wondering if anyone has figured out how to get visibility on Ebay.

[van4653]

I have over 200 items listed, but rarely do they get looked at.. with the outreach of Ebay, they should at least be getting views.  Cannot afford to do a store yet, and at this rate, never will.  I offer some free shipping.  I keep relisting and adding new listings.  Ebay will only let me cancel an "order" when someone doesn't pay and out of the little I've sold, I have had a couple of those lately.  I tried to ask a representative when I called on another issue, and the guy just said I have to do my own promoting.  I have added my seller ID to my shop advertising.  But Ebay is supposed to be advertising.. all I ever hear in this part of Iowa is about Ebay motors which sounds like Ebay owns everything in it...  I have a wide variety of items, and I check if things are selling before I list anything...  what do you think??

[van4653]

Do you mean a different site???  Or different product.??  I own a brick and mortar antique shop and that is what I have to sell for the most part.  Shipping some items makes it difficult to list them as postage is so very high..  So I do a lot of smaller items that I can still do Free First Class, and that seems to be what is selling the most for me, if at all.  I do check if items are selling before I list an item, and maybe it is just too late...  I try to search for my own items using my husband's ID and rarely is it in the line of search results..  so wondering what would pop things up more in the search engine...

[van4653]

It tells me that my auctions aren't being shown in the searchs.  I have done a wide variety and I check other listings before I list and do mid stream pricing if possible.   I have raised and lowered prices, with no difference.  Cannot afford to do 99 cent sales as the only time I really had any bidding was when I had a marked but probably fake gold necklace, which was clearly stated..  It got a lot of bids and the final buyer would only pay if I would refund them if the item was fake...  which I already stated..  so obviously no sale.   I do searches with my husband's ID and never get my items in the search...  have to try a few more again..

[van4653]

I guess I don't understand tags or how to use them on Ebay.....  

[van4653]

tags might be the key I am looking for, just don't understand them or how to use on Ebay.   I will try to research further..

[van4653]

My Annie bank is 35 or offer plus shipping.   12 shipped put the seller in the hole as does 19.50 if they didn't get it free..    going rate appears to be free to the buyer with those prices, or the seller got it free and has a source other than the post office for cheap shipping...  Marked #53 0f 8906 which is a really low number for a collectible.  This all affects the price.   The belt buckle has free shipping which will be $5.00 cost to me, and I probably have a basic cost of 10 area in it..  offer limit is probably 20 so 15 out of the basic 20 leaves me $5 which doesn't begin to cover my time, and Ebay charges.   So I am getting out of your post that there is no room to actually make any money...??  It turns some items into cash, but at a loss if I use your pricing.  

[onefootflipper]

Other people probably got that Annie Bank for a quarter and the belt buckle for 50 cents.  Nobody online pays up for a low serial number unless it is perhaps single digit on something with a wide appeal. Annie stuff is on the way out, I am 45 and you don't even have many Annie collectors my age, much less younger than me. 

If you can pack that Annie bank under 1 pound then it is going to be first class. Otherwise it will likely be between 1 and two pounds and likely ship for $8.xx. 

You aren't buying postage at the counter at the post office are you?

[simply-the-best-for-you]

eBay hasn't been about auctions for over a decade.  I haven't done one in probably 12-13 years.   

In addtion to what others have stated, fixing your pics, comparing your prices, forgetting about auctions, you can also promote your listings.   You pay a percentage fee if the item sells via the Promoted Listing.  It works, but costs additional money.  Not sure how it works on auctions, cuz like everyone's telling you, no one does auctions anymore.   That's an easy way to bring more views to your products IF ANYONE IS INTERESTED TO BEGIN WITH.  It's not magic & it works better for items in saturated markets. 

[yuzuha]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

I do see eBay advertising. Not on TV because I mostly watch streamed on demand which has no advertising.

But I see eBay ads on FaceBook, and on some news sites and comedy sites like Reddit.

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Yep, I just saw an eBay ad on Reddit the other day on a gaming subReddit-- it was an ad for refurbished video game consoles, which I thought was perfect.

[magomania]

Your starting prices are full retail. If you run auctions you need to start low with no reserve to get any action. If you do not want to take the risk of an auction it would be best to change all of your listings to fixed price.

[chapeau-noir]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

About advertising.

I do see eBay advertising. Not on TV because I mostly watch streamed on demand which has no advertising.

