eBay

dobo5250 · ‎12-07-2022

i have on dec 3 one sale-- before that three days no sales - all of my items before yesterday where at 35% off as of yestreday i have gone to 40% and 45% off -- last year at this time i was flush with daily sales at least three a week sales -- now nothing -- doesn't help all my expenese come out of the first of the month -- locker rent - post office box rent - ebay store tribute- this month so far iam in the whole quite a bit - will try 50 % off at end of week if nothing changes - but that is my bottom line cost -- anything lower than that with ebay fees i will get close to losing money on very sale -- hope there is turn around -- xmas will be as many others on other forums have said also ---very very bleak this year-- no extras for the grandkids and grandma

only bright news this week was that my penality points are down to 2.14% from 2.16% last week- so again slight improvement - that 1.99% rating keeps or seems to be so far off but then again when ebay put me in promo jail they started at 2.33% so maybe just maybe i can get back to 1.99 % and lower fees and using promo listings again- maybe sales will go up also and i will make a little money

pjcdn2005 · ‎12-07-2022

I'm not familiar with the type of items that you are selling but if it isn't something that people tend to buy for gifts, that may be part of the problem. I think that some sellers are extra slow in December while others are super busy selling gift items.

reallynicestamps · ‎12-07-2022

Three days is too short a period to compare.

If you made no sales from Dec 1 to Dec 3, then one that's four days. There are seven days in a week.

last year at this time i was flush with daily sales at least three a week sales --

However.

The pandemic surge in online shopping ended abruptly in January 2022.

Rather than making further reductions, try putting your prices back up. Some people think that low prices equal low quality.

Or close your older listings for a week then relist as Sell Similar for a possible boost in Newly Listed searches.

December is usually a horrible month for collectibles. And home renovation projects.

You could compare to 2021, but better would be 2019 and 2018. And compare the same time period.

It's retail. There are waves, some of them predicatble- don't try to sell bikinis in November-- some of them not.

dobo5250 · ‎12-07-2022

well after some more discounts and no sales i went into the site and wondered what is going on-- i cost compared over 16 different items i had on sale i have over 2000 listings with others listings exactly the same items on the site and even though all 16 of my products where cheaper to buy - not one come even came close -- to first 50 /60 pages or even when i put in exact description did they come up- one item a square d circuit breaker 40 amp dual type - had 21 items higher priced than mine - most of them came up on the first two /three pages -- i know i being penilized --tell i get down to 1.99% defect rate but when you are the best buy on the site -- at least you should be able to been seen -- i 'll wait till the weekend then cancel all my sales -- then reset whole store maybe that will kick start something anything- tired reset last week an small section of my store and when resetting it cancels the sales - so i will give sales a chance to do any thing - then reset the whole thing

any advice ?????????

dobo5250 · ‎12-07-2022

my items are hardware store items needed to repait fix things in your house cheaply and the last two dec.'s dec was one of my best months for faucets breakers fuses plugs etc cartridges for repairing ones sinks and bathtubs

so this real sudden drop this month of sales is shocking -- even emails asking details about products has become nil - those i used to get three /four emails a weeks before-

gift items i don't have -- needed cheap house repair items i have over 2000 listings -- i now getting worried something is wrong - with my listings -- with the site - with both

ps even the scam guys which i always got one or two a month asking me to ship here or there or want some rediculous discount or call them on their phones have not sent me anything

like i said before crikets --

ricarmic · ‎12-07-2022

@dobo5250

My suggestion is to take one or some of the pokemon sets and sell them as individual cards (when it makes sense to break the group) this increases the number of sales you have so will improve your % faster, they can also ship cheaper on a per card basis. Depending on how much margin you have on them you can even try starting them at auction at a LOW price that generates bids, this makes "you" look better to the search algorithm and might increase overall views as well. You might want to do research on that first to make sure your "low" price will bring bids, I don't know how much of a negative effect the restrictions has on your visibility compared to what normally would be the case, ie you probably have a higher likelihood of them selling for the starting bid unless you start them very very low.

