No sales... What am I doing wrong?

I have been away from selling on eBay for a while and I find now that not many people are looking at my listings.
I may be doing something wrong.
Can anybody give me some suggestions?
Would appreciate and welcome any help. Thanks....
Message 1 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

The world of eBay has changed a lot over the years.

 

Today, eBay buyers have 800,000,000 listings to pick from.  That is a lot of competition.

 

More than 80% of listings are offered at fixed price, not auction.  This is the format buyers now prefer.

 

I took a look at one of your listings and could not find it on top of the search page because of a spelling error (camuflage instead of camouflage):

 

http://www.ebay.ca/sch/i.html?_odkw=Webkinz+%22Pink+Camouflage+carrier&_sop=15&_from=R40&_osacat=0&_...

 

In many instances, the shipping cost you quote is more than the value of the item.  Unless your item is unique or in high demand, most buyers hit the "back button".  You are competing mostly with American sellers.  Have you checked your asking prices (including shipping) against them.  Unless you are competitive, buyers will continue to hit the back button.

 

Good Luck.

Message 2 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

I had an interesting experience is a search in my store. i was listing some pillowcases, and I was sure I have 2 pairs listed already, but when I checked, only one pair would come up. I could get it up if I put in the color Lilac, but not "pillowcases". I saw that the word pillowcases was towards the end of the title, so I changed it so that it came up closer to the beginning, and lo and behold, it now comes up. I wonder how many of the first words in the title actually come up in the search?

Message 3 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

What am I doing wrong?

 

Really?

 

Many people ask that question wanting the answer: "Nothing. It is eBay's fault.".

 

eBay has changed a lot, just in the last 18 months. It very much wants to shed the garage sale image and have everyone adopt a more professional image.

 

Most of your pictures are nice. Lighting could be better. You are doing the old style "I work off of my dining room table" type pictures and listings. Dedicate a place with a solid neutral background for pictures. The background of your current pictures is very "busy", deflecting where people look.

 

Titles. Use all 80 characters. "Wekinz" is a what? Is it plush and a toy? Neither word is used in the title. There are 80 characters to use, use them all. That Chipmunk, what ever it is, has zero description. Five pictures,

 

There is a very large difference between listing and selling.

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Message 4 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

You have some good responses above so I am not going to give you any additional advice, but it may not be enough.

 

 

The biggest problem for sellers today is that Ebay has grown considerably with a huge amount of listing due to either a larger influx of sellers and/or  all the free listing that Ebay offers sellers.

 

To make my point. The ratio of buyers has not kept up with the number of sellers/listing, therefore we are all clawing to get buyers to our listing. Why has this happened? One could say that Ebay  hasnt done much in the way of building buyer confidence, though on the site itself it has implemented changes to further protect buyers. Problem is unless you search for it yourself new buyers would never know about these changes . The average person is not going to search or review any Ebay news letters on their computers. Could advertise on TV, but that another topic.

 

Ebay doesn't need to care about the average seller. If you look at Ebays recent quarterly reports you will find that Ebay is doing fine. In fact very fine. Remember Ebay is a business. Bottom line will always trump there support.

 

Ebay has become a  more difficult landscape for sellers. I too used to at many times wonder what am I doing wrong. I know now that its not me.

Message 5 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

Looking at your Webkinz listings, the shipping seems ok - but - I'm seeing Canadian cost. Not sure if Can-US price is reasonable or not.

 

Prices for auction seem a bit high. You might want to drop them a bit to generate interest if your can accept a bit less.

Or go with fixed price as suggested.

 

As mentioned, the background in the pictures could be much better. That Lionfish seems lost in the background.

Message 6 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

how long have you been away?
Message 7 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

Try extending your return policy from 3 days to 30 days.  You may get better exposure in search.  Do you combine shipping?...might want to add mention to that.

Message 8 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

Depending on how long you've been away, you'll find eBay isn't the place it once was for collectibles, curios, ephemera and the like, especially for a smaller seller (what I call "boutique" seller), and especially for a smaller seller in Canada.  It's a hard slog these days, and shipping costs don't make things any easier. 

