Store Level Advice

[ztams]

I'd like advice from those of you who have been here awhile and/or who do the whole math spreadsheet thing. I've just started working again on eBay after being gone several years. I sell low dollar items ($2-$4) and will eventually have at least 10,000 items. I've been enjoying the free listings while being on the cheapest store level ($4.95 per month.....so the FVF fees are killing me). Once the free listings end, which store level do you think would be best for me? Should I open multiple stores? Maybe a couple premium? Should I just rotate items from month to month? I don't like to pay for listing fees. Once I hit my limit for the month, that's usually it. Please be kind. Thanks in advance.

[luckythewinner]

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I've been enjoying the free listings while being on the cheapest store level ($4.95 per month.....so the FVF fees are killing me).

I assume your final value fees are 10%. With a larger store they will be 9.15%. If the final value fees are killing you now at $100 per thousand, they will probably still be killing you when you are paying $91.50 per thousand. 

Once the free listings end, which store level do you think would be best for me? Should I open multiple stores? Maybe a couple premium? Should I just rotate items from month to month?

IMHO this depends entirely upon your sales history, your experience, and how many listings you want to have active at any given time. 

If 10,000 items generate twice the sales volume as 5,000 items, then it makes sense to keep them all listed all the time.

If those additional 5,000 listings have lower demand and only generate 10% more sales over the first 5,000 then it might make sense to rotate them in. 

But only you can tell us what your experience is - and once you tell us, the answer should be pretty clear. 

I sell low dollar items ($2-$4) and will eventually have at least 10,000 items

Have you thought about grouping your items together to create fewer listings with a higher selling price? That would reduce the listing count, the impact of the per-transaction fees, and the FVF on the shipping cost. 

Instead of 180 separate listings for the Osmonds at $2 each, what if you grouped them together in lots of 25 priced at $30? That would reduce your listing count for the Osmonds from 180 down to 8. If you do the same for the Monkees, Beatles, etc. you could go from 10,000 listings down to 1,000. 

[ztams]

I assume your final value fees are 10%. With a larger store they will be 9.15%. If the final value fees are killing you now at $100 per thousand, they will probably still be killing you when you are paying $91.50 per thousand. 

Yes, I'm paying 10% FVF.  The larger store shows FVF of 4-9.15%.  I haven't researched but it sounds like I'm at the higher end of that with what I sell.  So....not a big difference there.

Have you thought about grouping your items together to create fewer listings with a higher selling price? That would reduce the listing count, the impact of the per-transaction fees, and the FVF on the shipping cost. 

Yes, I did that awhile back.  I sold lots for a flat $10 which included free shipping.  I was just trying to get rid of product at that point.  There were very few sales but many who wanted to purchase just one item out of the lot.  I've had more success so far listing them individually.

[luckythewinner]

And as an aside, unrelated to your question ... 

You have an awful lot of unused sdpace in your titles. (ex. "Justin Guarini pinup"). If you added to the titles (ex. "Justin Guarini pinup magazine clipping cutting picture") you might cast a wider net.

From my experience in music memorabilia, I find that "clipping" is used just as commonly as "pinup", and in the UK the term "cutting"  is often used. 

[ztams]

Thanks!  That's great advice.  I have my own standalone site where titles are more compact which is what I'm used to doing.  I will start using more of my real estate here on eBay.  Thanks again.

[penguins_dont_fly]

Opening a Store has a few added benefits besides just insertion fee and FVF fee discounts:

Shipping supplies coupon for basic and above stores

Promotions manager

The ability to organize your listings into your store categories

Free access to terapeak for basic and above

Vacation Settings

Automated Feedback (Premium and above)

I made a chart a while back ... it doesn't include the newer "Starter" or "Enterprise" level stores ... but it shows what the "tipping point" number of listings is per store level.

(I keep meaning to update this … but I can't find the original spreadsheet and don't feel like starting over LOL)

[ztams]

I like your brain!  Thanks for the chart.  