Personally for the hardware, I think the sales simply translate into less revenue for you when someone finds them I don't think it will bring people so it isn't helping. That is only my opinion though. I also don't think it would work as well to break the hardware lots into singles, they have a different audience of buyers.

rocketscollectibles · ‎12-07-2022

I remember you did the same post last year, i remember it because of your pokemon can. Slow sales almost always means no demand or bad pricing. I can't confirm on everything but i can confirm it easily by looking at your pokemon stuff. You got $120+ listings that i could be able to find for $15 shipped. I literally see listings worth $5 listed for $80 + $20 shipping. You're doing 45% off and still 500%+ over market price on almost every listing. That's actually crazy

I remember telling you something similar last year for your electrode cards listing. But you kept the same price range. Also the way they are listed, you sell listings of duplicates. Collectors won't buy 5 times the same card

rocketscollectibles · ‎12-07-2022

Had some time. Look at this quick exemple

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/134352336539?hash=item1f4805f69b:g:7FQAAOSwNhxjcCcS&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAA8Gp...

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/154789617041?hash=item240a2e1d91:g:MJkAAOSw5lZh3Ohr&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAA8CZ...

I found those 2 cards $2.25 and $2.00, would cost a $3.50 shipping to buy from 2 different sellers. And in all honesty, it's not even good prices

You're asking $88.88 + $22.22 shipping. 45% off it's $70.00 shipped

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/374326777335?hash=item57279d55f7:g:4VIAAOSwO-pjIxw9

It's similar on all your cards listings

reallynicestamps · ‎12-08-2022

and the last two dec.'s dec was one of my best months for

There was a pandemic surge in online buying in 2020 and2021. That stopped abruptly in January 2022.

The shops are crowded again and while eBay made a profit, AZ - your biggest competitor for parts- is back to losing money.

How do your sales compare to the prepandemic years 2018 and 2019?

dobo5250 · ‎12-08-2022

yes you are right about the pokemon cards i have no expertise in selling those we are selling them for a deceased friend's wife - we had them apraised by a local card collector two year ago so prices are out of wach for sure -- selling them individual l though i don't see how you can show even break even cost on that 2/3 dollars per card with shipping so high these days going to the post office for a two dollar sale seems ridicious to me with ebay rates being what they are - - in the new year i going to try auctions -and reduced sales i will keep going down and down till they sell - i have sold a few sets but that was oct.- but need to up the ante i guess

just another note had my first sale today since that only one on dec 3rd which was the only sale in the month of dec up till today

also two email inquiries about pokemon collectable cd's and odd stuff of pokemon nature waiting back on those inquiries -- so at least i know the site is working on my listings --

guess i will just keep reducing till i find the spot that sells- and have to reduce my costs to sell

thanks for the input

byto253 · ‎12-08-2022

Is there a seasonal trend where your hardware items slow down in December? I would think that is possible as folks focus on Christmas.

ricarmic · ‎12-08-2022

Just a note that the reason I suggested breaking lots down into smaller ones is that as I understand it your current goal is to get your ratings below 2% and you need to sell items to do this.

Selling a number of small value/return items doesn't make you much on them but it allows you to achieve your goal of getting your ratings good again, assuming you do a good job on the smaller items* which should get things moving for your more expensive stuff again.

*As another note, the propensity of problem buyers is higher for very low selling stuff. If something's normal value is $10 and one sells one for $1 and another for $15 via auction, one is more likely to have problems with the $1 buyer than the $15 buyer.

mrdutch1001 · ‎12-08-2022

Sales are off for many many sellers, here, Etsy, and other selling sites...this isn't unique to you, or to eBay...this is widespread and because things are different December 2022, a whole lot more different than December 2021, December 2020,etc...selling and buying will be and are different...

and then there is this thing called SUPPLY & DEMAND!

Buyer habits change, and buyer habits have changed with the way of the world... and no matter how much you discount your items, they just may not sell right now...

reallynicestamps · ‎12-08-2022

apraised by a local card collector two year ago so prices are out of wach for sure

Collectors are often poor appraisers.

