Selling

[goldrose47]

I don’t understand why I’m not selling much any more I sell one every week and ebay says to drop my price but if I do I don’t make money so what people thinks about it 

[goldrose47]

I also sell on mercari not much but more than ebay 

[fashunu4eeuh]

I would take the pricing advice from eBay with a grain of salt. They are just suggestions, and can be safely disregarded if found to be unhelpful. Besides this, a wholesale dropping of prices isn't always the answer. You are the only real judge when it comes to pricing your goods.

It can be very difficult to explain a lack of sales, but in terms of the obvious, I noticed you have a number of unbranded generic items. Of them, many seem under-described, with titles devoid of pertinent descriptors. Since Ebay runs on keywords, how will buyers find your listings when such details are scarce?

The holidays are nearly upon us. To make the most of your eBay presence,  a little tweaking of your listings might attract more buyers. It couldn't hurt, might help, with nothing to lose. Good luck, and hope your sales pick up!

[patriot_bearing_supply]

"eBay is telling you to drop your price? That would run into commerce issues would it not. Are you sure they are actually telling you to drop your price?"

On one of the screens are messages that your XYZ had an average price of $X.XX. I personally ignore it. The simple fact is someone listed an XYZ that they had in their garage, and are just looking to get rid of. Once that cheap one is sold, then I can sell my XYZ at (2x) $X.XX .

[mr_lincoln]

@goldrose47     Raise your prices ...

[femmefan1946]

I agree with @mr_lincoln .

EBay has one generic response to any seller with slow sales-- lower prices.

The robots can't see your pictures.

The robots aren't reading your titles or descriptions.

They are not even looking at the Item Specifics that we are all being encouraged to use for third party search engines.

Things that do work (at least a little):

• Close your older staler listings, let them sit for a few days in your Unsold List and then relist as Sell Similar
• Look at your titles. The first four words are what phone shoppers see. 
• You have 82 keystrokes for titles. Use them, they are FREE.
• Fill in those Item Specifics.
• Use Free Shipping.
• DON'T PANIC!  Free Shipping means putting your selling price into your asking price. Which is cheaper a $10 item with $5 shipping or a $15 item with *F*R*E*E* Shipping?
• Promoted Listings have been good to me. I only pay one percent and only when something sells, which to me is a decent deal.

There are many more, and it has become a little difficult to see our current listings and be more specific.

[chapeau-noir]

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@goldrose47 wrote:

I also sell on mercari not much but more than ebay 

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I do, too - it's pretty funky, TBH - it rewards activity but in a strange way - if I list on a regular basis, sales fall off.  If I list in spurts, I get sales - as if I'm be rewarded for suddenly returning after not listing for weeks.  I've sold there for a couple of years and it has been the same the entire time.

Mostly you need to look at what you're selling.  I would get rid of watch part auctions and move to fixed price on those (watchbands and parts are something people need for repairs or replacements - they'll purchase a fixed price item rather than wait around for 5-7 days for maybe or maybe not getting the part they need for their watch).  I can't answer to the collectibles and ephemera market - I know no one who collects them and many are burdened with having to get rid of too much stuff from previous generations as it is, so they need to be really desirable, or one needs to be really patient so their pieces find their buyer, which is fine, too, but then you need to keep the listings fresh - eBay does not operate on a 'set it and forget it' basis (I'm not saying you do this), so just refresh your listings maybe every 90 days, if you don't already, make sure they're optimised, have good keywords and tweak when you need to.

I notice you have free shipping on a number of listings already - I actually think FS does nothing for sales unless someone is selling commodities that anyone can get and thus need the boost. But people do look at *reasonable* shipping and yours is pretty high - unless you're relying on priority for everything, I'd revisit that. 

Agree with not allowing eBay to dictate pricing - they operate on such a massive scale that your pricing is being averaged in with millions of other items and might not even be relevant - you know your items best.  I also hope your sales pick up!

[inhawaii]

It's what you're selling.

If it's in demand, people will buy it.

If it's not in demand, people will not buy it.

[Anonymous]

I found Mercari to be a yard sale price selling site, to get rid of stuff for any price.

Their business model is for buyers to compete at paying the lowest price for an item, lowballs are encouraged.

Seller's promote their items by lowering their prices, get sales by sending steep offers to "Likes" (Watchers Here).

