Question about long-term growth on eBay

[viridians]

I'm aware that selling history, quantity of positive ratings, building up a consumer base of repeat buyers, and just general repetition advance a usual eBay store.  I wanted to ask though: to what extent does this general building up contribute to sales?  I've worked my way into selling 5-7 items a week on average.  If I keep stock to about the same quantity and quality, keep shipping orders, and such without changing my business' fundamentals, should I expect to have substantial growth in sales in say, 3 years time just by performing the technical functions of running an eBay store?  I'm tinkering with eBay here and there but I have kept the aforementioned description to a simplified hypothetical scenario.  Thank you so much to anyone who answers in advance!  

[richard1rst]

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@viridians wrote:

I'm aware that selling history, quantity of positive ratings, building up a consumer base of repeat buyers, and just general repetition advance a usual eBay store.  I wanted to ask though: to what extent does this general building up contribute to sales?  I've worked my way into selling 5-7 items a week on average.  If I keep stock to about the same quantity and quality, keep shipping orders, and such without changing my business' fundamentals, should I expect to have substantial growth in sales in say, 3 years time just by performing the technical functions of running an eBay store?  I'm tinkering with eBay here and there but I have kept the aforementioned description to a simplified hypothetical scenario.  Thank you so much to anyone who answers in advance!  

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Well of course not. I started 19 years ago with about a dozen listings worth in total about $250.00. Today I have 11,000 listings. There is no way I could be doing the volume I'm doing now if I still only had a dozen listings.

[chapeau-noir]

To me it's an X-Y graph of quality-quantity.  I've always kept about the same number of listings - about 600 when I was full time here and now about 150-175 (I try to go no higher than that) now that I'm part-time. 

My change in sales had as much to do with me making better sourcing choices and staying up with trends as did gross numbers. Someone can have loads of stuff running but most of it is drek, or someone can have a smaller number of really good stuff, or loads of good stuff - you'll get different numbers in each case.

Loads of good stuff would be great, but since I have little room to do this, I try to have smaller numbers of good stuff.

There is only one constant in this business, though, and that is change.

[dirk12955]

Tagging on:

The more I list,   The more I'm seen,   The more I sell.

You can't sell from an empty shelf.    

[lakefor94]

As far as building up, as you put it, your listings that are selling with quantity available will probably get shown more to the top of a search.  

Otherwise, you will need to continue to list desirable items that buyers want. 

EBay won't favor you in any way unless you pay for promoted listings and the products still have to be desired by buyers.

[viridians]

Thank  you everyone!!!!

[stainlessenginecovers]

Selling 'emailed digital' stuff? 

How do you own these things you sell? 

[kensgiftshop]

Selling digital items you don't own, you probably won't last long when you and your buyers start getting their gaming accounts shut down.

[mtgraves7984]

I don't see long term growth with the digital items. But that's just me...

[pls-consignments]

I think everyone may be missing the point of this question. If a buyer continues to keep their number of listing consistent, would he expect growth over time by means of traditional factors such as customer service, seller feedback, buyer-favored policies, quality listings etc.?

My answer to that is NO.

In fact, you will probably be out of business because those incentives are part of the old eBay, whereas PL and pay-per-click is the new eBay. Therefore, the overall cost to sell for a "profit" has jumped to new levels, which will require larger stores and larger wallets to play. EBay knows what its doing. When decisions like this are made, the numbers are the most important, which includes acceptable levels of collateral damage (small-time sellers), as long as they reach their numbers. It's clear to me, that eBay realizes that it cannot compete with other marketplace platforms by keeping their traditional relationships with small-time sellers. 

[luckythewinner]

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@viridians wrote:

I'm aware that selling history, quantity of positive ratings, building up a consumer base of repeat buyers, and just general repetition advance a usual eBay store.  I wanted to ask though: to what extent does this general building up contribute to sales?

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I think there is one factor that overshadows all of the stuff you mentioned - offering items for which the demand far outstrips the supply. 

[mam98031]

You sound like you have given this a lot of thought.  You've got some great ideas and outlook on how to do this.  

As time moves on you need to add inventory.  Variety is a good thing.  Having just a couple of listings isn't going to grow your little business it will just keep it very small.  You need to have the inventory posted for sale so more and more buyer will find you.  That will make you grow as long as you keep your Customer Service Five star.  Don't ever underestimate the important of excellent customer service.  It is a way to build repeat customers.

I would caution you about electronically delivered products.  There are specific pitfalls and rules to selling these.  So make sure you are FULLY informed and understand the impact this they of product can cause you account and potentially the health of your selling account.

Electronically Delivered items

This one is a long policy, but extremely important that you know every bit of it.

MBG = Money Back Guarantee

[inhawaii]

I'm not worried about it.

Ebay will outlive me.   😉

[viridians]

To those concerned with potential TOS violations pertaining to my digital items.  Roblox and its affiliates have few policies against the partial or full resale of their non-tradable goods, the only one from my understanding that I'm subject to is a rule against using Roblox as a mediator for the resale of Roblox branded goods (such as using Roblox's currency).  The rest is pretty usual stuff such as not claiming ownership of Roblox assets, using the Roblox brand to commit fraud, etc etc. mam98031 provided a very helpful eBay article about virtual items.  However, notice the exemptions.  I am not selling digital keys sourced from CDS nor selling software keys.  My sourcing comes from a gray area: virtual codes included with merchandise purchases.  This practice although somewhat taboo among eBay's majority has been thoroughly practiced with very little retaliation from eBay.  The only punishments I have observed after speaking with other sellers in my area pertained almost entirely to the use of random chance mystery boxes and the sort as well as punishments for using Jazwares branding material (such as photoshoots, Jazwares does not have jurisdiction to enforce Roblox copyright).  The selling of digital items is extremely prevalent among Roblox virtual items and extends to other brands such as when energy drinks or beef jerky have codes included for games such as Call of Duty.  Search up "Roblox" or "code" and you'll find that I'm far from a black sheep.  As for proof of delivery and seller protections, I accept that I basically have none unless the suspect buyer has been confirmed as committing fraud in usually separate purchases on eBay.  This is a relatively small concern and I have taken steps to minimize my risk.  Lastly, as someone who is usually in school full-time and who has a job, I'm simply using eBay to advance my skills, passion, and to simply get a small taste of business!  Thank you all so much for the thought and feedback you have provided in this thread!