Partly because they are used to paying retail and underestimate how much of a retail price is the dealer's overhead.

In the stamp world the lowest catalogue price will be 25c and that is entirely made up of the dealer's costs for having and selling the stamp. The stamp itself is effectively worthless. But the dealer will still charge the collector 25c.

And partly because they don't see very many cards.

A dealer will see thousands of doohickeys - more in a week than collectors will see in their entire time in any given hobby.

It's part of the reason for the advice we give new sellers "Sell what you know, know what you sell."

rocketscollectibles · ‎12-08-2022

You need to ship them lettermail under a certain price to be competitive, shipping cost is $0.92-$1.94 instead of $20-25. Some cards also are just not really worth selling, like a lot of cheap items. Listing cards of dupplicates too you're aiming resellers, and resellers won't pay $40/card they can buy for $5, that sells $10-15. I noticed too that you're stating a lot of cards as mint while they have scratchs and seems played, not showing the backs, that's something buyers will notice and won't trust buying (even if pricing was correct). Or they will buy and you're risking negatives

I sent a private message personally i would be open to take many of them at the right price. But if you wanna hold them, honestly i'm telling you they'll still be there in 10 years with those pricing. If you turn them into auction, start them $0.99-$4.99, or you'll stay at the same point

rocketscollectibles · ‎12-08-2022

apraised by a local card collector two year ago so prices are out of wach for sure

Collectors are often poor appraisers

And it was in 2019-2020. Pokemon had a boom during covid. Prices peaked high and everyone started thinking they were sitting on diamonds, the market was hysteric. Those cards have been poorly evaluated from the start and value even decreased past 2 years

dinomitesales · ‎12-09-2022

I sell video games. I picked one of your video game listings and here's some suggestions.

Item #374320486008 (pkg#3267-6 units -call of duty xbox 360 assorted games -$77.77)

Your title is a mess. eBay titles should be formatted using important key words only, with the most important key words at the beginning of the title. Single words separated by a space with minimal punctuation. Words that people would actually search for if looking for your item. Your title starts with "pkg#3267" - what does that even mean? This is not relevant to the listing and is not something that anyone is going to search for. I suspect this is some sort of inventory number for you but this should not be in the title - put it in the custom SKU field, or in the description if necessary. Next it says "6 units" - what is a unit? Do you mean 6 games? Common vernacular on eBay would call that a "Lot of 6". Next you have "call of duty xbox 360" - I would argue that these are the only relevant keywords in your entire title. The word "assorted" is a useless keyword that no one is searching in the video game category. And then for some reason you've repeated the price of the item? Why? The price is shown to the buyer already below the title (and in this case it isn't even accurate because that's not the current price of the item since you have it on sale). You also have random dashes placed around the title - any time multiple words are connected by a dash the individual words are not going to be searchable because you've essentially turned it into a single word. My suggested title for this listing would be: "Call of Duty Xbox 360 Lot 6 Games Black Ops 2 Modern Warfare World at War Tested".
Your pictures show only the front of the games and the spines. At minimum you should have photos showing the backs of the games, and an image of the inside of each case showing the disc and manual (if included). Video game sellers want to know whether or not the game is "Complete" (i.e. that it includes the case, manual, and game disc).
You need more Item Specifics - you currently have four, two of which are identical, and one of which is a UPC that isn't even tied to eBay's catalogue. eBay gives you many suggestions, you should try and fill in as many of them as possible. Since this is a lot of 6 different games, you should have the full names of all 6 included games within the Item Specifics because unlike the text in your description, the Item Specifics are parsed via keyword search by buyers.
There are many offputting things in your description. Don't type in all caps - it comes across as aggressive, as if you were yelling at the buyer. Proofread to avoid spelling errors. You state "This item is the cheapest you see on the internet for new product of this kind" - this isn't true at all, and your items aren't "new" so I don't know why you're saying that. You mention that you "impose a restocking fee" - no you don't, eBay doesn't have a way to charge a restocking fee and you're just going to **bleep** off any buyers that end up returning something.
Your price is way off. I priced all these games out individually and I could acquire all six of them in comparable condition for $57.70 (this includes shipping costs, and I'd be purchasing from six different sellers). So I'm not going to pay any more than that for your bundle. Your original price is $102.21 incl. shipping (nearly double!), and even with your 45% discount it's still $10 more to buy from you. I would price this lot at $54.99 with free shipping, or $34.99 + $20 flat rate shipping within Canada.
Your shipping price on this one isn't actually too far off, but you're charging the weird rate of $24.44 for somer reason (it doesn't appear that this is a calculated rate because you call out that specific price in the description too). These 6 games can easily ship in a Canada Post Small Flat Rate Box for $20 - just do $20 flat rate shipping within Canada to simplify the listing. On many other listings your shipping price is crazy. You NEED to try untracked Lettermail shipping for anything that's under 500g/2 cm thick - you're pricing yourself out of the market on a lot of your stuff because you're charging $20+ shipping for things you can send for a couple of bucks in stamps. Your competition is sending the same items via untracked Lettermail and effectively undercutting your prices by up to $20.
You're only offering shipping to Canada on this listing (I don't know if that goes for ALL your listings, but you're cutting out a huge market by not shipping internationally). On this listing you should at least be shipping to the States. It would probably actually be cheaper to ship these six games to the States than it would in Canada, plus you'd be increasing your buyer market by nearly 10 times.

