eBay

rosscd57 · ‎02-13-2016

Just after New Years I begin selling radios. I usually sell about 50 to 60 by the end of March. This year - wow! I have only sold 9 - it should be 25 plus. I have not done anything different - my prices are still the same, if fact some are cheaper as I have reduced them re: the Canadian dollar. I have up to 20 watchers on some radios - more than I have ever had and not that watchers are a indicator of sales - but sales are just very slow. I fact even with the low Canadian dollar, three have been to Canada - those three paid a big buck. Of the rest one US buyer bought three. So I have really had very few customers. I don't really think vintage radios sales are gone - but I just don't understand why my sales are so slow.

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Old enough to know better. Young enough to do it again. Crazy enough to try

mr.elmwood · ‎02-13-2016

@rosscd57 wrote:
Just after New Years I begin selling radios. I usually sell about 50 to 60 by the end of March. This year - wow! I have only sold 9 - it should be 25 plus. I have not done anything different - my prices are still the same, if fact some are cheaper as I have reduced them re: the Canadian dollar. I have up to 20 watchers on some radios - more than I have ever had and not that watchers are a indicator of sales - but sales are just very slow. I fact even with the low Canadian dollar, three have been to Canada - those three paid a big buck. Of the rest one US buyer bought three. So I have really had very few customers. I don't really think vintage radios sales are gone - but I just don't understand why my sales are so slow.

No, I do not believe that.

I looked at one of your listings. Well? I see a lot of "before" listing thinking.

"Offered up for auction"? In BIN listing? Hum? Time to update the ole listings there Doc Ross.

Everything after Shipping, you can delete. I know why all of that is there, but, senior managers from eBay told me to "Get rid of all of this".

Your pictures are fantastic, gallery and body of listing.

I would eliminate the shipping cost. Move that into the radio cost. I have two examples of this. First is: glove box latches I was listing at $17 + $8 = $25, and sold none. Went to free shipping at $28 and they fly off the shelf.

The other was Sunfire dash vents: $22 + $8 = $30 and I sold one in five months. Went to $30 "free" shipping and sold five in one month.

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femmefan1946 · ‎02-13-2016

It's possible.

The Baby Boom is about 25% of the population. We are from 52 to 70 years old.

We have money, and are in our collecting years-- but hmm.... what year did "Transistor Sister" become a hit?

The 20 to 49 yo age group makes up 40% of the population. What year did the Walkman come out?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkman

That being said, we all see changes in buying, sometimes abrupt. And sometimes conventional wisdom is wrong.

The two hobbies I am most familiar with are science fiction and stamp collecting.

The latter is very strong, partly because the internet has enabled philatelists to 'meet' others who share their passion at an adult level. But the general public thinks the hobby is dying because they don't see kids collecting stamps.

Science fiction seems very strong to the general public because every second movie and TV show is SF/F.

But SF/F readers and writers are getting older and older. The popular part is more comic books/manga/ superhero that attract the young. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

There are more greying and balding fans at SF cons* than most would imagine. To say nothing of the wheelchairs.

Is your specialty growing or changing? How are we coping with those changes?

*Not at comic cons, those are dominated by the under 30s.

femmefan1946 · ‎02-13-2016

BTW -- that chart also gives male to female ratios.

Interesting to notice that up until age 60 there are more males than females in the population but then reverses .

musicyouneed · ‎02-13-2016

I also am selling CD's that are going the way of the dodo bird. CD's are still selling but not the same as last year or the year before. Part of it is; the time of year and part of it is; everyone is going digital. Buyers are also paying off Christmas bills and high costs for food. I am hoping for a resurgence of buyers like vinyl. I know that there are quite a few collectors of CD's in Europe and Asia.

I know myself, I used to collect everything and now I am just drowning in stuff that I have to sell or get rid of. I'm 64 years old and need to think about downsizing instead of adding.

Your radios and listings look excellent. I just think that the buyers that are interested in those types of radios are getting older and have satisfied their collecting itch. I saw you had 55 followers, that's great. I also did a search just of vintage radios and there were 60,137 listings and 40,193 sold. Now mind you that also covered a lot more than just vintage radios but that stuff is selling. Maybe ebay turned off your light for the month, here's hoping they turn in back on.

sylviebee · ‎02-14-2016

I doubt your niche is gone. Collectors of your type of item are probably stressed and on pins and needles as they watch their investments tumble lower by the day.

I'm betting that when the Wall Street decline has ended, that your drought will be over as well.

They're probably watching and waiting and hungry for a fix.

hlmacdon · ‎02-14-2016

Sales in niches are not necessarily consistent, especially with ebay losing traffic and their SEO challenges. I'm not sure if you looked at any of your traffic reports in the past, but it was interesting to see how much pre-Google SEO smackdown traffic was coming in from search engines/external websites.

You should start considering how buyers discover your items outside of ebay. This is going to be more key as Ebay is relying on item specifics to drive SEO. That will work by creating product pages that tie back to listings via item specifics. This isn't necessarily going to be very effective for niche products which are far more individualistic in nature compared to mass market products the system is tailored to. As your niche looks to be a personal hobby/passion, you might consider starting a blog with short write-ups on your products or the subject in general, with pointers to your listings.

If it is any consolation, driving growth or even consistency at the the mass retail level involves a hell of a lot of marketing and promotional activity, even when you have a tremendous amount of natural web traffic. In the absence of that marketing and promotional spend, you have the same peaks and valleys in sales, coupled with extreme seasonality.