eBay

musicyouneed · ‎07-16-2017

I have been selling quite well for July, at least 2 or 3 a day, so far 30 sales up to Thursday July 13. Now nothing, usually each weekend I would have at least 5 to 6 sales. It is like ebay turned my lights off. I'm wondering if other have noticed or is it only me?

hlmacdon · ‎07-21-2017

In a rather unexpected turn of events, sales have picked up pace. Turns out the antidote was adding 50 high quality photos per item to get a boost in search! Ok that last bit may not be entirely true, I cheated and added some new listings.

hlmacdon · ‎07-21-2017

And search is broken on .com. Sales have stopped.

momcqueen · ‎07-21-2017

Did you have your shipping tab set to Azerbaijan?

thestuffofchris · ‎07-21-2017

It must have been a brief glitch. I searched for a couple items on .COM just after seeing hlmacdon's post and got the same thing: no results for anything. I just checked again and it's back to normal.

hlmacdon · ‎07-21-2017

@mjwl2006 wrote:
Did you have your shipping tab set to Azerbaijan?

You'd think so! Lots of random bugs across the site today. Seems to have resolved itself and coincidentally a sale just came in.

jt-libra · ‎07-21-2017

@hlmacdon wrote:
In a rather unexpected turn of events, sales have picked up pace. Turns out the antidote was adding 50 high quality photos per item to get a boost in search! Ok that last bit may not be entirely true, I cheated and added some new listings.

I found that used to work, but not so much anymore. I add new listings every second day and I'm still not selling. As well, it used to be that when I had 3 of an item, for instance, when the first one sold, the second and third would sell within a day or two. That's not happening either.

I've seen some good deals on new stock but I didn't buy any of it ... at the rate I'm going, it will be several years before I can sell what I have. I keep reducing the prices on the health and beauty items, because of the shelf life on many cosmetics and skin care items, but I'm afraid that people may think there's something wrong with them because they're being sold for less than 50% of retail, including shipping in many cases, and much less than my competitors. I try to ensure that everything I sell has a minimum 2 years left on their shelf life. When it drops under that, I start reducing prices.

And it's not as though the items will be bad with only a year left but just not as fresh as when they're first manufactured.

hlmacdon · ‎07-21-2017

@jt-libra wrote:
I found that used to work, but not so much anymore. I add new listings every second day and I'm still not selling. As well, it used to be that when I had 3 of an item, for instance, when the first one sold, the second and third would sell within a day or two. That's not happening either.

I've seen some good deals on new stock but I didn't buy any of it ... at the rate I'm going, it will be several years before I can sell what I have. I keep reducing the prices on the health and beauty items, because of the shelf life on many cosmetics and skin care items, but I'm afraid that people may think there's something wrong with them because they're being sold for less than 50% of retail, including shipping in many cases, and much less than my competitors. I try to ensure that everything I sell has a minimum 2 years left on their shelf life. When it drops under that, I start reducing prices.

And it's not as though the items will be bad with only a year left but just not as fresh as when they're first manufactured.

Typically when I am adding new listings it is to replenish popular sold out items or a new release product people are looking for. Both of those have either existing search traffic/ebay relisting alerts or encourage shoppers to browse to add things to the new releases. With multi-quantity listings I find it is more effective to set a lower limit then relist. If you have a larger quantity showing buyers tend to sit on the fence.

It is definitely a buyer's market if you are sourcing but I can imagine that items with an expiry are a pain to manage. Seems like you have a sensible way of dealing with it. Thankfully the items I sell are mostly free from that issue.

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-22-2017

With multi-quantity listings I find it is more effective to set a lower limit then relist. If you have a larger quantity showing buyers tend to sit on the fence.

With multi quantity listings I do put a smaller amount on and use gtc however, I use the out of stock option so if the listing sells out I can add more to the quantity and keep the sales history.

amcdc79 · ‎07-22-2017

Please forgive my ignorance, where is the out of stock option? Also do you have to end the item in order to have that option, can you do it when you revise the item?

momcqueen · ‎07-22-2017

It's under Site Preferences. First option. I don't k ow how to use it though. Or at least I have never used it.

momcqueen · ‎07-22-2017

I mean, I don't KNOW how to use it. Or type with my thumb for thT matte. That matter.

