Worst 3 Selling Weeks of my Ebay Career

[maximum61]

I've been selling for over a year. The last 3 weeks I have had approximately 3 sales. Because of the lack of sales, I opened my sales up to international buyers (too confusing.... I switched back last night).  This has been the only difference and this was just 1 week out of the dismal 3.   Other than opting in with Internation sales nothing has changed.  I have added items and been "tweaking" items like crazy.  I have stopped some listings and then added back.   I've adjusted prices and other things I've read other users do.  Still nothing.  Any ideas or suggestions will be appreciated.

Hell...I can't even get a response to this question!

[moldy5]

most of what you have listed is not needed by the millions of people trying to eat, keep their homes & buy gas. nice stuff but not good sellers in the current times.  I looked at your cherry pomegranate Chrystal Light. YIKES. These often go on sale here at 2 for $3. You want 14.95 plus 6.35 to ship???  Even in good times, those prices are way too high!

It's possible nobody has responded to your post because we've already responded to thousands just like it. Good luck selling. try lowering most of your prices. 

[12345jamesstamps]

$30.00 for a bag of cookies is rather high. The shipping you have is high. Plus there will be state tax on this. Might want to lower the shipping on some stuff.

[m60driver]

Well I didn't find the OP's shipping costs to be that high.  Perhaps it is just the annual downturn in sales in the weeks before taxes are due combined with the current inflation impact.

[buyselljack2016]

@maximum61 

You did not get a response to the 2 other threads that you started because they are on the "Mentor" board where responders are limited. They have many questions to answer.

[reallynicestamps]

You can't look at sales over a short period of time like a year.

When I was managing B&M retail stores I soon learned there were waves in sales. December was terrible for selling wood stoves, BBQs, patio furniture, or stamps. But January was the start of patio season and a busy time in the stamp store.

You can't sell bathing suits in September.

The guy at the deli counter at my local supermarket was saying he'd had a "relaxing " week because the high school up the street was on Spring Break and there was no lunch crowd of starving teenagers.

And I used to tell people who needed blueprints or appraisals to come in at 2pm on a weekday, because they would be the only one the the shop. (Blueprints for building permits, appraisals for settling daddy's philatelic estate.)

Be prepared next year, this will likely be a slow period then too.

Meantime, use the slow period to update your inventory. Is there anything listed that has already been sold? (EBay will not admit they relist Sold items a lot). Could your shipping prices be lowered? Are your descriptions too short? Do you need better pictures?

Wouldn't this be a good time to hit the liquidators, thrifts, wholesalers for fresh product?

[chapeau-noir]

A lot of what you have you can get pretty much anywhere, including Amazon.  People are spending plenty of money, but chances are they'll buy those commodities where they've always bought them. I would never look on eBay for a lot of what you have.

And yeah, Feb and March are real dogs when it comes to sales.  Usually I have regular, pretty good sales despite being so small, but this past week has been pttthhh!!! which is March all over.  I'm preparing for later spring/summer now.

ETA: I also wouldn't call one little year selling here a 'career' - you have a lot to experience insofar as ups and downs of sales and the quirks of retail.  But it's GOOD to ask and get other peoples' experiences on this!

[stevemartin60]

Have you promised to give eBay another big chunk of your earnings to keep your items visible?

If not, welcome to the "new and improved eBay."

My sales fell off the cliff in mid-Februrary too, around the time I complained about this pay-to-play **bleep**   Just a coincidence,  I am sure....

[dbfolks166mt]

     Several people have mentioned your shipping cost as being too high. I took a look at a couple of your items and you may want to do a little analysis for some of your items that are listed and shipping priority mail based on the weight, size and buyer location. You can obtain flat rate envelopes and flat rate padded envelopes from USPS at no cost. You can ship up to 70 pounds in those. As an example the following items show some high shipping costs which I assume are based on calculated rates. You could simply have set it at same cost to all buyers and used a priority flat rate envelope which ships anywhere in the US for around $8. Or you could bake the $8 into the price and offer free shipping. For items that need packing protection I have on more than one occasion packed items inside a box and then put it into a padded flat rate envelope. 

     You may also want to checkout another shipping company like Pirate Ship which has a couple of shipping options that are not available on eBay like Priority Mail Cubic. I have used Pirate Ship often to purchase labels and simply upload the tracking information into the eBay order and mark it shipped. 

      As far as the comments from others about the prices I can't help you much with that one. 

[coolections]

You have not listed anything new for 2 weeks. Your situation is very common on Ebay. Here is how it works: what you have listed, and all your newly listed stuff gets lots of views and sales. As those items sit (not as popular), without continuing to list new stuff, the sales get less and less. Basically, you sold all the good stuff, so things were going great. Eventually if you never listed again your sales would drop each and every day until you have no sales for months.

[coolections]

@dbfolks166mt   Hopefully the OP will make changes. Every item you showed can easily be shipped for under $7.00. Unless they are not in the U.S., I did not check. OP, use the parcel post option for shipping that Ebay gives you. No need for Priority or any other service.

[susanb1872]

@12345jamesstamps  It would like like $30 is a lot and maybe you already know this, but there is a whole category of people looking for limited edition or discontinued food items. Check out "Altoids discontinued" on ebay.

[susanb1872]

Sorry-typo in my last reply that I couldn't seem to edit. It would SEEM like $30 is a lot...

[maximum61]

Thanks to everyone for replying.  You are correct....1 year does not an ebay career make.  However, I'm just going by what my selling experience has been thus far.  Plus, I'm trying to live on Social Security alone, so in some respects this is a "career" for me.  I am also just trying to keep the wolf away from the door.  With my power bill tripling, gas and groceries sky high, the Ebay sales are more important than ever.  Perhaps that's why the drop off in sales has me very nervous.

Before I checked here to see if I had replies, I slashed my prices, some as much as 50%.  I realize some things are priced high....however, before I price, I look at all similar listings and sold listings to determine a price.  My price is not the lowest but it certainly isn't the highest.  I try to fall someone in between.

As far as shipping, I agree that my costs are high.  But I don't understand how to lower them to where I don't lose money on shipping?  Yes, there are items that I can change to flat rate envelopes and I will be doing that.  I will also change from Priority Mail to Parcel Select where it makes sense.  The only reason I stopped giving Parcel Select as an option was because I had several bad experiences with Parcel Select.  Perhaps I should try again.  Many items are First Class and for the items that won't fit in a flat rate envelope (and there are a lot of them), I don't know how to reduce the shipping any further.  I suppose I could give buyers the Ebay rate instead of the retail rate, but honestly sometimes the only profit I'm making is the couple of dollars from shipping.  And for the responder who suggested Pirate Ship I will be looking into that today.

I apologize if this is the hundredth time you all have responded to the same question.  

Thanks again for the suggestions and insight.

Cheryl