The Secret to increasing sales is...

[krazzykats]

REDUCE YOUR PRICES!

I was reminded the other day, to turn merchandise into cash asap with lower pricing. 

eBay was once the place you went to for great prices.  So what happened to all the great deals?  And could we get that eBay back?

Retail stores are beating online pricing.  

Meanwhile:

Shipping costs went up.

Sales taxes were added.

Other sales fees went up well.

Supplies, labor, etc., all went up.

[sextons-sweet-deals]

It just depends on what you're selling and the demand at the moment.

The quality of new clothing, toys, or anything else these days is pathetic! Items made 10 to 40 years ago are better than today's new products.

The same goes for home services / maintenance, home building, appliances, electronics, automobiles, and even food. 

U.S. corporations and all politicians have sold out for their own interest to cheap labor and cheap quality to other countries to avoid U.S. taxes, labor cost, unions, & health insurance to further increase repeat sale turnover.

take care of what you have the best you can to make it last!

[mam98031]

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@moondogblues wrote:

"Sell something expensive to a high sales tax state and another bite of your pie goes away…."

How can that be true when it's the BUYER who pays the sales tax?  Does eBay take a bite of that too?

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Because all sellers pay a FVF on the sales tax that a buyer pays.

[meme6253]

You should actually check price guides, There are many sellers just trying to get rid of inventory & reducing prices drastically from their actual value, Caution is advised

[2013grotz]

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@ajs_coins_and_alchemy wrote:

Here's another idea, keep an eye on your market.

Kinda why I tend to not try to load up what I'm doing and amass items, just so I can keep an eye on what's going on.  Since the site doesn't keep too much track of when you start a listing, it can be hard to re-evaluate.  The 30 day listings kind of helped but when things went GTC it made it hard to know for sure when something needed to be looked at and reassessed.

[2013grotz]

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@mam98031 wrote:

That works sometimes, but believe it or not so does raising your pricing.  Yes sometimes that works too.&nbsp

That's weird but found that true and have people tell me the same thing has happened to them. It's hard to know average buyer psychology, since one will say "Oh good deal!" and buy and another will say "OK what's wrong with it?" and pass at the same price. It's hard to know what you'll catch. I just tend to use what competition is doing as a guide, but even that falls apart at times - honestly I can't say I know how to set a price on anything with 100% certainty. Since I'm just getting rid of stuff more than making a living out of this, I'm happy usually as long as I get "something" I feel is commensurate with the item, but I'm sure I've left a lot of money on the table ever since I started selling down my mother's hoard.

[2013grotz]

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@moondogblues wrote:

How can that be true when it's the BUYER who pays the sales tax?  Does eBay take a bite of that too?

Yes. Ebay takes FVF from Item Price, Shipping, and Taxes. So sell to a high tax state, your FVFs are higher.

[joels-retrocade]

Find a niche in the selling market that can't be mass produced and you will find success.  Vintage goods is where it's at because Big Box and cheap oversea manufacturers cannot provide these things.  The key is figuring out how to reliably source goods; the items will practically sell themselves.

[partfinds]

Tha’t is such a great advice !

Reduce prices, bump your promo fees, pay more in shipping and pay more to sourcing places, pay more for trips to get your merchendize and pay more in final value because of higher shipping and other fees.

👍👍👍😃

[evelyb30]

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@joels-retrocade wrote:

Find a niche in the selling market that can't be mass produced and you will find success.  Vintage goods is where it's at because Big Box and cheap oversea manufacturers cannot provide these things.  The key is figuring out how to reliably source goods; the items will practically sell themselves.

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"reliably source" ... good luck with that, says a soon to be former vintage seller.  Covid killed sourcing for me, for the most part, and eBay killed selling of anything high-priced enough to be worth the effort.  Tag and rummage sales have been dead. There are a few, run by people trying to get near normal sales prices while cutting out eBay.  No joy there.  Sell my sterling for under scrap (shipping included)?  Sure I will.   Lower my prices low enough to sell maybe, but I might as well take it to the scrapper myself and make just as much for less effort. 

[joels-retrocade]

Got lots of years in the tank so no worries lol.  Luckily I collected for 20 years before I ever started selling so lots of inventory ready to go because I have hoarding problems lol.  You can still source stuff locally at least where I am; I regularly finds deals but it's just a hobby for me I work full time on top.  I agree garage sales and thrift shops haven't been a good source of vintage stuff in many years; and that's when I stopped going many years ago.

[krazzykats]

Antiques and collectibles are unique, but 30-somethings aren't into buying that "old" stuff.  And reducing prices is to turn it into cash asap, so you can go out to buy more or?  Turn it. 

You can hold out for the dream price, and maybe you will get it. 

But two, three years later and it hasn't sold, just might be time to drop the price and turn it into cash to buy something else.

[joels-retrocade]

I have no problem reducing my prices to sell stuff lol I do it frequently also in no rush to sell either.  I probably only have a handful of old ads almsot everything I post sells withing a year or so.   I am 32 BTW and a huge collector of vintage goods;  vintage stuff has surged price wise across the board.  This is the best time ever to be selling collectibles like I sell.  Tons of collectors and more joining in all the time.

[evelyb30]

You'd think there would be even more young collectors for some things at least.  Vintage and antiques is the ultimate in recycling. You're reusing an item whose carbon debt is essentially zero and keeping it out of the landfill at the same time.  It's especially true for antique wooden furniture.   But... Ikea and West Elm. (sigh) 

[zamo-zuan]

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@krazzykats wrote:

REDUCE YOUR PRICES!

I was reminded the other day, to turn merchandise into cash asap with lower pricing. 

eBay was once the place you went to for great prices.  So what happened to all the great deals?  And could we get that eBay back?

Retail stores are beating online pricing.  

Meanwhile:

Shipping costs went up.

Sales taxes were added.

Other sales fees went up well.

Supplies, labor, etc., all went up.

---

This has been mathematically proven to not be the case on eBay these days (at least for new items).

Cheapest prices: 80,000 impressions > 0.4% CTR = 320 views. 4.4% conversion rate = 14 sales.

Increase prices by 4% and add 4% PLS to compensate: 289,000 impressions > 0.34% CTR = 982 views. 3.9% conversion rate = 38 sales.

By design, AI backed search engines & their SEO breaks down to simple mathematics, with the root being impressions. The higher chance of being seen, the higher chance of being purchased, even if your other metrics drop.

You just need to find the sweet spot. But at the end of the day, eBay is designed to neuter your impressions unless you spend. Meaning price is one of the less relevant variables.

In fact, eBay is designed in such a way that reducing your prices to be cheaper than retail stores is detrimental.

That's the point of those of us who bring up this subject, and say that it is NOT about prices. Because we have a large enough of a sample set to see that eBay does, in fact, work in this way.

But it is detrimental to the eBay marketplace as a whole if sellers are encouraged to raise prices like this. Because while sellers need to raise prices to pay for ads and eBay gets ad $$$, less people will buy on eBay over time.

Please take this in to consideration when creating topics such as this. Because eBay had learned this lesson back in 2019 , but the new management seemed to have forgotten what the past leaders learned. So now we're going back down the path where eBay is actively rewarding those who raise their prices and pay for ads, and it's hurting eBay as a whole and making it so retail stores are cheaper.

[justafemster]

I learned something long ago. 

If a product doesn't sell, raise the price and it'll sell.

If a product sells to fast, raise the price and it'll still sell. 

I'm a firm believer in raising prices.