It's a race to the bottom, no way one could sell full time there and make any money, it's not structured for it.

Yes, you will get more sales anywhere else than eBay right now, but that doesn't mean you're making money,

especially at Mercari.

[chapeau-noir]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I found Mercari to be a yard sale price selling site, to get rid of stuff for any price.

Their business model is for buyers to compete at paying the lowest price for an item, lowballs are encouraged.

Seller's promote their items by lowering their prices, get sales by sending steep offers to "Likes" (Watchers Here).

It's a race to the bottom, no way one could sell full time there and make any money, it's not structured for it.

Yes, you will get more sales anywhere else than eBay right now, but that doesn't mean you're making money,

especially at Mercari.

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Basically for me it's the last step before I just get rid of the stuff.  I have a bunch of house stuff up there and the like, plus clearance items from my regular stores elsewhere.  It's tedious - I list for about a month, then sales die no matter what I do.  So I just let it sit for a few months, take anything that hasn't sold and give it one more chance - a bunch of it sells again, and the rest just goes to donations.  So I'll go from 50 sales in a month (I only have about 150 items up there at any given time, sometimes maybe 200, but not much) to 0. And it stays that way.  So I take everything down and put more stuff up maybe two months later (other clearance items).  Sure enough - off goes 50-60 items in a month and then it dies again. 

It's really pretty funky.

[gail5176]

I find lately lots are selling first time with many watchers and multiple bidders. You have to list to make money-can’t list for .99 cents unless your a huge volume seller with a huge buyer base. I do think sales  have decreased because the economy has declined-higher gas prices-higher groceries-people don’t have extra money anymore to spend on extra stuff.

[mr_lincoln]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

I agree with @mr_lincoln .

EBay has one generic response to any seller with slow sales-- lower prices.

The robots can't see your pictures.

The robots aren't reading your titles or descriptions.

They are not even looking at the Item Specifics that we are all being encouraged to use for third party search engines.

Things that do work (at least a little):

• Close your older staler listings, let them sit for a few days in your Unsold List and then relist as Sell Similar
• Look at your titles. The first four words are what phone shoppers see. 
• You have 82 keystrokes for titles. Use them, they are FREE.
• Fill in those Item Specifics.
• Use Free Shipping.
• DON'T PANIC!  Free Shipping means putting your selling price into your asking price. Which is cheaper a $10 item with $5 shipping or a $15 item with *F*R*E*E* Shipping?
• Promoted Listings have been good to me. I only pay one percent and only when something sells, which to me is a decent deal.

There are many more, and it has become a little difficult to see our current listings and be more specific.

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Good morning @femmefan1946 ,

Yep, you hit the nail on the head there for sure.  For myself I rarely use Free Shipping but I think it is ideal for light weight items.  Most of my items are heavier and require Priority Mail weight classes ... for 5 lbs and up coast to coast shipping can be significantly higher then same or adjacent shipping zones so it seems to work better using Calculated shipping on those items.

I also use STANDARD Promoted Listing Campaigns, once a quarter for about 30 days and one fixed Ad rate between 5% - 10% (ignoring eBay Trending rates) ... I just launched one Oct 10 through Nov 14.  I put ALL my Fixed Priced listings on it and this one I selected 7% Ad rate.  I use Promoted Listings to drive traffic and I see more long tail items sell during a Campaign then other times.

[coolections]

@domin-tomas 

Someone already asked but I will ask again since you say Ebay messes with search. Give us something you have listed so we can check your facts to make sure what you say is correct.

[stuff4divas]

@goldrose47 

You posted the same thing on 9/23 and got several answers

You left  27 feedbacks for buyers in the past month, so I don't get what you are saying about selling 1 item every week

27 feedbacks left in the past month = 1 sale every day, not every week, so in this case, you are doing exceptionally well

[katzrul15]

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@stuff4divas wrote:

@goldrose47 

You posted the same thing on 9/23 and got several answers

You left  27 feedbacks for buyers in the past month, so I don't get what you are saying about selling 1 item every week

27 feedbacks left in the past month = 1 sale every day, not every week, so in this case, you are doing exceptionally well

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Yes, would say so.  Diary for 11/20 and compare again.

[goldrose47]

I sell 1 per week and I don’t like it