eBay wants lots of quick sales, so Long-tail sellers must go

[timemachine777]

If your a long-tail seller on eBay, your days are numbered here. eBay only wants fast selling items. Long-tail sellers are seen as just site clutter, that take up space and search resources in regards to bandwidth and placement. Spring cleaning on eBay has all these sellers in their sights. The only way to get around this would be to have a race to the bottom with deep discounting to put you in any small amount of favorable light with eBay.  

[odditiesandantiquities1]

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@timemachine777 wrote:

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@coolections wrote:

Or stop trying to sell sports cards that are so common they can be found in any discount bin at any sports cards shop for 50 cents. Or stop trying to make the more than any other seller out there for your items. Sometimes it takes a little common sense to get items moving and with Ebay you must keep up with the others or let your items collect dust and blame Ebay.

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I don't mess with selling sports cards, or .50 cent items. I try to sell items with the least amount of competition whenever possible. 

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Time Machine. I'm a member of a facebook group called Talking Antiques. They are a great bunch of people from all around the world. Steven, the  group initiator is starting up a selling website through Facebook. Strickly antiques and collectibles, antique jewelry and the like. They have a good membership of 60,000. I've agreed to be one of the mod's for their new site. I'd join it if I were you. They provide some excellent information. 

Ann

[gramophone-georg]

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@timemachine777 wrote:

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@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote:

Maybe they're thinking about the listing I keep running across and have been seeing for YEARS. The seller listed fixed price for somewhere north of $200 for an item that is undesireable and usually sells below $25. I think it has likely been showing up in my searches for over 10 years. Those listings clutter searches and it's really tiring to see them come up over and over forever.

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You see that all over eBay with all types of items. Just today, I was searching on Google for "Milk bones healthy favorites" when I saw one in the photo line up on eBay for 28.00 for an 18 oz box that you can get at any Walmart for 3.50. The seller is selling loads of items per day. Some people are willing to pay those prices. They just make sure they have a huge inventory on eBay to keep eBay happy with their stagnant listings.

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It's all in what eBay is willing to show the buyer. That's another factor the pro eBay people are forgetting when they try to tell you how they know your business even better than you do (despite never having sold what you sell): eBay's habit of hiding listings. 

Now, I know there will be a pile on here over that statement, but I finally found a classic Mercedes part I've been looking for on eBay for well over a year... right here on eBay via Google... using the exact same search keywords I've been using on eBay. And... guess what? That item was right here on eBay almost as long as I've been looking but eBay refused to show it to me.

How many "long tail" items are created by eBay?

[ymeagainlord]

No good to me - I don't sell in the categories they cover.

[coolections]

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@timemachine777 wrote:

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@coolections wrote:

You've only sold 20 items or so in the last 250. They've been there for some time now and not sold.

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Isn't that sad numbers. and that after an argument with eBay, my sales would plummet on all my accounts at the same time. This account was steadily selling 15 items a week, and then overnight it dropped to 1 per week, and has stayed like that for the past 2 and 1/2 years regardless of what I do. Mark down mgr, promos, etc. nothing moves the needle.  That's a sales restriction plain an simple. 

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@timemachine777

I've looked and gave you suggestions along with many others. You've chosen to ignore all the suggestions and continue to get no buyers, instead say you use mark down manager, promos etc. That is not a good way to get products moving here on Ebay. I can guarantee your thoughts of Ebay not allowing buyers to buy your stuff would go out the window if you tried a basic experiment. List a couple of your more expensive items that gets lookers at $10 and see if they sell. You will take a slight lose but maybe that's what it takes for you to see buyers can see your stuff. Write it off on your taxes as a loss if you have to.

[timemachine777]

@odditiesandantiquities1

PM me about it.

[timemachine777]

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@gramophone-georg wrote:

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@timemachine777 wrote:

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@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote:

Maybe they're thinking about the listing I keep running across and have been seeing for YEARS. The seller listed fixed price for somewhere north of $200 for an item that is undesireable and usually sells below $25. I think it has likely been showing up in my searches for over 10 years. Those listings clutter searches and it's really tiring to see them come up over and over forever.

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You see that all over eBay with all types of items. Just today, I was searching on Google for "Milk bones healthy favorites" when I saw one in the photo line up on eBay for 28.00 for an 18 oz box that you can get at any Walmart for 3.50. The seller is selling loads of items per day. Some people are willing to pay those prices. They just make sure they have a huge inventory on eBay to keep eBay happy with their stagnant listings.

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It's all in what eBay is willing to show the buyer. That's another factor the pro eBay people are forgetting when they try to tell you how they know your business even better than you do (despite never having sold what you sell): eBay's habit of hiding listings. 

Now, I know there will be a pile on here over that statement, but I finally found a classic Mercedes part I've been looking for on eBay for well over a year... right here on eBay via Google... using the exact same search keywords I've been using on eBay. And... guess what? That item was right here on eBay almost as long as I've been looking but eBay refused to show it to me.

How many "long tail" items are created by eBay?

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I'd give you a bunch of kudos for that statement, but unlike eBay's view counter, I can only give you 1.

[timemachine777]

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@ymeagainlord wrote:
No good to me - I don't sell in the categories they cover.

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I'm pretty sure that eBay is working on it.

[timemachine777]

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@coolections wrote:

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@timemachine777 wrote:

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@coolections wrote:

You've only sold 20 items or so in the last 250. They've been there for some time now and not sold.

