Sales Have Reached An All Time Low!

This is just me venting. Sales have reached an all time low. It has now been 3 weeks without a sale despite having over 1000 items listed. That has never happened to me before in all my 20+ years of selling on eBay . I have sent hundreds of offers to watchers with hardly a bite. I think a big reason is that I no longer promote my listings. That is just a greedy money grab by eBay. I figure if I am paying for a store then they should be promoting me anyways.  I think I need to look at cross listing on other sites.  Got to spread my eggs in many baskets I guess.

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Re: Sales Have Reached An All Time Low!

So October is almost over & I didn't have one sale.  So I wasn't able to use the free shipping for Tuesdays either.  First time that has ever happened in over 20 years of selling. eBay is just going downhill.  I have tried some experiments with promoting & some other tweaking. Made no difference whatsoever.  There are also so many more vintage jewelry sellers now than when I first started. Many know very little about the value of the items & sell them for peanuts. I am looking into alternative selling venues. Sold some scrap gold locally & received a high return.  Way better than selling it on eBay where they take a huge percentage in fees. Some catagories still do well on eBay. One thing that sells well on eBay is vintage electronics & audio equipment.  Will try listing more of those.

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Re: Sales Have Reached An All Time Low!


@2nd-time-around-jewelry wrote:

I think a big reason is that I no longer promote my listings. 


Just try - it's free of charge. You only pay, if the item sells. If it doesn't work, simply stop to promote. 

Message 22 of 29
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Re: Sales Have Reached An All Time Low!

You have nice items, but all the ones I looked at are Buy It Now only. No doubt the prices are fair—I know nothing about jewellery—but I've found more success offering both a starting price for an auction and Buy It Now. That gives buyers a choice. Also, since your items are small why is there a standard shipping charge of $18.50? For a $29.99 item that's pretty steep. Surely many of these could be sent much less expensively, and therefore more attractively, by taking advantage of the Expedited Lite service.

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Re: Sales Have Reached An All Time Low!

Sale are slow for everyone. But you did the same exact post 1 year ago i remembered and checked. And i notice you did not changed anything in your selling pratices discussed. That's the issue with those kind of posts, people come to rant but do not listen to anything. Been months we have expedited lite now to ship tracked $6-8 to ship small items and you still charge $18.50 to $25.00. It would drastically decrease your prices to buyers without you losing a penny just by using proper shipping pratices. Your shipping costs are a huge impact, you can fix them but not doing it. 

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Re: Sales Have Reached An All Time Low!

I noticed you sell cards which are in a completely different catagory from jewelry. A lot of it is high end. I send everything with tracking & mostly to the US.  They are paying very little with the exchange rate for shipping.  And Expedited lite is only for Canada which is a very small percentage of my customers. 

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Re: Sales Have Reached An All Time Low!

I have tried all different things. I do have auctions with a Buy It Now every month. You didn't see any as they had just expired & I did not relist yet. Also most of my customers are to the US & Expedited lite is only for Canada.  I also sell a lot of higher end jewelry so size is not the issue when sending. A lot of it needs to be insured & tracked. But appreciate your input.

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Re: Sales Have Reached An All Time Low!


@2nd-time-around-jewelry wrote:

I noticed you sell cards which are in a completely different catagory from jewelry. A lot of it is high end. I send everything with tracking & mostly to the US.  They are paying very little with the exchange rate for shipping.  And Expedited lite is only for Canada which is a very small percentage of my customers. 


Expedited lite is fully tracked.  There is almost zero reason not to take advantage of it for anything under 200g. Heck, if you're selling jewelry you could send it with the new extra small flat rate box for $16.99 + tax anywhere in Canada. The US shipping through eBay labels is also via tracked packet and, unless you have level 4 with Canada Post, is probably cheaper as well.  With expedited lite, a 200g item is, on average, probably about $8.50 in Canada (could be a little higher for remote areas) and tracked packet would be about $8.20 I think. Those prices include tax.

 

Message 27 of 29
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Re: Sales Have Reached An All Time Low!

I just don't understand this stubbornness. You can ship for $8 but try to justify paying $20-25, for the same exact expedited shipping service. Obviously your customers are more US, you charge $25 shipping on $25 items for canadians. It's literally what i'm pointing. You say it's high end items but i count around 70% of your store is under $50 items. Your shipping is a 100%-50% increase to total for canadians buyers. Obviously canadians don't buy. While you could ship for $8 the same exact service and decrease this increase ratio to 30%-15%. Or even way lower using lettermail. Sorry the rudeness but this stubbornness is truly brainless. 

Message 28 of 29
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Re: Sales Have Reached An All Time Low!

Tracked Packet to the US includes $100 insurance which would cover most of your items that I looked at. I've just sent an item weighing less than 100 g for $7.33 using eBay Labels. This is as cheap as Expedited Lite in Canada.

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