Sales Have Drop Like a Rock. What are you doing to Push Sales?

[jhr-4800]

Sales drop for me when ebay made changes to Jewelry Category.  I started to do the following to push sales.

1. Started to run sales
2. Pushing offers to "Watchers"
3. Drop prices
4. Post items for sale. Post more items for sale. And post more items for sale.
5. End items, and repost.

In your case, what are you doing to push sales?  And what has work for you?  Are you doing some thing different from what have you done in the past?  I will love to hear your methods to push sales.

But please keep this conversation on the positive side.  Complaining doesn't help in any way.

[jhr-4800]

Thanks a lot for sharing.  I am going to borrow some of your secrets and implement this on this account (My smallest account).  As I have been focusing of my main account most of the time. 

[inhawaii]

---

@domin-tomas wrote:

Doesn't that cost you to have less profit. How do you stay in business if your spending your profits. Just asking, no disrespect towards you.

---

Sometimes having LESS money is better than having NO money. 

Reminds me of my bosses wife. At my full time job the owners wife is in charge of pricing. 

She would rather price an item at $1,000 and sell none of them than lower the price and sell 3 or 4. 

[chapeau-noir]

---

@inhawaii wrote:

---

@domin-tomas wrote:

Doesn't that cost you to have less profit. How do you stay in business if your spending your profits. Just asking, no disrespect towards you.

---

Sometimes having LESS money is better than having NO money. 

Reminds me of my bosses wife. At my full time job the owners wife is in charge of pricing. 

She would rather price an item at $1,000 and sell none of them than lower the price and sell 3 or 4. 

---

People like that - I tell them I'm running a store not a museum.

[femmefan1946]

5.) I close slow moving listings, wait a week or so and then relist them

This in theory makes them New Listings and gives them a tiny boost inSearch.

1.) & 3.) After many years in retail, I never discount prices.  Whenever I've done this, I get about the same number of sales, but less profit.

If you look at the Big Stores, they have two kinds of sales.

• The Special Buy of products brought it for the sale. These may be slightly different that the normally sold products, or they may be a deal they got from their supplier. 
• The "turkey" sale of end of line, out of season, unpopular, or over-purchase items. The store has already made their money at regular price and are clearing the shelves.

Are your items turkeys you want to see the back of and will never carry again? Did you get a great deal on the products and have room to pass the deal on without losing profit?

1.) & 2.) In terms of pushing sales to specific buyers, I like Promoted Listings, where I decide how much I will pay for the fee.  I have considered pushing offers to Watchers, but most of these are also PL listings and I'm not sure I want to discount twice (the PL fee being a discount off my profit).

4.) Really does work.  I was posting small items in my "Firefly/Serenity" category, some with and some without PL and got a sale of a larger item in the group that I had not touched.  So ... bonus!

And it may be superstitious, but I seem to get sales of books that I have recently touched. Literally. I've tidied a bookshelf, say the one with "authors whose name start with M" and I get a couple of sales within a day of books by McCaffrey or McCall Smith or Madison.  This may be a corollary to Murphy's Law.

* Look at the 50% off racks in Ladies Wear. Notice there are more clothes in the 4-8 size range, but few in the 18-24 size range. Buyers consistently underbuy larger sizes and overbuy small sizes.  So us fat ladies buy it at full price when we see it, because we know it won't make it to the sale rack.

[jhr-4800]

I am trying to move out computers/computer servers.  I have had this computers for about 1 to 2 years.  At this time, I have about 20 left over.  At one point I had 50 to 70 computers.  I was making about $50 to $300 per computer that I was selling.  But every thing change with the "Virus". 

But before I started to sell computers, I started by selling clothes.  I was not satisfy by making $3 to $10 per item, my high end piece of cloth that I sold I made about $150, on some thing that I paid $1.50 to $3.  Any way, you don't find some thing often that you can make $150 on clothes.  That was when I move from moving clothes to computers, as I wanted to make more money.  This was my side gig (clothes than moving to computers), as I used to work a full time job.  

Fast forward 1 to 2 years, I find my self selling watches and trying to move out my 20 left over computers.  I love selling watches, as I can make any were from $5 on the low side to $500 on the higher end.  Shipping (watches) as I give free shipping, it will cost me on the high end at about $20, as I buy insurance and add signature confirmation.  

Any way, thank you for your questions.  And sharing your knowledge.  

[postingid7659]

Started looking for other sites, since eBay is so badly managed. 

[jhr-4800]

I have done the same.  I pay 15% including shipping as I give free shipping on ebay.  Poshmark charges 20%, and shipping to buyers, and buyers will ask you for a lower price on your items.  Mercari is almost the same, at the end, I save 5% on fees selling on ebay.

I have tried both Poshmark and Mercari.  My sale on Mercari in 1 month, 2 ($50 to $100).  My sales on ebay about 20 ($1500 to $2000).  Percentage paid to ebay 15%.  Percentage paid to Mercari 20%.  

