eBay

topcornertoys · ‎07-26-2015

how are sales going this summer. I normally shut it down from June til the end of August but decided this year to list some items.....it has been terribly slow. only 1 offer on items listed at fixed price and very low page listing visits.

how is everyone else' s summer sales going?

mr.elmwood · ‎07-26-2015

I am up 33% over average.

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triber · ‎07-26-2015

Very slow for me. I mostly sell craft items, and it picks up usually towards fall when buyers are thinking about making winter outfits and Christmas gifts.

lady.stark · ‎07-26-2015

As for me, it would be an awesome summer.... if the "cart disconnect" issue would not cost me hundreds of dollars in sales....

topcornertoys · ‎07-26-2015

just curious do you have more items listed this summer than last year? or do you always run around the same amount of listings?

mr.elmwood · ‎07-26-2015

@mytoysgottago wrote:
just curious do you have more items listed this summer than last year? or do you always run around the same amount of listings?

Around the same.

The Loonie dropping has helped me dramatically. I have switched from price plus shipping to "free" shipping". That alone bumped up my sales a lot. This allows me to price-point and directly compete with US sellers.

An interesting side benefit. That which I could NOT sell at $16.99 + 8 = $24.99, I have re-priced at $27.99 "free" shipping and sales took off.

I have been on a run since Dec 25th.

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ricarmic · ‎07-26-2015

I too am a very firm believer of the power of free shipping.....

reallynicestamps · ‎07-26-2015

Based only on your feedback, you averaged 7 sales a month over the past year, and 5 of those were in the past 30 days.

So you are not really that much slower.

Has the hockey started yet? It could be seasonal.

FWIW, in my vastly different categories, the more I have listed the more sales I make. When I re-opened my Stores after a few months off for moving, sales did not really pick up until I have 200 listings (on this ID) and 500 on my other main ID. A third ID is still struggling with a few dozen auction listings a month.

Free shipping has been useful, especially since the fall of the loonie has reduced my procurement costs at one end and my shipping costs at the other.

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-27-2015

A number of times you've mentioned that changing to free shipping has boosted your sales but less than 40% of your sales have free shipping. Is it just those items with free shipping that are selling more often?

pierrelebel · ‎07-27-2015

"how is everyone else' s summer sales going? "

So far ... so good.

Everything I sell offers "free shipping" worldwide. I have been listing on eBay on a "free shipping" basis for over three years and it is working well. Another important factor, I believe, is the fact I switched about half my listings to Cdn$ (when listed on eBay.ca) and the other half in US$ (when listed on .com). The Cdn$ listings are doing well (and no, buyers are not stupid. If an item is worth Cdn$ 25, they will pay US$18 or Cdn$25; there is no loss on conversion for me as eBay buyers understand value to a larger degree than often given credit.). Listings in Europe in € are not moving.

Now, if you take a look at my "sold" listings (or anyone else for that matter) you only see a very partial picture as eBay does not list under "sold" any quantity sold from a listing with multiple quantity. I did not know about that until last week when I checked one of my "regular" good selling item ($24) and noticed many had been sold by competitors at higher prices but could not find mine in the "sold" list. I had sold four lots but eBay does not show the information since the listings are still active. I checked a few more listings with large quantities and regular sales and found the same thing.

So, checking a seller's "sold" listings may not give the readers the whole picture, depending on the type of listings (single or multiple quantities) sold by the seller.

ricarmic · ‎07-27-2015

Hi Pierre, A way to see ones that have sold where are are still some left is to use "completed listings" instead of "sold listings".

The ones that have sold some will show the dollar value as green as are single items that sold.

The ones that have sold none are black dollar value.

It is still onerous to try to weed out the sold ones if the seller happens to have a lot of unsold fixed price items as opposed to GTC ones.

pierrelebel · ‎07-27-2015

That does not work.

When I click "View listings" above and click on "completed", it only offers 425 listings from the beginning of May when I reopened my eBay store after the move to Napanee. I typically list (or relist) 450+ listings every month (more if there is a promotion and I have the time to handle it).