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-22-2017

As mj mentioned, it is in site preferences and if you check it off it applies to all good till cancelled listings. When the quantity goes to zero the listing is no longer visible to buyers but it will show up in your active listings. Once you get more stock in you change the quantity and it will be visible again. You can end the item yourself if you choose to.

I have a few items that I get in regularly so it comes in handy. For those items I find that I sell more than some of the other sellers even if my price is higher and I think that part of it is that they constantly relist while I have a fairly high number of sold items in the history. That could be true for any gtc listing but if you did run out of stock and didn't have the option enabled you would lose the history.

Also, if I have more than a couple of an item, I usually only mark that I have 2 or 3. When someone buys one I want to add another one to the listing but I have had a couple of people write and think that I hadn't sent out their item since I added one back into to the listing so now I sometimes wait for a bit. Of course I often forget to add one and then sell the last one listed. Hence the out of stock option. 🙂

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/multiple.html#outofstock

amcdc79 · ‎07-23-2017

Holy easy peasy, thank you very much.

Forgive me for derailing this thread, I do have a couple of questions regarding the out of stock preference,

I do have multiple similar items, Automotive Emblems and Hockey Cards, can I change the photos, description or title a little, or will I lose the history? They are the same, just in a different condition.

Also, when you add more product to the listing by increasing the number, does the initial amount go up or go away?

Tia.

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-23-2017

I do have multiple similar items, Automotive Emblems and Hockey Cards, can I change the photos, description or title a little, or will I lose the history? They are the same, just in a different condition.

I'm not sure, I haven't done that. I would guess no that you wouldn't lose the history but I'm not sure if it is the right thing to do. If your history is that you have sold 2 of a certain type of card in excellent condition and now you put in a card in poor condition with the new information....you haven't really sold 2 of that same item already so are you now misleading the buyer?? Perhaps someone else will see it in a different way.

Also, when you add more product to the listing by increasing the number, does the initial amount go up or go away?

The number that you put in is the one that shows up. If you had 2 listed and just got in 2 more, you would type in 4 and that's what would be shown in the listing. Is that what you are asking?

amcdc79 · ‎07-24-2017

The last thing I want to do is mislead any buyer, the out of stock preference will be great for new items as they would naturally be the same. For the used listings we can use sell similar, as like you say they are in a different condition.

My second question was not very clear, please forgive me. May I try again.

When you list an item with lets say a quantity of 5, when you sell 4, it says initial quantity of 5, with only 1 left. When you add 4 more does the initial quantity say 9, or does it go back to 5 with 4 sold?

Does that explain it better?

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-24-2017

When you list an item with lets say a quantity of 5, when you sell 4, it says initial quantity of 5, with only 1 left. When you add 4 more does the initial quantity say 9, or does it go back to 5 with 4 sold?

I'm not sure what you are referring to by where it says 'initial quantity" as I don't see that term anywhere. On the listings it only says how many are available and how many are sold. 3 available/13 sold

In selling manager it also tells me how many are available without any total starting amount. If you are using something that does give you an initial quantity than I don't know the answer but I would suspect that most inventory tools would keep adding on to the initial quantity.

ricarmic · ‎07-24-2017

Hi amcdc!

I think you're referring to what you see when you are relisting an item that was a multi item listing.

As PJC says the original number of items doesn't ever show to the buyers.

As far as I know, the next time you go to relist, it shows the original number when the item was first listed.

Having said this, I don't know for sure what you'd see if you're doing it the out of stock way..... it really doesn't matter anyway because the buyers will never see what you are seeing....

Does that help?

PS if I'm misunderstanding what you are asking from another perspective, the buyer sees the "available" and the "sold". I have an item that I keep replenishing and have been doing this for years. Currently it says 17 items available, 337 sold......when I initially started it years ago it had 10 items available.

musicyouneed · ‎07-24-2017

Update: Sales have been steady all month with a couple of days of no sales, every few days. According to the Sales record, the best sale days are Tuesdays, then Sundays. Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays are days without any sales. Below is my sales record. The blue are sales made. You have to remember I sell CD's that are usually under $10. The figures below are also US $.