No sales ebay.ca even for items priced at loss to me

[ma-294746]

Is this board alive? I'm at dead end with no sales for the whole month and no insight from ebay.ca support as they see nothing wrong.. well, Canada Post shiping rates as they also agreed are uncompetitive to say it politely.. And I'm oftentimes making almost #1 top result listing on ebay.ca. This means there are no Canadian buyers or they still prefer buying from US.
Anyone reading this who did their very best trying to be a great seller and still failed? So far my answer to them would be - nothing you can do, ebay.ca Canadian market is dead. Do you have a better answer?

[mrdutch1001]

Success for any seller is all about the product, its uniqueness, price point, supply & demand, target market and so forth. Selling online does not work for everything and not everything is suited for selling on any given venue. eBay doesn't work for everything anymore...

Canadian shipping costs are not competitive with the USA and/or with some International countries especially with larger, heavier bulky items so that also factors into potential buyers' consideration when searching out their purchases.

"Some days are diamonds, some days are stones..."

There was a time, several years ago when I averaged 25-50 sales per month and maintained power seller status for several years. Those days are long gone, I am now lucky if I have 25+ sales per year. However, my sales were always about 75% USA, 20% Canada and 5% International.  Now more evenly split between Canada & USA buyers with about 60% USA, 40% Canada(basically 0% International as I no longer even promote shipping for International).

I now have 80% of my items listed on other venues where I am starting to get the occasional sale.

It's best not to depend on eBay for sales, venture out to other sites.

eBay is what it is; not what it was...

Que sera, sera....

[ma-294746]

Thank you for indepth reply! It does help to further build the picture.

Well, for those trying to match my experience to own, my items are the hottest toys on the market, very very popular, they weight under 200g, shipped tracked regular parcel Canada post, and I never try to earn on shipping and in fact, trued everything from free shipping to some discounted shipping which I decided to pay out of my pocket just to see which worked best. As they suggested, played it every possible way. Not a single sale.

My items posted with many pictures, accurate description, they are brand new, with 30 day return. I have 100% feedback so far. I see that I'm following the best ebay practices, as I do see my items on the top list on ebay.ca.

So, call it the last cry, I'm sharing my experience (and so very grateful for replies! Thank you!).

Funny part, I'm not even after making money on ebay, just wanted this to be my hobby, as I love those toys a lot, it brings me joy and I wanted to share with others by selling them. Seems Iike it's not to happen this time.

Will remain positive and gift my toys to friends 🙂

[mrdutch1001]

I have a renewed passion for knitting and have a good selection available. These handknit items sold very well on eBay for several years, but now nothing seems to work to entice buyers on eBay, so the handknits have also found their way to other venues. As well,  I donate many of the handknit items to local charities.

[femmefan1946]

@ma-294746 

shipped tracked regular parcel Canada post,

When purchased through Paypal (and probably through SnapShip and Shippo) Expedited is the same price as Regular and a day or so faster. And there are small discounts on the price.

You need your Small Business Solutions number to access those discounts.

and I never try to earn on shipping

If you use Calculated Shipping, you won't "earn" on shipping, but the cost will include the taxes and fuel fee Canada charges you.

When you buy the discounted labels mentioned above, the small difference can go to your packaging costs, something many sellers do not realize can be substantial.

Bubblewrap ain't free.

BTW, if you have a Store for your toys, you also get a quarterly allowance for branded packaging.

It's less generous than it sounds because the branded product is overpriced, but getting 100 free poly envelopes or 50 shipping boxes or even just packing tape helps the bottom line.

and in fact, trued everything from free shipping to some discounted shipping which I decided to pay out of my pocket

Free Shipping is an advertising ploy.

It really means putting your cost of shipping into the asking price for the product.

Some/many buyers love it, particularly those who are buying on phones. It simplifies their shopping.

Not charging for shipping somewhere in your listing, free/flat/calculated, means you are doing yourself no favours.

If you need to use parcel rates, it is certainly easier to use Calculated Shipping and that means using dotCA for listing.

But if you are comfortable with Flat Rate shipping, try putting some of your items on dotCOM either with Free Shipping (cost of shipping to USA and Canada massaged and built in to your asking price) or a Flat Rate for USA and another for Canada.

Don't offer free shipping internationally , obviously.

While US buyers do see our dotCA prices in Search in USD, they sometimes get confused, poor dears, when the actual listing shows two currencies. So listing on dotCOM may be better.

This is an example of an item I sell with Free Shipping, that travels by Expedited. 

153408264177

@mrdutch1001 

I used to do well with knitting patterns, especially mid-century baby clothes but that market seems to have died for me too.

FWIW, statistically eBay's customer base leans older-- 45 to 64, late Boomers and early GenX/Bust.

[mrdutch1001]

yes, I have hundreds of knitting, crochet patterns...used to sell many per month, often large multiple item sales, but it seems those days are gone... have over 600 pattern listings on another site.  4 items have sold there in the past 5 months, which seems to indicate a hard sell there as well.

[ma-294746]

Thank you for replies!
Let me reply to the good points and suggestions made.

