sales

[sunshinequest]

I am paying more for my store, shipping, buy now fees, promoting fees, etc. then sales.   Before I had a store, I sold more.  Before the promoting fees etc., I sold more.  I was told not sold -drop the price, I did on some items and had minus profit.  I'm concern?  What am I doing wrong? This is income for my household, not a hobby. Constructive criticism needed. 

[soh.maryl]

Thank you.  Am fully aware of that. 

[12345jamesstamps]

'I was told not sold -drop the price'...also but on my old listings.

I did something better...I took off all promoted of anything.

And my items from 2 years ago of listing are selling...

If I don't make anything...neither does eBay.

As for the monthly eBay fee..my 'repeat buyers' help with that.

Promoted basically means higher seller fee for each item.

[onefootflipper]

You need to completely rethink what you are selling.  If you are trying to actually make money then you need to sell items that make money, not items that you are interested in.

Everything you have is in slow moving, oversaturated categories that I generally avoid like the plague, and the prices do not seem very competitive for those categories. Some of your items that you have real price tags on are truly worthless, the beanie babies and collector plates. Those can go straight into the garbage, they have no value.

I once made the mistake of buying some collector plates because someone had just purchased a set of the same ones for real money. 4 years later I threw them in the trash as my price on the set had declined from $100 to $5 and no one ever showed the slightest bit of interest. The person who bought the one before mine was apparently the only person on earth interested in the set. That is something I call a unicorn comp, where you buy a rare items because it had a recent sale, but apparently that sale was the unicorn and yours never sells.

[jonathanbrightlight]

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@1786davycrockett wrote:

@sunshinequest 

And that "first edition" of one of the Colin Powell books is not actually a "first" -- the number above the words "First Edition" read "2468753" -- that's the actual edition indicator -- so not a "first."

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Little correction here, because that’s a Random House book, they use a number line starting with 2 and the First Edition statement for true first printings, unlike nearly every other publisher. That book is actually a true First Edition/First Printing.

[stainlessenginecovers]

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@caldreamer wrote:

I would keep your EBAY store, this way your customers can look at all your items (hopefully they will purchase several items).   If you get rid of your store, you will also have to pay for monthly "listing fee".

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@caldreamer Buyers cannot even locate a sellers store. It is SO unobvious where it is.... 

Also note, everyone gets 250 free listings and apparently this will go on forever. 

The ONLY good thing having a store is:

1.) lower fees

2.) seller can put on 'sales' 'coupons' etc.

[sunshinequest]

Excellent advise. 

Thank you

[tobaccocardyahoo]

There are many points made by posters than I can emphatically agree with

The include

Close your store, you items are unlikely to get any clicks if there are any impressions. No one is going to every get to your store. Ebay has traffic statistics on your store, you will find out.

Stop promoting. Most of your items are not suffering due to search placement, they are suffering because few buyers want to buy them,

Stop cutting prices, most of your items are not price elastic. Unless you cut low enough for another seller to think they can make a profit, it will not increase your chances of selling, and will reduce the profit on what does sell.

Your poor inventory choices are more than the Colin Powell book and the Beanies, add to that the Norman Rockwell plates. The only market in the past 40 years for the Rockwell plates was as replacements for broken plates in a collection. And in earlier times everyone had a copy of Kovel's Antiques Price guide and priced at the prices for the plates which appeared in that guide. If you had ten for sale, you might sell one a year, but you would make more than you would selling one in an Ebay auction.

If you are going to use auctions, try to only list as auction items things that you believe will get more than one bid.

It is a pain relisting every 7 days when one bid was an overly optimistic item.

If are unwilling to dispose of items which generate no buyer interest, list more items. 250 items which have low sell through rates are not worth checking Ebay each day for sales.

[susanb1872]

I looked at your Colin Powell books and noticed you are not using Media Mail for shipping. If you change the category to "Books" then you can select Media Mail which will lower the shipping and make it more enticing for buyers.