Should your store only be focused on selling specific types of items?

[skeletonstore]

What sort of penalties or confusion are created by having a department store sales channel rather than focusing on a niche market?   I've seen mention of this on this board as well as youtube and other places.  Ebay of course is not a human visiting your site and analyzing it and coming up with an individually tailored selling experience.  It's a robot,  an algorithm that sorta shoves all your listings in food processor and you either wind up with something that blends well or gobbledygook.  Is that how it is?   I find myself using promotions in vain once again.  I'm getting more impressions,  some increase in clicks but no offers or sales.  There's best offers on all my items but no serious offers in 4-5 days.  If you're promoting you can only set the price so low.  I can only imagine the people seeing my items are not my customers at all.  Does selling a few odds and ends with my Halloween/Horror stuff hurt my store?   Naturally I'd like to add more items but have no money for supplies and ebay for example isn't exactly offering any sort of working capital loans, although i'm sure they had no problem getting loans if not grants from the feds over the past few years.  so I know I have too small a store.  I wonder if there's a magical formula?   Certainly if I could I would chef up 500-3000 items, some of which would flood the market in a week on the short end but no longer than 3-6 months on the high end, then I wouldn't worry about algorithms,  I'd have a healthy, vibrant store. Should I just delete the non horror stuff?  Should I add horror titles?  I know the real solution but can't manage it.  I wonder if there's an alternative and or do I need to start changing my titles significantly. Terapeak is hot garbage btw....

[inhawaii]

My opinion.

The more stuff you have for sale, the more variety, the better.

[krazzykats]

And I like niche stores better.  I do collectibles because that's what I do.

😀

[soh.maryl]

"Penalties"?

[animesalesandmore]

He probly think that there's a draw back to sell everything.  

[skeletonstore]

Ebay presents our listings to those they think will buy them.  One such penalty would be ebay getting confused and showing out items to the wrong buyers and ruining our click thru rate which could in tern ruin our sell thru rate.  

[skeletonstore]

I tried collecting buyers, but once they ran out of money and their credit cards were maxed I had to let them out of their cage and back into the wild 😉

[varebelrose]

Given that you are already established as a niche store, I would suggest keeping the other items available, but put them for sale under a different ID. You can have more than one, and it doesnt even have to be a store.

[skeletonstore]

No,  I wonder if ebay thinks it's a drawback and would prefer one have several dedicated stores with a clearly defined theme.  

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@skeletonstore You say: " ebay for example isn't exactly offering any sort of working capital loans"

Well, except for ebay Selling Capital's Working Capital Loans:

https://pages.ebay.com/sellercapital/

I believe there was an ebay Open session about this. Those replays should be available online soon, I'm guessing sometime this week. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@skeletonstore  

There are no ebay "penalties" for either type of store. Whether to have a more general store (as I do) or to "niche down" is up to you. There are pros and cons to each one.

One reason I don't have a niche store is simply because I source opportunistically...But niche stores are better positioned to drive repeat business, especially now that we have coded coupons, store newsletters, store video, the new store fronts, etc. I think it's easier to "brand" a niche store. 

I've seen sellers who do well with a hybrid model: there is no question that they have a primary focus, which helps with repeat business, but they also have other stuff as well, which allows them a broader approach to finding buyers.

[steve_stuff]

"department store sales channel rather than focusing on a niche ..."

We don't think it matters.

From talking about ebay with friends/family and our real wood and stucco store customers, most of the 'buy only' ones just search for what they want, and buy or bid on it. They never click on the 'see store' or 'sellers other items' [or however they are worded] links. Most never knew they were there.  And they don't save any sellers. Or even care what the seller's 'name' is. They just look for something and buy or bid.

Personally we only buy inks and record mailers on ebay, but we also get stuff for store customers, and if they want two or more books or records, we will look at a sellers other items in the hope of them having most/all.

That's the only time we would check out a store page [if the seller has a store and 'view item' link we pick the view one over the store]

So in our opinion the only thing that really keeps an item from selling is no one who has seen it wants it.

[simply-the-best-for-you]

It doesn't matter in the least, you can do either.  eBay doesn't care or assess "penalties" either way.  

eBay offers Working Captial loans, as does PP & I forgot who else that I'm constantly getting ads from.  

Terapeak is very useful for me. 

[skeletonstore]

I don't sell enough,  so they turn me down.  My state gave out $2.3B in fraudulent unemployment claims during the pandemic,  much of which is going to be forgiven.  I didn't get a penny.  I could definitely be doing better but if lenders don't lend, then there's no way of moving forward.  Numbers keep getting worse across the nation for unemployment fraud.  Maybe someone should look into the sneaker sales on some of these websites during that time. I don't think it's fair.  In my city , fraud was probably extremely high and they spent all that money on fireworks and alcohol.  I would have purchased raw materials.  I bought lighting and a new camera lens after one of the bailouts.  I would worry so little about algorithms if I had the funds to get production on track.  I know how the game works on this site. 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@skeletonstore wrote:

I don't sell enough,  so they turn me down.   

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That's TOTALLY different than saying they don't offer them.   Sorry, but you don't qualify, doesn't mean eBay doesn't offer them.   Potentially fraudelent unemployment claims have nothing to do with that.  

You also posted the other day that the eBay grants are only available to certain types of sellers.  I know for a fact that there are no special requirements to be eligible to apply for the grant other than being a current, active seller, being 18 & residing in the USA.   Also, your account must be in good standing & you have to meet the definitions of a small business, but that's it.  It's something that easily most eBay sellers can apply for.