ONE OF A KIND SELLERS - What can we do that will help us compete?

[vintageista]

I am basically a OAK seller, do not purchase in bulk, almost never have even 2 of the same item. For quite awhile now eBay has been concentrating on sellers who have multiple NEW items, so that sellers like myself are the dinosaurs of the site!

I do not have the capital, nor the space to store bulk buys. Personally, I find no creativity in selecting wholesale items and attempting to sell lots of the same thing, the first ones may sell well, but when someone jumps in and undercuts you in price, or the next best thing comes along, you will probably eat the rest, at least that has been my experience the few times I have tried it in the past!

Is there anyone here, that may also be an OAK seller found any successful tips they would care to share that can be helpful to other seller's in this position. I've been here a long-time (20 years) and tried to weather all the changes, not doing as well as times past, but surviving. If things get any worse, I can't survive much longer, this is the worse November I have ever had, started about Oct 15 and still happening!

Management at eBay seems to largely favor seller's of NEW & MULTIPLE items at the expense of OAK sellers, everything in their algorithms is set up to favor that kind of seller, are there any ways we can gain even a tiny advantage in this environment?

[moms**art**window**]

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@vintageista wrote:

I am basically a OAK seller, do not purchase in bulk, almost never have even 2 of the same item. For quite awhile now eBay has been concentrating on sellers who have multiple NEW items, so that sellers like myself are the dinosaurs of the site!

I do not have the capital, nor the space to store bulk buys. Personally, I find no creativity in selecting wholesale items and attempting to sell lots of the same thing, the first ones may sell well, but when someone jumps in and undercuts you in price, or the next best thing comes along, you will probably eat the rest, at least that has been my experience the few times I have tried it in the past!

Is there anyone here, that may also be an OAK seller found any successful tips they would care to share that can be helpful to other seller's in this position. I've been here a long-time (20 years) and tried to weather all the changes, not doing as well as times past, but surviving. If things get any worse, I can't survive much longer, this is the worse November I have ever had, started about Oct 15 and still happening!

Management at eBay seems to largely favor seller's of NEW & MULTIPLE items at the expense of OAK sellers, everything in their algorithms is set up to favor that kind of seller, are there any ways we can gain even a tiny advantage in this environment?

I really enjoy reading your threads during these slow times,thought marked for extinction was a hoot,i hope you will write more after this

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[mikeystoyz]

One of a kind items for me would be laserdiscs - Warlock live from london or WASP - Live at Lycuem.   As to the Wasp Laserdisc there are maybe 10 in existance and I own one of them.  If I listed it it would go for 600 or so dollars.

[tunicaslot]

People are reading much more into the title than need be. OP could have used a different word - but she meant that she is selling single items be it a vintage slip or top vs a seller with a multiple quantity or variation listings where there is more than one item per listing for sale. 

Even when people today misspeak - I know what they mean - I don't take every word literally - I get the jist of the what they mean by using it in the context that is being spoken and not looking at each word as a separate entity. 

[pburn]

I consider one-of-a-kind (usually represented by OOAK) items to be handmade, where there is literally one. In the world. On the planet. Not two, not ten. One. Otherwise they'd be called "ten-of-a-kind" items, right? Like your Laserdisc.

[mrconran]

Honestly I left ebay twice this past week as I gave up trying to find items I wanted to purchase here.

[little.font.lord.leroy]

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@gramophone-georg wrote:

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@sharingtheland wrote:
All over the site, in many different categories, it's been a fight to find what I need to know.

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This is what buyers encounter- all day every day. I've said it before: I never imagined a day would come that shopping on eBay would be a chore of drudgery- but that day is here. 

I miss the days I couldn't wait to log on and be like a kid in a candy store.

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Shopping (that is searching) on eBay used to be fun, it felt like walking into the fancy shop and a clerk approach right away to help then they handed you a flute of champagne.

Now it's like that old national news report of a rush at a Macy's Sale where 7 shoppers were sent to the hospital with minor injuries and there's still 2 lost kids in child services who haven't found their parents. Only, it isn't the other shoppers who are swiping items from under my nose with a swift elbow to the eye socket -it's the danged clerks (eBay).

That's a good idea to use Google to search on ebay, but give them time and ebay will figure out how to screw that up just like Etsy and Pinterest have.

I put in multiple search terms like "Big Brass Widget", do not click "Include description", and I still get thousands of items that do not contain at least one of those words when every result should have all the words in the title. I wish there was a kind of pavlovian shock sent to the execs every time one of my searches provides one of those listings that do not match my search criteria in the least.

If you sell unique, vintage items there is one thing too many of you are not doing. At the left hand column of searches there are check boxs Under Condion for New (sometimes New w/tags, etc), Pre-owned and Not Specified.  As a shopper looking for vintage items I can easily eliminate 80% of the Chinese items by checking the Pre-owned (used) box, unfortunately 80% of the dealers selling used merchandise are not using that feature in their listings and they fall under the Not Specified box along with a lot of Chinese sellers of new items.

If you sell vintage/antique and you don't add the Pre-owned designation (maybe a seller can explain how you do that), you may be missing quite a few savvy shoppers who only shop Pre-owned as an easy way to eliminate the Chinese fake "vintage" retro or Antique "finish" or Antique "style" and all the other spam terms.