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Isn't that sad numbers. and that after an argument with eBay, my sales would plummet on all my accounts at the same time. This account was steadily selling 15 items a week, and then overnight it dropped to 1 per week, and has stayed like that for the past 2 and 1/2 years regardless of what I do. Mark down mgr, promos, etc. nothing moves the needle.  That's a sales restriction plain an simple. 

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@timemachine777

I've looked and gave you suggestions along with many others. You've chosen to ignore all the suggestions and continue to get no buyers, instead say you use mark down manager, promos etc. That is not a good way to get products moving here on Ebay. I can guarantee your thoughts of Ebay not allowing buyers to buy your stuff would go out the window if you tried a basic experiment. List a couple of your more expensive items that gets lookers at $10 and see if they sell. You will take a slight lose but maybe that's what it takes for you to see buyers can see your stuff. Write it off on your taxes as a loss if you have to.

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I did that with the pinup calendars and got no sales. Another seller ended up relisting them and made a bunch of money off them instead. And prior to that I tried with just random items, as loss leaders. Nothing every time.

[tellmemama]

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@nowthatsjustducky wrote:

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@cellcasehub wrote:

https://picclick.com/

Maybe eBay should buy the company linked above...

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Bookmarked for looking over later.

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Just took this link for a test drive.  It failed to show items that were definitely found in regular ebay search...

[yuzuha]

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@coolections wrote:

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@yuzuha wrote:

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Oh yes.  I buy and sell in that category too and it is definitely bad.  I mentioned a seller in another thread... I've sold a whole bunch of the Kotobukiya One Coin Grande figures from the Tales of series and they typically go from $15-40 depending on the character.  Well, this seller has hers all priced from $50-90, and unsurprisingly, she hasn't sold a single one in the two years that I've been watching her.  I started watching her to see if anyone would be stupid enough to pay those ridiculous prices and I'm glad to see that no one has been.

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@yuzuha

Does that seller come here starting rumours that it is Ebay's fault by chance ?

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No, but I can't understand why they haven't taken a look at the prices that similar items have actually sold for.  They could sell those figures quite quickly if they would just price them at the going rates-- I just looked at one figure and there are currently three listed (one of them being their overpriced one) with three sold in the past 90 days.  They clearly sell when they are priced reasonably.

[penguins_dont_fly]

Time Machine. I'm a member of a facebook group called Talking Antiques. 

Ann

Hi fellow Talker 🙂

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[vintagecraze50]

All of what you said is true. However think about it this way. It's hard for buyers to find what they want quickly when they are bombarded with too many bad listings. Most people I think have a time tolerance of sifting through products of about 5 minutes, maybe less. Now, if you get your listings fixed with the right competitive prices, great pics and descriptions you will be more visible, once the listings that are duplicates, crazy high prices, bad bad pics, bad bad descriptions etc etc, are GONE. And they probably should be gone if they have not sold, in a YEAR, sorry but that's really true, so that your revised listings will SHINE.

[coolections]

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@timemachine777 wrote:

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I did that with the pinup calendars and got no sales. Another seller ended up relisting them and made a bunch of money off them instead. And prior to that I tried with just random items, as loss leaders. Nothing every time.

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@timemachine777

We didn't see it so it is he said/she said. How much did you ask, what kind of demand was there ? Was it an auction ? What was the starting price ? What was the condition ? How was your pictures, as bad as your current ones ? What was the description like,  full description or vague wording  ? You see, ALL that makes a difference. Maybe no one was interested in your pinup ? Do it again and let us all see. Start a couple (in demand) items at 99 cents auctions. THEN we can see if Ebay hides your stuff.  Right now your stories about Ebay hiding your items are made up in my opinion. I see everything you have listed, most or worn out and over-priced compared to others.

[coolections]

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@vintagecraze50 wrote:

All of what you said is true. However think about it this way. It's hard for buyers to find what they want quickly when they are bombarded with too many bad listings. Most people I think have a time tolerance of sifting through products of about 5 minutes, maybe less. Now, if you get your listings fixed with the right competitive prices, great pics and descriptions you will be more visible, once the listings that are duplicates, crazy high prices, bad bad pics, bad bad descriptions etc etc, are GONE. And they probably should be gone if they have not sold, in a YEAR, sorry but that's really true, so that your revised listings will SHINE.

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Best post on this thread. Triple KUDO !!!!!!  We can only hope some will listen and do just as you said instead of blaming Ebay for all their problems.

[timemachine777]

They were very much in demand.  Here's some photos. I can't post all the others because they're nudes, and I don't need to hear people getting upset about it.

This top one was in mint condition. The buyer has been collecting for over 50 years and this is now the nicest piece in his collection. He got it for 1 bid of a 100 bucks and couldn't believe that none of the collectors that he knows on eBay didn't bid him up to 550.00, which was what he was able to afford that day. The bottom was the same deal. sold for 300.00 for 1 bid. Buyer couldn't believe he got this one of a kind piece. He thought he was going to pay upward of 1000.00+ for it. No other bids. I sold a few other's all the same 1 bid each.

I tried again a couple of months later on my other account with no bids twice. 3rd time I raised the prices and did BIN. Nothing, relisted, still no takers. Sold them all to another seller for 10% off. He paid about 800.00 for 9 of them. He sold them all in less then a week for about 2000.00.  He didn't do anything different.