eBay

willowbirds · ‎09-11-2017

Hi Everyone,

I am a new seller, and I listed 10 items with high hopes, and sold nothing! Some of my items were silly, but some were great, brand new with tags, Hudson Jeans! If you're unaware, Hudsons retail for over $200, and I was selling them for around $60! I mean, if it were me, I'd snatch those up asap....Anyway, no views. Does anyone have any advice on selling jeans?

Regarding my other items: They're mostly upcycled items that I designed. They did get some views, and no selling, so I assume the items weren't the viewers' cup of tea. However, I actually wonder if that's true, since I didn't sell even my legit amazing items!? Any thoughts here?

OK, one last thing: Ebay suggested I start my auction at .99. Although that makes sense, I'm not actually asking all that much for any of my items in the first place, and I am hesitant to start at .99, because I do need to clear a certain cost, or I end up in the negative, yeah?

Any thoughts and advice would be so appreciated. Thank you!!

fashunu4eeuh · ‎09-11-2017

Hi Holli and welcome. I took a look at your listings and they are, for the most part, very good. I made a few notes. First, selling womens jeans can be tough. Some do well with it but there are 1.6 million listings for womens jeans up on ebay right now. 5882 of those are Hudson jeans. So you see where i'm going. Add in the fact that you are selling small sizes which don't do as well generally. However, you are not relying strictly on stock photos and include the actual photos of your jeans, which is good, and being that your items are NWT, I wouldn't give up on them yet. It can be hard in the beginning when you are limited to only 10 items a month, etc. so you don't have the number of listings built up to maximize your exposure. But perseverence is the name of the game.

I would work on your titles. They are very important in getting eyes on your listings. Be sure to include sizes in the title, and use all the space available with descriptive keywords. Your tote bag titles are never going to get you views like that. You have these amazing, one-of-a-kind artistic renderings and your titles consist of two words, Tote Bag. You describe them in your listing but completely neglected to put facts in the title. It could be something along the lines of "OOAK Buddha Art Blue Cotton Large Tote Shopping Bag Handmade." That's just an example off the cuff but i hope you catch my meaning. Do the same with the Guadalupe Virgin and the Owl Tote Bag. And I see nothing "silly" about your items. They are special and show real talent.

DO NOT start your auctions at 99 cents unless you want to sell your item for 99 cents. The rule of thumb is to set your start price at the lowest amount you can live with should you only get one bid.

Good luck to you as you press forward. Just keep listing and refining your titles. You'll get there. Come to the boards when you have a question or concern. I think you will do well here. Don't give up!

duchess-at-speakeasy · ‎09-11-2017

The clothing category on eBay is over-saturated. Too much competition, especially from Chinese sellers with counterfeit merchandise and super-cheap prices.

No, don't follow eBay's 99-cent advice! Start at the minimum price you can accept and don't expect multiple bids. Auctions now represent less than 10% of the total items for sale on eBay -- active, competitive bidding is a thing of the past.

Bottom line: Right now, sales are pathetically slow on eBay. Many items get no views at all, probably because eBay's search fails to yield useful results.

~~C~~

My Glass Duchess
Quoting Mom: In polite society, "hey" is for horses.

femmefan1946 · ‎09-11-2017

Ebay suggested I start my auction at .99. Although that makes sense,

NO NO NO NO NO

It makes no sense at all.

Ignore that.

EBay is only technically an auction site nowadays.

Over 80% of transactions are Buy It Now / Fixed Price.

Open an auction, if you must use them, at the price you would be comfortable to get.

And look at your auctions on a smartphone.

More than half of sales involve mobiles, and the experience is much different than on a computer.

Better, use Fixed Price.

Ask what you want to get and cover your costs.

Including your wages - the minimum wage here inBritishColumbia is 18 cents a minute.

Use Free Shipping (which just means including your shipping and packaging costs in your asking price) wherever possible.

It's not possible on parcels where the service cost changes with destination. Use Calculated Shipping there.