Antiques and Vintage sellers, while this search feature still works, you should take advantage of it.

[cherry*fizz]

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@tunicaslot wrote:

People are reading much more into the title than need be. OP could have used a different word - but she meant that she is selling single items be it a vintage slip or top vs a seller with a multiple quantity or variation listings where there is more than one item per listing for sale. 

Even when people today misspeak - I know what they mean - I don't take every word literally - I get the jist of the what they mean by using it in the context that is being spoken and not looking at each word as a separate entity. 

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I think people gathering information via context is a dying art. I am so surprised how many people don't seem to be able to do it. Then you get the (as Dr. Phil would say) "right-fighters" who just want to correct someone or call them out for what they are doing wrong. I thought the OP was pretty clear in the sense of OOAK items,  and I have to say this is the 2nd thread today that I have found highly frustrating. I believe the OP is saying that sellers who only have a q1 of an item are somehow placed below sellers who have a higher quantity? I don't get that, that has not been my experience here. 

The majority of the items I sell are one-offs. Besides having a good price and good listings, I don't know what else you can really do. In addition I am selling in an area where I know I just have to wait for the right buyer who is looking for any of my items at one time. There is nothing that eBay is doing that makes people not see my listings, and I have never seen any evidence that they are somehow funnelling buyers into listings where the seller has more than one of the same item available. I think I need to just quit this thread before my head explodes. 

[tunicaslot]

Don't let your head explode! And you're right - it may be a dying art as many of us feel were being forced to conform to the PC rhetoric. I told my dentist to have a Merry Christmas the other day and then apologized and said I mean Happy Holidays. He laughed as he's an old fart like I am and isn't into the PC - but I always feel I have to be on my best behavior as many people today will call you out.

I've had no sales all weekend except for a few auctions that ended. I could go with the conspiracy theories - but I've had a great month so far and maybe my listings are on the downturn in que - it happens with the over saturated category I sell in.

[castlemagicmemories]

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@pburn wrote:
I consider one-of-a-kind (usually represented by OOAK) items to be handmade, where there is literally one. In the world. On the planet. Not two, not ten. One. Otherwise they'd be called "ten-of-a-kind" items, right? Like your Laserdisc.

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Yes, and collectors are particularly sensitive to something being called one of kind, especially when they know it is not. I've seen listings called one of a kind and you can find at least twenty other listings at any given time for that item~then they make it worse by saying, only one of ebay!

[castlemagicmemories]

let's pray the Holiday sales are good!

Yes, absolutely!

[tunicaslot]

With all due respect  - there is only one other poster here who indeed mentioned watching vloggers after I had already given the advice as we discussed who we followed. 

The OP has a small store  that is not anywhere near the proportion on zamo zune. Her items are being seen - she has an excellent sell through rate - so zamo's problems are not what the OP is experiencing.

It's fine to repeat advice - but often - unless people are currently selling - they have no idea what other sellers are experiencing or if said advice will in effect help or make things worse. 

I can read a book about how to rebuild an engine - and repeat it back to people verbatim - but that doesn't mean I could actually rebuild that engine.

[moo*cow*corner]

That's so true.

And with such wide ranging categories and such a wide range of sellers-- it's very difficult to tell what might work for any given seller at any given time.

Your advice, even though general in nature, is great because it's all stuff any of us can try, regardless of category, price points or volume. That's what makes it so appropriate!

Out of the box thinking like this is what many of us are looking for!

[imakesugar]

It is getting to be the same on All sites. I am looking for a reasonably priced Smart phone. Smart watches, house protection devices, ( used in conjunction with the Echo) and many other weird things came up on the A...

I used to use Google to get through the "fluff" and find stuff on eBay I wanted but now I am getting the items I want but Many are sold already. :(. eBay then will give me other options but they are NOT the same item I was looking for to begin with! Shakes Head!

[luckythewinner]

everything in their algorithms is set up to favor that kind of seller 

Everything about retail is set up to favor a seller with inventory. An OOAK seller will always be at a disadvantage to a multi-quantity seller ... but IMHO that is because of economies of scale (procuring, photographing, describing listing) rather than anything eBay is doing. 

I find no creativity in selecting wholesale items and attempting to sell lots of the same thing

I share that sentiment. But I also find that 80% of my sales come from the several dozen items that I keep in inventory. 

[castlemagicmemories]

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@tunicaslot wrote:

I'm not being critical but the point of share what we know is best applied when we have actual experience to back up what we are saying. Often giving advice - when you don't have first hand knowledge can be detrimental if the information you relay is not condusive to the situation or if more questions arise - then that person is not able to answer them. 

People often think because I worked in the medical field I am knowledgeable enough to answer their questions. I have a vast array of knowledge outside of xray thru personal experiences with wound care, fractures, procedures, billing, ect.. but to give others advice on a condition or treatment - I'm over stepping my bounds because I am not a doctor and don't have the medical knowledge that is needed to answer their questions.

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I understand but the point is that others, such as yourself, may have that experience so there is nothing wrong with sharing it with someone else, especially when it is done to try to help someone else.  There are many here who post to help without experience, or you don't know what experience they may have due to posting ids,  but that does not negate that they may have something to share that will help.  It's not medical science, and this is a Community, with varying levels of experience, and we do what we can.  No one knows everything.