Do the math.  Evaluate your options.  And move forward.

Good luck on your sellers journey!

[femmefan1946]

@bill.purvis2012 

I price my items so I can promote and put on sale and still get good $$ when they sell.

How does this affect your competitiveness? Or is your vintage jewelry category so One of a Kind that you basically have no competitors?

Boy-- looking at your Store( this has nothing to do with YOU ) what a horrible experience. Mostly I wear earrings, but Stores no longer allow us to have those sub-categories and I would have to look through the entire store to find my interest.

And again, a complaint about the new Store display not your Store at all. Your things are great and the pictures are crisp.

Just..... AAAGH!

[femmefan1946]

Ahahh! I found the real Gemstones Treasures.  Back to normal .  Still love your shop.

[chapeau-noir]

---

@femmefan1946 wrote:

5.) I close slow moving listings, wait a week or so and then relist them

This in theory makes them New Listings and gives them a tiny boost inSearch.

1.) & 3.) After many years in retail, I never discount prices.  Whenever I've done this, I get about the same number of sales, but less profit.

If you look at the Big Stores, they have two kinds of sales.

• The Special Buy of products brought it for the sale. These may be slightly different that the normally sold products, or they may be a deal they got from their supplier. 
• The "turkey" sale of end of line, out of season, unpopular, or over-purchase items. The store has already made their money at regular price and are clearing the shelves.

Are your items turkeys you want to see the back of and will never carry again? Did you get a great deal on the products and have room to pass the deal on without losing profit?

1.) & 2.) In terms of pushing sales to specific buyers, I like Promoted Listings, where I decide how much I will pay for the fee.  I have considered pushing offers to Watchers, but most of these are also PL listings and I'm not sure I want to discount twice (the PL fee being a discount off my profit).

4.) Really does work.  I was posting small items in my "Firefly/Serenity" category, some with and some without PL and got a sale of a larger item in the group that I had not touched.  So ... bonus!

And it may be superstitious, but I seem to get sales of books that I have recently touched. Literally. I've tidied a bookshelf, say the one with "authors whose name start with M" and I get a couple of sales within a day of books by McCaffrey or McCall Smith or Madison.  This may be a corollary to Murphy's Law.

* Look at the 50% off racks in Ladies Wear. Notice there are more clothes in the 4-8 size range, but few in the 18-24 size range. Buyers consistently underbuy larger sizes and overbuy small sizes.  So us fat ladies buy it at full price when we see it, because we know it won't make it to the sale rack.

---

@femmefan1946   A lot of that has to do with how manufacturers produce size runs (which is what the buyers then have available to purchase).  For misses they produce the most in about size 6-8 and it tails off very quickly at either end.  Women who wear large sizes in misses (10-12-14) are routinely short-changed, and as you get past 12 in misses, these days you may not find much of anything because some manufacturers no longer produce for size 14 (or 16) because it 'hurts the brand' - even 12 can be hard to find because they don't produce enough units and it's a very common size.  The same with the other end of the spectrum, but fewer women wear 0-2, and since the world is basically their oyster, they have more options than just mass manufacture like the rest of us.  I was talking with the buyer for a large department store a while back who said that she literally had to compete with other stores to get the large misses sizes.

18-24 gets into the plus range and that's a whole other headache because the brands and size runs change dramatically - that entire market is under-served, though - I'm in the resale/pre-owned market and finding anything nice in plus size to offer my customers is tough.

[demyan1978]

I did all those steps this year. It didn't help. My sales are lower then 10 year ago when I have less items, less feedback...

[winterpalace25]

Poshmark charges 20% but no fees on shipping. If I keep it under 5 lbs, it's cheaper for me to sell dishes on Posh. And they have reasonable, human customer service.

[jeff-second-chance-silver]

They dropped dramatically for everyone for few reasons.  Your items are not showing up in search results due to the never ending, irrelevant, time consuming addition of item specifics and by combining 4 very large categories into one you now have top rated sellers jammed into one group instead of spread out over 4.  All your doing by your actions is working harder and making less.  I suggest contacting ebay often and voicing your concerns. 

[jeff-second-chance-silver]

There were not any major changes in the vintage jewelry categories. They... according to ebay "streamlined" 4 large (all deserving a separate category) groups into one extremely large group under Fine Jewelry. You now have Rings (which includes rings with gemstones, rings without stones, rings with diamonds and rings with pearls.) Along with all those categories being shoved into one you also now have ALL the added item specifics to  which most of them are irrelevant and only open the door for mistakes to be entered which will result in items not as described returns. If a seller uses a different caliper to measure a gemstone then a buyer uses and the numbers are off, guess what... item not as described.  Thats just one example.  The same goes for earrings, pendants, bracelets, etc. Sellers get buried in that single extremely large category instantly.    

[jeff-second-chance-silver]

So your killing yourself to make less money all while ebay profits off you the same.  That doesnt make sense to do.