Canada post small business discounts and Shippo - not to complain, but we're talking Cents discounts literally, unless I ship in volumes which are unreachable for an individual, not a business or a toy shop.

Totally agree and I do offer only calculated shipping for domestic Canadian. All well measured and calculated and combined shipping has been set up and tested as well. And I offer flat shipping for US.

"Bubblewrap is not free" I agree, but I'm well past the point of calculating and carefully adding ebay costs and packaging cost to the price. At this point I pretend it's free, I just want to see when it starts to sell. And so far it doesn't.

To finish on a positive note, only Santa Clause in Canada would beat me on ebay.ca with his free toys, and of course his shipping is also free :). But go to US sellers and I'm out of competition, plus I'm sure they prefer domestic market for the toys. And of course, toys are just toys, not unique handmade knitted goods, which could and probably always have added value to entice US buyers. Time to close the ebay.ca account for me? Quite possibly it is.

[pjcdn2005]

Only you can say whether it is time or not. 

I find it really difficult to comment on 'slow sales' posts when the poster uses a posting ID.  Sometimes we get in a bit of a rut as far as our listings go and when someone else looks at them, they might see something that you don't.  Of course that might not be the problem at all but as I said, its impossible to know unless we can see your listings.

[ma-294746]

Ok, understand that. On the other hand, I'm not sure I want to see forum traffic in my statistics just yet, or use forum to promote myself. But thank you for your suggestion.

[travis7s]

I'm with PJ, if we can't see your listings we can't help you. If you actually have in demand items at the best prices including shipping, they should sell, so I suspect you must be inadvertantly doing something wrong. This forum isn't that busy, I doubt the traffic in going to influence much.

I've made 23 sales so far in May so it can be done. My advice is to just stay active and try lots of strategies. Post new listings every day, try out Best Offers, use ebay promotions if they send them to you, look up your items on ebay.com with the "Sold" filter on to actually see if anyone else is having success selling them.

[teenytrinkets]

I sell some toys, but mostly cosmetics during non-Xmas season. I find toys a tough sell in spring cleaning season and in summer when everyone's outside. 😞 You'll likely do better Aug-Feb.

But... there still are sales, so I think your issue is the shipping.

Personally, the only way I can complete with US sellers is to undercut them. I'm constantly adjusting my prices so mine comes up first on a search for lowest price. A lot of Americans don't like buying from Canadians. They think it will take too long or get stuck at customs. They need an incentive.

I offer FREE SHIPPING for everything (except unique or HTF items I know will sell...I usually charge shipping, always a flat rate and ALWAYS at a loss). Buyers want free shipping!

Free shipping means most of my listings need to be $30+. It costs me a max of $19 to send a flat rate box anywhere in Canada...so I typically make the least from Canadians that live out east.

My guess is that your calculated shipping is killing your CAD sales, and maybe your flat rate US shipping is too high.

Also...try Best Offer listings. It works really well for me, with the free shipping (I accept lower offers from Americans for larger packages since I can ship for $7-9 vs. $12-19 AND lower offers from Canadians when shipping lettermail - $2 vs. $7).

There are 2 types of buyers (at least, in my opinion- since I'm both these types when I buy):

1. Looking to buy an item you love or want to try for CHEAP. May choose a new seller or risk one that has dodgy feedback to get a great deal.

2. Looking for something you can't find elsewhere - willing to pay more, don't mind paying for shipping (but not TOO much!) - want a reputable seller.

In other words, my strategy as an ebay seller is taking cues from my habits as an ebay buyer. Thank me very much! 😉

[ma-294746]

Great answers and support! Thank you so much! Somehow feel enthusiastic to keep trying for another couple of weeks 🙂
I'm #1 on ebay.com as of today. Yes, pushed it to the limit with price and free shipping from Canada. Don't blame me, it's a trial, and I'll gladly fulfill it for the buyer.
Will update if I succede of breaking out of this no sales spell, otherwise will surrender my listing details for everyones' evaluation.

[tyler@ebay]

Hi @ma-294746 - I agree with other posters here that it's tricky to give you solid advice without a peek at your listings, but in general I can say that all categories are going to be a bit different, and there's seasonality to everything. 

A tool I really like for listing on .com is the 'Sourcing Guidance' tool within the growth tab in Seller Hub. I wrote a bit about it here and I think it may be useful to see how your categories trend historically.

Best of luck!

[ma-294746]

So I'm back to summarise it all. I haven't sold a single item in 7 weeks.. then the "curse broke" and I had 1 sale to the remote location in Canada. 3 weeks later I had my first sale to the US. This had validated that both of my Canadian and US ebay settings etc are working well. Thank you.

To conclude, it sells on ebay Canada when you sell at Zero profit to yourself or I believe I even went at minus few dollars on a couple of sales. But is it worth it? Definitely not! Once you add ebay fees + paypal fees + shipping cost. Mind the packaging cost, and do you even want to make profit on top? Forget it. It's not possible for a Canadian to compete with US. And for the rest of the world - shipping cost is ridiculously high, forget it again. Time to find better things to do in your life than hunting few dollars profit on ebay canada. No fun, no gain, no point. Thank you everyone for your time. Lesson learned.