You may have just missed the Back toSchool buyers.....

But you are getting a boost in Search as a new seller.

And the more items you list, the more likely you are to be found.

Remember you have 50 Free Listings every 30 days. Use them.

swenson8781 · ‎09-12-2017

Everyone so far has given you excellent advice! The only other thing I will add is that selling clothing on here is a HUGE game of patience. Your expecations are way too high regarding how quickly items will sell, sorry 😞

That being said, if you have the patience, try to list your items maybe as 'fixed price', for at least 30 days, so they CAN get the views, buyers can put them on their watch list, and hopefully you will get some sales. Used to be (many, many years ago), that items would sell quickly, but clothing is no longer that way, just due to the large volume of it on here. That doesn't necessarily mean they won't sell, it just takes longer than most expect.

retrose1 · ‎09-12-2017

OP, I sell clothing and my sell thru on ebay is about 5 - 10% so you should sell maybe one out of ten items in a month. So your history so far is about par for the course.

I'd like to point out that if anyone wore them, even for a few minutes in a photo shoot, they are not brand new without tags - they are used. One of the things you have to learn and quickly is how buyers can use ebay's buyercentric policies against a seller to get freebies. That blurb in the listing is one of them.

You should research how many of an item are listed on ebay and then how many of them actually sell - how much should be the last thing you look at. If you have a brand and there are thousands listed, but only a hundred of them sell, they may not be the earthshattering money maker you believe them to be.

Your totes are nice and I recommend that you get better close ups of the artwork as your gallery pic and use the words Art To Wear in the title. And to be honest, ebay isn't really a good place for sellers of ooak items. ebay has tailored the place for mall merchandise for mall shoppers.

(*Bleep*)

aproudparent2010 · ‎09-12-2017

@holliwilliamso_0 wrote:
Hi Everyone,

I am a new seller, and I listed 10 items with high hopes, and sold nothing! Some of my items were silly, but some were great, brand new with tags, Hudson Jeans! If you're unaware, Hudsons retail for over $200, and I was selling them for around $60! I mean, if it were me, I'd snatch those up asap....Anyway, no views. Does anyone have any advice on selling jeans?

Regarding my other items: They're mostly upcycled items that I designed. They did get some views, and no selling, so I assume the items weren't the viewers' cup of tea. However, I actually wonder if that's true, since I didn't sell even my legit amazing items!? Any thoughts here?

OK, one last thing: Ebay suggested I start my auction at .99. Although that makes sense, I'm not actually asking all that much for any of my items in the first place, and I am hesitant to start at .99, because I do need to clear a certain cost, or I end up in the negative, yeah?

Any thoughts and advice would be so appreciated. Thank you!!

@holliwilliamso_0 wrote:
Hi Everyone,

I am a new seller, and I listed 10 items with high hopes, and sold nothing! Some of my items were silly, but some were great, brand new with tags, Hudson Jeans! If you're unaware, Hudsons retail for over $200, and I was selling them for around $60! I mean, if it were me, I'd snatch those up asap....Anyway, no views. Does anyone have any advice on selling jeans?

Regarding my other items: They're mostly upcycled items that I designed. They did get some views, and no selling, so I assume the items weren't the viewers' cup of tea. However, I actually wonder if that's true, since I didn't sell even my legit amazing items!? Any thoughts here?

OK, one last thing: Ebay suggested I start my auction at .99. Although that makes sense, I'm not actually asking all that much for any of my items in the first place, and I am hesitant to start at .99, because I do need to clear a certain cost, or I end up in the negative, yeah?

Any thoughts and advice would be so appreciated. Thank you!!

1. That may be part of the problem right there. Buyers have been told if a deal seems too good to be true then it probably is....selling those jeans for 1/3 of what they normally sell for can actually look really suspicious.

2. Don't start at 99 cents....start at the very least you'd be willing to take for your item. Because if you only get 1 bid your item sells for your starting bid.