Somehow most listings are missing. Maybe it is a matter of "GTC" not being shown. But even the "auction" counts is way too low.

ricarmic · ‎07-27-2015

That is interesting. I myself only ever run GTC (for the memorable past) so I haven't ever tried to reconcile the counts. I do know from my "snooping" of other sellers that I can see the mulit-quantity ones by doing what I described. Apparently it isn't showing all of them though.....one learns something new every day!

cutepaperstory · ‎07-28-2015

I've never had a worse month that this one since I first started on eBay. I've had 3 sales this month, where I normally average 4 or 5 per week. Good to know it's not just me!

rose-dee · ‎07-28-2015

@pierrelebel wrote:

Now, if you take a look at my "sold" listings (or anyone else for that matter) you only see a very partial picture as eBay does not list under "sold" any quantity sold from a listing with multiple quantity.

I'd been wondering for some time why my "sold" list never seemed to match what I knew I had actually sold. Clearly this is the reason. I sell a lot of multi-quantity GTC items, and I've noticed that one of those only shows up on the "sold" list if it happens to be the last available item that has sold.

Very interesting.

As for a response to the OP, this summer has so far been pretty dismal for me. I have a feeling that, other than items that people really need, or items that appeal to keen collectors, the so-called "discretionary" items are now a harder sell on eBay. The trend has been noticeable for me at least, ever since the hacker fiasco.

And since that event also more or less coincided with the beginning of the "cart disconnect", I can only speculate that the convergence of those two factors had a very negative effect on the buyers who traditionally purchased in my categories. One thing I have noticed over the past year is that I'm seeing fewer buyers with higher FB scores (i.e. experienced eBayers), and a far higher majority of newcomers.

I compared May, June and July (thus far) 2015 to my previous 3 years and the picture is not rosy. I've tried more of everything this year: more listings, more variety, lower prices, lower (or free) shipping, more pictures, more item specifics, etc. etc. -- in short everything that should produce more sales -- yet the result has been fewer sales overall, and reduced income thus far for 2015.

Although June and July are usually slower than other months for me in every year, this summer so far has been the worst comparatively since I began selling full-time. If I thought I was making major errors that could account for it, or racking up defects that were affecting my visibility, that would at least be some consolation, but that's not the case.

I can only hope that by holding on and waiting it out my buyers will return. Can we believe what David Wenig has been saying about "focusing" on eBay's traditional core of smaller sellers? I'm tired of being disappointed by eBay's promises.

rose-dee · ‎07-28-2015

@ricarmic wrote:
Hi Pierre, A way to see ones that have sold where are are still some left is to use "completed listings" instead of "sold listings".
The ones that have sold some will show the dollar value as green as are single items that sold.
The ones that have sold none are black dollar value.
It is still onerous to try to weed out the sold ones if the seller happens to have a lot of unsold fixed price items as opposed to GTC ones.

Hi 'ricarmic' -- I tried this on my own listings, and all I saw under "Completed Listings" was a list of the most recently ended (unsold) 30-day fixed priced items. So I'm not sure whether I'm misunderstanding what you've said, or whether this feature doesn't really work if one has a lot of unsold FP items, as you say.

Oh, slight correction -- there were a number of items in green amongst the others (the items that actually sold), but still the "completed" list wasn't a full reflection of sold items.

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-28-2015

When I click "View listings" above and click on "completed", it only offers 425 listings from the beginning of May when I reopened my eBay store after the move to Napanee. I typically list (or relist) 450+ listings every month (more if there is a promotion and I have the time to handle it).

They used to show all unsold and sold listings within a 3 month period if you looked at your 'completed' sales but starting a few months ago they changed it. Now it shows your unsold listings for just a month and your sold listings for 3 months so it is deceiving.

Your completed listings are only showing unsold listings from June 30th.

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-28-2015

the "completed" list wasn't a full reflection of sold items.

You're right. The completed function used to show each time any item sold including those from multi listings but it has changed. All of my multi listings sold are just showing as one sale unless you click into the item. I have no idea when or why that changed.