 

I've had an established presence as a seller on eBay for nearly 8 years, and a regular, dependable buying clientele up until eBay made their massive changes in 2013 which by and large worked in favour of big sellers with high volumes and low shipping costs.  

 

After the tidal wave of new listings from the enormous commercial sellers who were courted by eBay, then came the flooding of the site with listings from huge free listing promos (some of them were a ridiculous 100,000 free listings or more at a time).  Then came the hacker attack earlier this year, which I can only surmise must have scared a lot of buyers away.  Then came the Google debacle which likely had a suppressing effect on eBay's buyer traffic.  Then came a ca. 25% rise in Canada Post international air parcel rates in 2014.  

 

Is it any wonder many of eBay's "traditional" sort of Canadian sellers are having a hard time of it?  I think EBay has become heavy with listings, crowded with fierce, low-price, free shipping competition, and light on buyers.  I can only judge from my own Omniture statistics and my own experience in selling, but what I see is discouraging.  Despite listing more items than ever, at lower prices, and with free shipping, my visits and views are significantly down from last year.  The odd thing is that I'm seeing hardly any keyword search statistics in the Omniture results.  I used to get a lot of these each month, and they were a critical indicator of buyers' interest in my items.  Now they're virtually gone...

 

The only thing I can say is that in order to make a sale these days you have to outdo the lowest price and cheapest shipping of most American competitors, and have the most sought-after items on the planet.  EBay has pushed "cheap and free" so much that it's now almost obligatory.  

 

The only piece of advice I can give you would be to drop your prices and/or your shipping costs (and, as mentioned by another poster, try a longer return policy).  Your shipping costs are too high for today's eBay -- unfortunately the days of buyers expecting to have to pay for careful shipping are pretty much gone.  When you're selling breakables, that's a problem.  You either have to sell very small items that can be shipped relatively cheaply, or very rare and costly items that allow you to absorb the shipping costs.  

 

I'm sorry to say this, I'm usually an optimist, but eBay is a tough place now for the smaller seller of unique and unusual lower value items, unless they can be shipped in an envelope.  Woman Frustrated

 

 

Message 9 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?


@triber wrote:

I had an interesting experience is a search in my store. i was listing some pillowcases, and I was sure I have 2 pairs listed already, but when I checked, only one pair would come up. I could get it up if I put in the color Lilac, but not "pillowcases". I saw that the word pillowcases was towards the end of the title, so I changed it so that it came up closer to the beginning, and lo and behold, it now comes up. I wonder how many of the first words in the title actually come up in the search?


You know, I'm sure you've hit on something here.  I recently was trying to find a particular type of item to buy on eBay, something I know for certain is sold here, and it took me three separate searches before I got a list presented to me that included what I was looking for.  

 

I had to change the way I worded my search request in order to see the whole spectrum of offerings in that particular category.  In other words, the whole selection didn't come up with a general search, as in your "pillowcases" example, but only when I manually added qualifiers.  The items that did appear clearly should have been included in my general category. 

 

As a very longtime eBay buyer, I see these changes from a buyer's viewpoint as well as from a seller's, and I can categorically say that things are different (i.e. worse) now for a buyer looking for a particular item or type of item.  If I hadn't also been a longtime seller, it would never have occurred to me to rewrite my search request again and again in order to find what I was looking for.  No wonder some of us sellers feel like our items are invisible -- they may very well be just that! 

 

 

Message 10 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

rose-dee: I had no idea that this was a problem with the search, and this was on my own store, I tried several times, and it wouldn't come up until I put the "pillowcase" word close to the beginning of the title. When I get time, I am going to check my listings to make sure that the appropriate words are close to the beginning. When I put "lilac", it came up, no-on is going to do a search on lilac I don't think, the color of the item!

Message 11 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

Hi triber -- yes, as I said, that was exactly the problem I had as a buyer!  And I can tell you it was more than mildly annoying, even though I knew precisely what I was looking for and what I had to do to work around the searches to find it.  

 

The bottom line is that from a buyer's point of view, finding exactly what you want on eBay has become a lot more difficult and frustrating than it was even 3 years ago.  I have to wonder how new buyers (or impatient ones) are finding a true selection of the goods they're looking for when they're presented with eBay's version of the inventory. 

