eBay Improvements

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

Just was doing a little thinking between watching orders trickle in and paint drying and was wondering if anyone recalls a new feature or announcement that caused some sort of major increase to business? Off the top of my head, none came to mind. Thoughts?

-Lotz

[richardcm]

My only comment is on your topic title “eBay Improvements”. Somehow those two words together just do not sound right together. An oxymoron.

[kawartha-ephemera]

Were they improvements or simply rule changes? The game as currently played barely resembles that played prior to last spring. 

[reallynicestamps]

Promoted Listings seem to have increased my views and to some small extent sales.

• I use 1% only.  And only pay if I sell.

Shifting to Free Shipping (adding shipping cost to asking price) definitely made a difference.

• I use free shipping to both Canada and USA when I can ship by letter rates.

But what works for me may not work for you.

[kawartha-ephemera]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

Promoted Listings seem to have increased my views and to some small extent sales.

• I use 1% only.  And only pay if I sell.

Shifting to Free Shipping (adding shipping cost to asking price) definitely made a difference.

• I use free shipping to both Canada and USA when I can ship by letter rates.

But what works for me may not work for you.

---

Perhaps I should look at the free shipping angle again, I've always discarded the idea thinking it unfairly penalized those purchasing multiple items on one invoice.

On lettermail items, I have a discount rule setup, pay shipping on the first item ... additional items ship free. 

With flat out free shipping what happens when you get multiple item orders, do you get requests for discounts or refunds?

[reallynicestamps]

what happens when you get multiple item orders, do you get requests for discounts or refunds?.

I don't often have multiple orders.  Except on postage lots, and those are already pretty well priced. Also if the value of a multiple lot is high enough, I move from Lettermail to Expedited.  And those costs are built into my Free Shipping too.

There's a big difference between a $50 /45gr order that ships for $1.27 and a $250/ 200gr order that theoretically ships for $3.12 but is actually shipping for $15 or so Expedited.

I've always discarded the idea thinking it unfairly penalized those purchasing multiple items on one invoice.

But even so, no I rarely get asked about shipping costs on "free" shipping. 

I have from time to time, found my Flat Rate international rates high enough that I have send a refund through Paypal. No customer has ever complained. Nor has any thanked me.  Which is fine.

.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

My personal opinion has always been Flat rate will never really be an option for me. Too many variables involved dependent on item value, size, services available and distance. Letter rate works if you shipping smaller low value items but that only amounts to maybe 2 to 3% of my sales. Flat rate works fine on items of higher value when you can control the shipping services.  On 50 +- transactions over the past 90 days total shipping spent was in excess of 800.00.  This has to be recovered by charging based on actual shipping. One can only inflate shipping with handling charges so much based on an items value before a customer chooses not to purchase.

Running promoted listings over the past 2 weeks has caused lots of clicks but only 1 sale on 1 item. Sending numerous offers has only caused 2 low value item sales to date. Personally I thought it would have generated at least a few more than that. The vast majority of watchers are sellers selling similar items and monitoring prices.

And I definitely agree. Very few of the past announcements were actual improvements. They've just caused the majority of sellers a decrease in business and more monthly fees. Cut and dried, without the real opportunity to cycle their items at their discretion.

-Lotz

[reallynicestamps]

I suspect that eBay's love affair with Free Shipping was in part encouraged by USPS which offers free boxes for some services.

Like the Canada Post boxes which allow anything that fits to ship for the price of the box.

If you know the item will fit in the $15 box, deciding to use Flat Rate (and by extension "free") shipping becomes easier.

Canada Post does now seem to stock those prepaid boxes in all Post Offices (and perhaps outlets), but they are expensive.

[brettjet38]

“eBay Improvements”

Would that be "Managed Payments", "Sellers paying Paypal fees on Taxes collected by eBay" or maybe "forced GTC for all Sellers" (although I have always listed using GTC)...

“eBay Improvements” a catch 22 for all eBay Sellers!

[ypdc_dennis]

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@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:

... wondering if anyone recalls a new feature or announcement that caused some sort of major increase to business?

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When eBay announced they were coming to Canada with eBay.CA

Major increase in business.

-..-

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@ypdc_dennis 

So no real  improvements since 2000? It's been that long?    Reminds me of when I worked for GE Canada and i spotted a bunch of the muckety mucks  trying to calculate how long they thought it "should" take to build an extremely complicated piece of equipment using lego blocks for reference. I laughed until it hurt!!!

-Lotz

[2nd-time-around-jewelry]

All I can say that eBay's supposed "improvements" have not helped my business at all.  Sales have declined so much this year. Yet I am paying more in fees & other charges. Having a store hasn't helped much either. Tried promoted listing for a month without one sale. Sent offers to 100-200 watchers & sold just a few items. Most watchers are not interested in buying. Ebay's "improvements" have only helped themselves & the large scale sellers from China.