[vintage-car-magazines]

A lot depends on sales rather than just listings.

[vintage-car-magazines]

It's hard to strike a balance between number of listings, sales and the store fee. That challenge is exponentially more difficult with low priced items.

Random thoughts.....

For an anchor store you need to sell about 100 $3 items a month, just to pay the fee so the all of the other listings can be listed. How much is just paying for a place for unsolds to sit?

Another question is sales scalability. If you have 10,000 listings, is there enough demand to give you proportionately more sales with 10,000 listings vs 1,000 listings.

Another thought is the ability to replace sold listings. For instance, I can list 10,000 magazines. Even if I had sales to support an anchor store, I do not have the ability, sourcing or time to list, to replace them at an anchor store rate.

Just ramblings

[smallworldsellers]

You can't sell items for $2-4 on Ebay and make a decent profit unless you want to work 20 hours a day packaging to make it worth your while.  Bundle, get rid of it all and think BIGGER.

[this*old*attic]

I’m sorry, but I agree with this.

An entire inventory of $2-4 items? Not only are there Ebay fees but PayPal doesn’t refund if cancelled anymore.

It takes time to pack, print labels, actually ship/mail... G-d forbid if you have to communicate with a customer!

What is your time worth? What do you consider a decent hourly rate?

I’m not very active at the moment because I teach full time and have had some little life bobbles this year....

But I won’t get out of bed for less than $20/hour. When it comes to listing, the occasional $10 or $20 item is a rarity just to round out inventory because I think a price range is important - I shoot for $35 and up price wise, and my average sale is around $80 or so when I’m on top of things.

It takes as much effort to pack and ship an $80 item as a $3 item.

[therogue-trader]

"100 $3 items a month" presumes you have no costs (COGS, fees, shipping etc.). You'd be better off crunching the numbers based on the money you save with a lower ebay fee vs the cost of the store subscription.

[cynthealee2]

Are you in MP (managed payments)?

Did you get the letter to join in July?

If the answer to either of these is NO then:

Are you using PayPal's micro Payments?  (it will make your Fees to PayPal MUCH cheaper with the dollar amount your items sell for)

If the answer to the first 2 questions is yes, never mind for eBay, but you might want to look into it if you accept PayPal on your own website, and sell for the same low dollar amount.

Does your category offer Variation listings?

Can you put them in a slightly different categories to bring them into Variation listings?

https://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/sellingresources/multiplevariationslist.html

Check this list... then you could bring the amount of listings down and not need the bigger store (with the higher price tag).

You could then "group them together" while still offering them up for individual sale.  For example you could group the Monkey's Pinups together in one listing, with each individual pinup / poster as it's own title (and searchable as titled in the variation).   The "shorter titles" you use now could be the name of the variation while using the main title to use the various words suggested (pin-up, cutting, magazine etc).  Each variation also gets it's own picture.

You could group them in various ways... by Magazine, by person, band, movie etc. 

If you open multiple ID's know that the newer ID's will have lower listing/ Sales limits at least for the first little bit or so. (you can get them to increase the numbers but they will only go up so fast).

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As a side note all store levels have up to 300 categories, if you DO end up listing a boatload more you might want to break up the categories a bit more to make it easier for buyers browsing your store to find what they are looking for or find ones they didn't know they wanted until they saw the category 😉

[cynthealee2]

Forgot to add... if you set up a shipping promotion (not the pay eBay to promote your item).  It will auto combine the items for you, not every one can see the "request invoice" option on their phones or home computers.

[ztams]

Thanks for all of your comments. I really appreciate the help. The reason I am back with eBay is because I have a lot of overstock. I thought it would be a good idea to sell low to attract more customers to my website. (I've already had success getting my new eBay customers to purchase on my main site.) I currently have over 31K items there, all of which are priced higher than here on eBay. I thought I would be active on eBay maybe a year to get rid of overstock and gain new customers. My main goal in all of this was to push traffic to my main site, not make a fortune. Still, I'd like to make as much as possible. 🙂 Thanks again.