 

Another thing I've noticed lately: when searching within a seller's store for a particular item (in my case it was twill tape - a sewing notion), I got a message appear that said "0 results for your search".  Had I not looked around the seller's store and noticed a category marked -- yes! -- "Twill tape", I would have given up.  There were at least 5 different types and colours of twill tape listed in that seller's store.  

 

If this is the way eBay is helping buyers find what they want, as a seller and as a buyer, I'm disgusted. Robot tongue

 

Something is definitely rotten in the state of eBay.  

Message 12 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

Thank guys, I wasn't aware of how much eBay had changed. I have been away from the site for almost 2 years. I am trying to get reacquainted with the whole process but I'm finding it very hard. I don't want to throw the towel in the ring yet and claim defeat but feel very close to doing it. It doesn't help that some interest comes from international buyers because for some items the shipping costs to their countries are prohibiting.
I will try to tweak with my listings and see what happens. It is very discouraging. In my opinion eBay is getting harder and harder to navigate as a seller as well as a buyer.
Message 13 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?


@rio1953 wrote:
Thank guys, I wasn't aware of how much eBay had changed. I have been away from the site for almost 2 years. I am trying to get reacquainted with the whole process but I'm finding it very hard. I don't want to throw the towel in the ring yet and claim defeat but feel very close to doing it. It doesn't help that some interest comes from international buyers because for some items the shipping costs to their countries are prohibiting.
I will try to tweak with my listings and see what happens. It is very discouraging. In my opinion eBay is getting harder and harder to navigate as a seller as well as a buyer.

That is true if you look at buying from a seller's viewpoint. In reality, eBay is making it easier for buyers. eBay revenues from sales are up. More buyers are buying more. eBay is the industry leader in sales over mobile devices.

 

Selling is more difficult? Oomph. Maybe. Why? eBay is demanding full, complete, and professional listings, on par with retail stores

 

Like I said, above, they want the "garage sale style" gone. Coming back after two years, you are starting from zero. That is a bitter pill to swallow when you know can do this.

 

Any industry you would be in, be away for two years? Everything completely changes. You have missed the evolution of the change. You have a snapshot of before and one now. You are missing all of the in between.

 

Baically, you are at start. You did it once, you can do it again.

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Message 14 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

If you haven't already noticed Inuk, eBay has just become the Junior High Lunch Room.

 

Large Sellers are the Jocks, Medium Sellers are the Trendies & the Small Sellers are the Kids with Peanut Allergies.

 

Yes, in many cases selling on eBay has become a "Do Over. "

 

Back to the "Old School Way" of thinking & listing as the landscape has changed forever.

 

Have received some Solid Advice Offline & it seems to be making a difference in my oversaturated category.

 

Back to Baby Steps as the New Business Model is in place, no sense waiting until the New Year.

Message 15 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?


@bb_cool_stuff wrote:

If you haven't already noticed Inuk, eBay has just become the Junior High Lunch Room.

 

Large Sellers are the Jocks, Medium Sellers are the Trendies & the Small Sellers are the Kids with Peanut Allergies.

 

Yes, in many cases selling on eBay has become a "Do Over. "

 

Back to the "Old School Way" of thinking & listing as the landscape has changed forever.

 

Have received some Solid Advice Offline & it seems to be making a difference in my oversaturated category.

 

Back to Baby Steps as the New Business Model is in place, no sense waiting until the New Year.


That is hysterical and true. I'm thankful I don't have the peanut allergy.

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Message 16 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

Me also, need my weekly fix of a pack of peanut butter cups.

 

Happens every Wednesday, the only non game night I watch TV.

Message 17 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

What do you watch on Wednesdays?

Message 18 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

I ask my Honey if my programme is on because I can't work the TV. I get to have one hour of TV Mon, Tues, Wed, and CFL on the weekends. If I am good.
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Message 19 of 26
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No sales... What am I doing wrong?

You'll laugh.

 

Survivor & Dragons Den.

 

We had a aquaintance who dated Arlene in Toronto.

 

She was still struggling at the time & lets just say, he didn't treat her very well.

 

Boy did he blow it.

 

Only met her a couple of times, she is actually quite shy, but probably has the worlds best laugh.

 

Lovely woman.

Message 20 of 26
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