Looking For Some Constructive Feedback (New Seller)

Hello Everyone!

 

I have been reading these boards a lot over the last few months so I thought it was about time that I made my own post.

 

I started selling on Ebay in October. I have sold on other platforms before but this is my first time selling on Ebay. 

 

I just wanted to know if anyone could give me some constructive feedback on my page as well as maybe give me some insight as to why I have had only 1 sale in the last 6 weeks?

 

Some things I should note:

 

1. I am currently playing around with/honing my picture set up. I know some of them could be better and that is something I am working on. Any feedback on this would be appreciated as well.

 

2. I offer free/reduced shipping when I can. Until last week my shipping was off as I had tracking and it was ridiculously over priced so hopefully I have corrected that.

 

3. I started offering 30 day returns last week as well. 

 

4. I try and keep my prices in range and constantly check them.

 

5. Starting this week I have begun posting a new item each day. I know more items = more sales so I am going to be building up my items daily. 

 

So that's where I am at right now. I'd really appreciate any insight on why or how my store could perform better. 

 

Thanks in advance! 

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Looking For Some Constructive Feedback (New Seller)

Hi 

  The photos and description are pretty average which is fine (mine are nothing special either), but always possible to improve them as you go as you figure out what works for lighting and product display. 

 

A number of listings show $19+ shipping for me which is probably a turn off.  I don't know your market, so I can't comment on the pricing, but for me if it's a competitive market, I try to price them at around 80% of the highest SOLD listings (including shipping) for comparable items.  You could try upping your price with free shipping if that model would work for you. 

 

The biggest thing is the number of listings though.  It could simply be that people aren't looking for what you have at this particular moment.   I have around 10k listings at any given time, sometimes I sell 10-20/day sometimes i sell 1 or 2.  The more listings, the more eyeballs, and the bigger chance someone who's looking for something you have will browse your other items once they stumble on your store. 

 

Keep with it, keep listing, and keep track of what is working and what isn't and adjust from there.  No harm in going back to re-take photos, adjust pricing (down OR up) , trying different shipping policies etc. once the item is up. . 

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Looking For Some Constructive Feedback (New Seller)

Try to make better use of your titles.  Use all the space allowed.

No need to use (brackets) - or exclamation points - you are wasting space where you could put more KEY words.

Use lots of KEY words  that people would search for.

Eliminate unnecessary words, ie:  try New Sealed instead of Brand New Wrapped.

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Looking For Some Constructive Feedback (New Seller)

Your photos aren't bad, but you can make them a lot better without having to spend a lot of money or know a lot about photography.

The first and easiest thing to fix, is to either shoot (or crop) your photos so that they are a square. eBay's search listing uses a square aspect ratio, your photos will look better against similar items.

Second, if you're mostly selling smaller items, get a white poster board from Dollarama and a roll of painter's tape. Tape it up in a curve, instant cheap back drop. It may not look as great as seamless photography paper, but at 1 dollar this is a huge way to upgrade your photos by eliminating a cluttered background.

Lastly, lighting is one of the easiest ways to improve photos, even if you have a basic camera. Try to have an external source of light beyond just your room light. As you get more into selling, and do higher volumes, you could consider looking into getting stand alone photography lights (about 100-150 for a set), or a light box (about 200). For now, you might be able just to use a lamp with the appropriate temperature bulb, or you might be able to find some external LED lights at Dollarama.

Here is a tutorial that is similar to what I am suggesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb3sSJTF5Og&ab_channel=LukeAyers
Here is an article about using regular consumer lightbulbs for lighting: https://photography.tutsplus.com/articles/a-guide-to-using-consumer-led-bulbs-for-photography-and-vi...

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As far as shipping goes, I would advise with the amount of listings and the variety of items you have, always offer free shipping. The only reason not to offer free shipping, is if you have a significant amount of similar products, and think you can market people to purchase more items in order to lower their overall shipping cost.

You can sign up on Canada Post's website for a "small business" account. You will get slightly discounted rates. You don't have to be a registered business, while I am unsure what their terms of service dictate, practically speaking anybody can sign up.

Buy a scale so that you can weigh your items and have an idea of what they will cost to ship, that way you can put the shipping in the actual price without worrying about under or over charging. You can buy a package scale for under $50. I find it is pretty easy to budget for USA/Canada shipping, because the prices are usually similar so long as the item can go tracked packet to the USA.

Canada Post also sells flat rate boxes that can be used for items under 5 KG within Canada. They are almost never cheaper to use than printing a label. They are a useful fall back because you know if an item fits into a flat rate box, that you have a price ceiling where you can ship it for the price of the flat rate box.

Shipping lettermail is the way to go within Canada for smaller items. The benefit of shipping lettermail is that you can lower your margins by about 13 dollars an order, which either allows you to make a greater profit, or offer a more competitive price and sell more items faster. The downside is that you are not protected if a buyer claims they did not receive the item. Depending on what category you sell in, the amount of lost items will vary. Eating those losses are the cost of doing business. So you have to determine whether you have enough incentive to operate this way. For most people, it makes sense because the additional sales/profit they make exceeds the added expenses of having to refund lost packages.