If you're hesitant to ship via untracked Lettermail, this might actually be a good listing to experiment on. List each of these six games separately with a competitive price. You can ship them anywhere in Canada for $3.19+tax in stamps (or less if they don't have manuals) - just slide them in a bubble envelope and you're good to go. My suggestion would be to work that $3.19 into the price and offer free shipping, but you can add it as a flat rate shipping cost as well .

needsmorerobots · ‎12-10-2022

I don't know. I haven't had any difficulties.

Around December I find most people concentrate on Christmas decor, electronics and media rather than home improvment items which appears to be what you have a lot of.

dobo5250 · ‎12-15-2022

thanks for all the advice you sure went to a lot of trouble i really do appreciate the input-

i know nothing of videos - so your input helps - selling these for a friend who is very sick on death's door so just helping out - alot of my non hardware store items are like that for others that don't have the where with all to list or knowledge - but i do what i

most of your points are very good points - i will try to incorpate a couple of them when i can - some i can not

the time you must spend on each one of your listings must be incrediable i don't have enough time in a day now just to list my own listings i already spend about 4 hours a day on this site and become fatigued to the point where i have to have a sleep after taking my meds from headaches looking a this small screen

but degress i again thanks for all the points - i will read them again after my nap and see what if any i can do

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎12-15-2022

@dobo5250 wrote:
thanks for all the advice you sure went to a lot of trouble i really do appreciate the input-
i know nothing of videos - so your input helps - selling these for a friend who is very sick on death's door so just helping out - alot of my non hardware store items are like that for others that don't have the where with all to list or knowledge - but i do what i
most of your points are very good points - i will try to incorpate a couple of them when i can - some i can not
the time you must spend on each one of your listings must be incrediable i don't have enough time in a day now just to list my own listings i already spend about 4 hours a day on this site and become fatigued to the point where i have to have a sleep after taking my meds from headaches looking a this small screen
but degress i again thanks for all the points - i will read them again after my nap and see what if any i can do

One other thing that "could" be factoring in to slow down in sales is as it gets closer to Christmas, buyers gradually reduce their buying. Possibly due to fear of delays...packages getting caught up the seasonal overflow. Once that has cleared then buyers gradually start buying again. As noted by others it can also depend of folks disposable income due to the time of year.

2nd possibility. eBay being eBay. The only thing that is entirely predictable is the unpredictability. As soon as I find something that works, it suddenly stops!! Best thing to do is keep experimenting and keep the "gotta have faith, faith, faith"!!! Apologies, George Michael quote borrow!!!

-Lotz