Selling increase question - *positivity only please*

[estatesalequeen]

I imagine we all have times when we start to panic over lack of sales. I really want to know what others are doing that sparks the coveted Cha Ching.

What do you do to increase sales? 

Is there one thing you do that has worked consistently? or at all?

For me? It has been luck and a prayer. I am looking for more concrete ideas. 

Thanks!

[chapeau-noir]

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@gamersbaystore wrote:

You really remove listings after just 30 days? Almost half my sales this last 3 months were for items listed almost a year ago. Its like well over 100+ sales.

I get what you're saying about sell through rates too, its not good to have really low traffic to sales ratios, ebay will rank you lower. As for the items that aren't selling, I would sooner drop the price than remove such listings.

Handling times too can affect visibility. ebay practically cut my traffic to zero when I offered 2 day handling, which seems really unfair.

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That's interesting - when I went to 2 day handling it made no difference at all - I wonder if that's category related?

[gamersbaystore]

I think its just ebay trying to strong arm us as usual. Just like how this past year they started demanding we offer free shipping. I would do it too if I could offer it and still make a profit; which after crunching numbers doesn't seem possible for me.

I think sales will get better for a lot of us in due time now that congress and Trump are forcing ebay to clean up its act with counterfeit goods. ebay has for years turned a blind eye to the mega sellers who're obviously selling nothing but bogus products. But now they have no choice but to comply and kick them out, and that's great for those of who run legitimate businesses here.

[bar-29368]

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@gamersbaystore wrote:

Promotional offers do often work to drive more sales for me, but not always. Things like percentage off sales, buy 2 get 1 free, and shipping/volume discounts, etc, can all help to bring more sales.

Sales have been incredibly slow for me this past few months, but the buy 2 get 1 free offer has definitely driven a lot more sales than I would've had otherwise. I am getting fewer sales lately, but more and more of them are for multi-quantity purchases.

A lot of people are buying 3 movies instead of 1, and I had one video game buyer recently who purchased 9 games all at once. Without that promotion, I doubt I would have gotten those sales.

Another thing that helps is to be proactive in listing new items for sale and diversifying what you have to offer. For instance, maybe not everyone is looking to buy a video game, but maybe I can sell them something else like a movie instead.

It also doesn't hurt to have a few really good deals to help draw more attention back to your other listings. Its what retailers call "Loss Leaders", items that are sold at a loss with the hopes you will buy something else. 

ebay does have a habit of ranking the best deals the highest. More traffic often equates to more sales, so its something worth considering.

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Too bad ebay is going to penalize those MQ sales once the sellers is forced invited into MP.

[nuclearomen]

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@gamersbaystore wrote:

I think its just ebay trying to strong arm us as usual. Just like how this past year they started demanding we offer free shipping. I would do it too if I could offer it and still make a profit; which after crunching numbers doesn't seem possible for me.

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there is no way to make profit with returns either via free reruns or buyer pays because your still refunding the buyer the amount of the item. You then have to resell that item, usually with a small markup to recoup the retun costs. You can have a decrease in that refund amount if the item is returned damaged but then the resale value is either worthless or much less then original price. I offer free reruns, but honestly in two years I had only 2 returns so the amount of returns to sales is nothing. Now if I was getting a ton of returns that's where your mention of free returns would obviously not be wise.