[recped]

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@ma-294746 wrote:
So I'm back to summarise it all. I haven't sold a single item in 7 weeks.. then the "curse broke" and I had 1 sale to the remote location in Canada. 3 weeks later I had my first sale to the US. This had validated that both of my Canadian and US ebay settings etc are working well. Thank you.

To conclude, it sells on ebay Canada when you sell at Zero profit to yourself or I believe I even went at minus few dollars on a couple of sales. But is it worth it? Definitely not! Once you add ebay fees + paypal fees + shipping cost. Mind the packaging cost, and do you even want to make profit on top? Forget it. It's not possible for a Canadian to compete with US. And for the rest of the world - shipping cost is ridiculously high, forget it again. Time to find better things to do in your life than hunting few dollars profit on ebay canada. No fun, no gain, no point. Thank you everyone for your time. Lesson learned.

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It most certainly IS possible, it's done by thousands of sellers here on eBay. being possible doesn't mean guaranteed.

As others said previous, without info nobody can give worthwhile advice.

[zee-chan]

"To conclude, it sells on ebay Canada when you sell at Zero profit to yourself or I believe I even went at minus few dollars on a couple of sales. But is it worth it? Definitely not! Once you add ebay fees + paypal fees + shipping cost."

Can't really agree or disagree with you without being able to see your listings.

[hlmacdon]

There are a few ways to do well selling on here from Canada:

•  Be fortunate to be near a border and import everything into the US for USPS reshipping or be located in parts of Ontario where some of the carriers have international programs and services that offer reduced international tracking costs.
•  Sell low ASP and lower weight items and play the stuff the envelope game and/or rely on untracked services and accept you'll get hit with chargebacks and negative feedback and plan your model accordingly. 
•  Sell mid to high ASP items where the cost of parcel and international tracked services becomes less of a pain point for customers.

It isn't any easier really when you are in the US with US rates as you are still competiting against everyone else with the same advantage. International outside of the US is still an uphill battle to get orders especially if you can't access the e-packet program via the postal qualified wholesalers. The midsize US ecom sites that do well internationally are typically located close enough to the international airport injection points for those parties and can generate enough daily volume where they can hit consolidation levels where the cost/benefit hits a justifiable level where they can access that program and the broader range of tracked locations at reduced costs it offers. That is a long winded way of saying that at every level you go up there is always a new barrier or gap where someone else has an advantage you do not. If you focus on that you'll drive yourself mad.

The best advice is not to focus on selling what you know or like, but what best fits the logistics model based on the services you can access. It is a tough grind.

[recped]

It isn't any easier really when you are in the US with US rates as you are still competiting against everyone else with the same advantage.

International shipping costs for US sellers who use regular USPS are often paying more than what equivalent Canada Post charges are. Years ago (up until about 2012) USPS had pretty reasonable International rates, not true anymore and after the last round of increases where they reduced the number of weight break points it has become VERY expensive.

500 Gram Small Packet from Canada to USA CA$11.75 (about US$8.95)

8oz (450grams) First Class Packet from USA to Canada US$10.50

These are Retail rates but the commercial rates for both are lower by a similar amount. As you can see it's cheaper to ship from Canada to the USA than it is to ship from the USA to Canada.

The situation is similar for overseas, Canada Post is now cheaper than USPS most of the time.

That said I don't use either for International as there are many much cheaper options available for both Canadian and US Sellers.

[hlmacdon]

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@recped wrote:

International shipping costs for US sellers who use regular USPS are often paying more than what equivalent Canada Post charges are. Years ago (up until about 2012) USPS had pretty reasonable International rates, not true anymore and after the last round of increases where they reduced the number of weight break points it has become VERY expensive.

500 Gram Small Packet from Canada to USA CA$11.75 (about US$8.95)

8oz (450grams) First Class Packet from USA to Canada US$10.50

The collapse of the weight classes to only a handful has hurt First Class package, but the two services are not equivalent as you would be comparing tracked packet to First Class package for an apples to apples of UPU's Post Expres class. I get many niches don't need end to end tracking but there are others where it is a buyer expectation that needs to be met reliably. You can go the Asendia, DHL ecommerce, or another cross border route as an option in Ontario but they have their disadvantages as well. If you can find anyone doing consolidation via PostNord they have the cheapest international economy "airmail" option, as long as you don't mind 6+ week delivery times. 

[recped]

DHL Global Mail, PostNord, BPost, Royal Mail, Asendia, I've used them all and never had slow deliveries from any of them. They are all a bit slower than a direct shipment through CP or USPS but only by a few days in most cases and in some cases they are faster.

Tracking schmaking, I never use it unless it's included in the cheapest service (USPS Domestic). Given how much cheaper these (above) shippers are my "cookie jar" overflows.

I can ship an LP record worldwide for CA$7 - $9, properly packed US Sellers are paying over US$20 (except Canada) so I can undercut them by $5 and put $8  - $10 in my pocket. I'd have to refund about 1 in 3 shipments to break even but I only actually lose 1 in 500+.

I do get a few nervous nellie buyers who ask about tracking, I have a stock reply "tracked shipping from Canada is VERY expensive".