today, both for movies and games. Some of the older laser disc games are worth a fortune! Then you have the blu-ray collectors.

Its amazing how VHS tapes can stand the test of time, as long as they're stored properly. I recently listed videos from the 1980's that played like they were brand new.

The problem with VHS though is they wear down with every successive play. If they're brand new sealed, they're worth more for this reason.