But I see eBay ads on FaceBook, and on some news sites and comedy sites like Reddit.

We sellers tend to be older than our customers -- we're selling because we are downsizing-- so we don't necessarily see the same media as the kids* today.

* kids being anyone under 50.

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I'm curious as to who you're including in "we sellers", though.  Those participating in this thread?  Sellers here in general?  Or perhaps referring to the eBay demographic, which does skew older (and male), but that's still a big range with an even larger range of selling goals.

Also Reddit isn't a comedy site, it's just a chat forum (though there are some funny subreddits), but I'm glad there are at least some eBay ads on there.  I haven't seen any on the subreddits I use, but I will keep an eye out for them!

[dbfolks166mt]

eBay hasn't been about auctions for over a decade.  I haven't done one in probably 12-13 years.   

In addtion to what others have stated, fixing your pics, comparing your prices, forgetting about auctions, you can also promote your listings.   You pay a percentage fee if the item sells via the Promoted Listing.  It works, but costs additional money.  Not sure how it works on auctions, cuz like everyone's telling you, no one does auctions anymore.   That's an easy way to bring more views to your products IF ANYONE IS INTERESTED TO BEGIN WITH.  It's not magic & it works better for items in saturated markets. 

Some of us still do auctions I currently have 67 of then going they all end this Sunday. At the moment 49 have had more than one view, 14 have watchers, and two have bids which I don't pay much attention to since bids usually come in on the last day of the auction. A few have a lot of interest. So they do still work. 

[onefootflipper]

I could purchase that bank at a garage sale, sell it for $12 shipped and still make money on it. Guaranteed.

They are all #53 by the way, that part doesn't mean anything.

I would pass it up if it was more than $1 to buy at the sale though. I am in my 40s, we had the Annie movie when I was a kid, it didn't really resonate with my generation. I don't know anyone my age collecting Annie. The Annie of my daughter's generation is African-American, and there is unlikely to be another Annie movie while the true fans of the red haired blank eyed comic strip version are still alive.

[meme6253]

You Have To Pay For Visibility, By Using Promoted Listings With A Minimum Of 2%, & Supposedly You Get Better Visibility

[dbfolks166mt]

I could purchase that bank at a garage sale, sell it for $12 shipped and still make money on it. Guaranteed.

     Of that I have no doubt but it becomes a question of how much. If you paid $1 for the item and sold it for $12 with free shipping your net before paying for the shipping would be about $9 (COGS + eBay fees). If the shipping was $4 on the low end that leaves you with a pre-tax net of $5, not factoring in any shipping materials, printing supplies, etc.

     Not sure of you tax bracket but if it is 22% for example that's $1.10 off the top which would leave you with $3.90. A 390% ROI on your $1 investment but calculate your LOE in selling the item and figure out your hourly rate to move that item. If you spent 30 minutes acquiring, listing, packing and shipping the item, that works out to about $7.80 an hour. 

[onefootflipper]

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@dbfolks166mt wrote:

I could purchase that bank at a garage sale, sell it for $12 shipped and still make money on it. Guaranteed.

     Of that I have no doubt but it becomes a question of how much. If you paid $1 for the item and sold it for $12 with free shipping your net before paying for the shipping would be about $9 (COGS + eBay fees). If the shipping was $4 on the low end that leaves you with a pre-tax net of $5, not factoring in any shipping materials, printing supplies, etc.

     Not sure of you tax bracket but if it is 22% for example that's $1.10 off the top which would leave you with $3.90. A 390% ROI on your $1 investment but calculate your LOE in selling the item and figure out your hourly rate to move that item. If you spent 30 minutes acquiring, listing, packing and shipping the item, that works out to about $7.80 an hour. 

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Here is the thing. I probably would not have purchased it in the first place. I passed on one at a garage sale back in the spring for $3 without even looking it up.

If I had already bought the thing, I would take my whatever was left of my $12 and know not to ever buy that particular item ever again.  I generally avoid glass and ceramic stuff entirely unless it is in the original box or I absolutely know it is good. Too labor intensive and too slow moving for too little money. 

I am a pretty high volume seller with fast processes. My time in something like that would be closer to 10 minutes not 30 but that still isn't great.  My hourly keeps increasing as I keep getting better at what I buy in the first place thus continually increasing the quality of my worst purchases.