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Your actual listings are fine, the only constructive criticism I can provide, which would be a huge reach - would be to use 'You' centered writing instead of 'We'.
https://writingcommons.org/article/you-centered-business-style/
https://www.thoughtco.com/adopting-the-you-attitude-professional-writing-1691781

Again, it's a huge reach for eBay sales, it won't make a big difference, but I'm just putting it out there for the sake of constructive criticism because otherwise your listings are fine.
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Looking For Some Constructive Feedback (New Seller)

What I'll also add to shipping, the only place you might have an issue with offering free shipping would be to orders that would otherwise go lettermail in Canada, but have to go Small Packet or Tracked Packet in the USA, because the prices are not similar.

Technically, anything non-paper is not supposed to go lettermail to the USA, it is supposed to go with a parcel service (Small Packet or Tracked Packet). I haven't used Small Packet in a few months, so I am just going off memory, but you're probably looking at a 5 dollar difference vs lettermail within Canada. That difference makes it impossible to offer "free" shipping to the USA. It necessitates charging roughly 5 dollars more to the USA to cover the difference between what is budgeted in the listing for lettermail shipping within Canada, and the cost of Small Packet.
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Looking For Some Constructive Feedback (New Seller)

Hey Mike,

 

Thanks so much for taking the time to review my page!

 

Your photos are very well done and I hope to get mine looking that great!

 

I will absolutely review my shipping. I have been doing it periodically by putting in different Post/Zip Codes to see what the pricing is and also remeasuring my items for accuracy. All a work in progress I guess! 

 

You've really motivated me to keep going and keep listing - much appreciated! 

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Looking For Some Constructive Feedback (New Seller)

Hey There,

 

This is great advice and I did not realize that!

 

I will be reviewing my captions today. Much appreciated! 

 

Jess

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Looking For Some Constructive Feedback (New Seller)

Hey there,

 

Thank you SO much. A lot of great content here I'll have to continue to review. 

 

I bought a backdrop today so I'll be cleaning up my photos. I have looked in to lighting and I said once I make a certain amount in sales I'll be investing in a light. Also I didn't realize that they should be square!

 

As for shipping I am still getting the hang of it but I do need to figure a better way. I did get a small business account set up with Canada Post.  I did not know about the flat rate box - I will be looking in to that. Also I do want to offer free shipping - I just need to figure out a way to make it feasible. 

 

I haven't had a chance to look at the we versus you content. But I will this afternoon. Looks very interesting!

 

I really appreciate you taking the time - you were a huge help!

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Looking For Some Constructive Feedback (New Seller)

For sure.

 

With items I currently have free shipping I have made the shipping to the US a $5 flat rate (I believe).  Again, something I have to toggle with. We all get burned with shipping at some point so I guess it's just a learning curve!

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Looking For Some Constructive Feedback (New Seller)

That's a good attitude, to not go crazy investing in supplies until you are making more sales. With that said, I believe you can buy LED bulbs or external LED lights at Dollarama. As shown in that video I linked, you can make diffusers for them out of cardboard and parchment paper.

Generally, there is a pretty steep step up that can be made in photos for a very minimal investment of time/effort/money just by getting external lighting (spare lamps, cheap Dollarama lights, etc) and a back drop.

With free shipping, your margin is going to change depending on where the item is shipped to. So the best way to look at free shipping is to sell things where a 5 dollar swing in your margin is not going to kill your profits. That is usually a rough difference in what it will cost to ship an item to USA/Canada depending on which province it is going to. Also, if you don't want to invest in a scale yet, you can always package your items as you list them and have your local Canada Post weigh them for you.
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Looking For Some Constructive Feedback (New Seller)

As far as I know, to get the benefits*, one only has to "fee ship" to the domestic site.

 

For example for me: (Note that I ONLY use flat rate shipping)

 

Stuff on .COM is:

Free Shipping to USA

Free Shipping to Canada

Costs money to most international countries

Costs lots of money to China, Brazil

 

Stuff on .CA is:

Free Shipping to Canada

Usually costs money to USA

Costs money to most international countries

Costs lots more money to China, Brazil

 

I put the stuff on .CA that can go lettermail here but has to go small packet to the USA nowadays, incurring that extra $5 (upgrade charge).

 

 

*Benefits of free shipping are increased visibility and as I remember it if you have free Domestic shipping you aren't charged fees on any international shipping charges. That may have changed though.

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Looking For Some Constructive Feedback (New Seller)

This is work, but if you print off the Canada Post tables, it can help you average out your pricing if you choose to use flat rate shipping.

 

Here is a link to the master manual, now that you have your solutions for small business, you'll click on business prices:

https://www.canadapost.ca/tools/pg/default-e.asp 

 

Here is a link to the key lookup number so you know what columns apply to your postal code:

https://www.canadapost.ca/tools/pg/prices/FSA_RateCodeLookup-e.asp 

 

Depending on what you are selling if you go international, you'll have to make sure it is ok to ship it to the country, you can use this place to figure that out:

https://www.canadapost.ca/tools/pg/manual/PGintdest-e.asp 

 

You'll also need to put the harmonized system code (HS Code) on the customs forms, here is the link to that:

https://www.canadapost.ca/cpotools/apps/wtz/business/findHsCode?execution=e3s1 

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