crikets sounds - no inquires -no sales - nothing since dec3- getting worried

Summary: dobo5250 describes challenges with declining eBay sales and increased discounts, trying to boost sales without success. dinomitesales offers detailed advice on improving listings, such as optimizing titles and images. dobo5250 appreciates the feedback but has limitations due to personal circumstances and expresses gratitude. postit4me discusses a general decline in eBay traffic, attributing it to changes in free listing offers, while flipistics advises on improving listings with more pictures and better shipping terms. rocketscollectibles suggests efforts may be in vain as the original post was possibly an outlet for frustration. Overall, participants share experiences and advice on boosting eBay sales amid challenging conditions.

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

dobo5250

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Posted 3 years ago·Last reply 3 years ago

13 comments

rocketscollectibles

·3 years ago

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I pointed out 3 weeks ago sharing my experience about very obvious reasons of why the cards don't sell. He keep relisting as similar trying the same. I contacted about buying multiple listings and work around something but basically got told to wait and been ghosted since. He won't change anything, the thread was meant to vent. Honestly i think y'all wasting your time

flipistics

·3 years ago

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@rocketscollectibles wrote:
I pointed out 3 weeks ago sharing my experience about very obvious reasons of why the cards don't sell. He keep relisting as similar trying the same. I contacted about buying multiple listings and work around something but basically got told to wait and been ghosted since. He won't change anything, the thread was meant to vent. Honestly i think y'all wasting your time

Maybe, but this is a thread that will likely come up a lot in searches so the information will probably help lots of other people in the future.

postit4me

·3 years ago

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I noticed in my traffic report that almost all my views come from external sites. This has been the case for this year. As soon as eBay stopped a large number of free listings traffic here came to a haul for me. I have only sold maybe a dozen items here since then. On my other sites, I sell that in a month or less but they offer all the free ads you can place. Google search for any item and eBay is fifth or further down. I know people don't like large free listing offers due to flooding the market but that is exactly what needs to be done. Without items in the search engine in the top three postings, you have little chance of connecting with a buyer. eBay needs to wisen up and start getting the traffic it desires - offer free listings large like 5000 per month.

flipistics

·3 years ago

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@postit4me wrote:
I noticed in my traffic report that almost all my views come from external sites. This has been the case for this year. As soon as eBay stopped a large number of free listings traffic here came to a haul for me. I have only sold maybe a dozen items here since then. On my other sites, I sell that in a month or less but they offer all the free ads you can place. Google search for any item and eBay is fifth or further down. I know people don't like large free listing offers due to flooding the market but that is exactly what needs to be done. Without items in the search engine in the top three postings, you have little chance of connecting with a buyer. eBay needs to wisen up and start getting the traffic it desires - offer free listings large like 5000 per month.

Remember that ebay also changed how they count traffic, so you probably want to look at page views more than impressions. If you aren't already, I would recommend promoting items (even at the minimum amount) and trying to reduce your shipping costs a little if possible (they look a bit high to me and I'm in Ontario, so I can only imagine what they look like to someone on the coasts)

Other things I noticed when looking at your listings is that you only seem to be including one picture. This might actually be hurting you significantly in the ebay algorithms. For things like dinnerware, ideally you should probably be showing at least 4 to 8 photos, and don't be shy about adding more than that. You can add up to 24. People want to see that there are no cracks or flaws. Improving the lighting a little where you take your photos wouldn't be a bad idea either. For items like your brown Pyrex coffee mugs (picked at random), maybe do a search and see what other people are adding in their titles because those might be keywords that people are searching for. For example, it appears that pattern is called "butterfly gold". It's unlikely that someone is just browsing the category. They're probably searching for a specific look, and they aren't going to easily find yours if all it says is "brown band".

I'd recommend downloading the "Listings Quality Report" which is under the performance -> traffic tab (and is going away at the end of February 😢). It should provide you with some great additional insights.

lotzofuniquegoodies

·3 years ago

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@flipistics wrote:
@postit4me wrote:
I noticed in my traffic report that almost all my views come from external sites. This has been the case for this year. As soon as eBay stopped a large number of free listings traffic here came to a haul for me. I have only sold maybe a dozen items here since then. On my other sites, I sell that in a month or less but they offer all the free ads you can place. Google search for any item and eBay is fifth or further down. I know people don't like large free listing offers due to flooding the market but that is exactly what needs to be done. Without items in the search engine in the top three postings, you have little chance of connecting with a buyer. eBay needs to wisen up and start getting the traffic it desires - offer free listings large like 5000 per month.
Remember that ebay also changed how they count traffic, so you probably want to look at page views more than impressions. If you aren't already, I would recommend promoting items (even at the minimum amount) and trying to reduce your shipping costs a little if possible (they look a bit high to me and I'm in Ontario, so I can only imagine what they look like to someone on the coasts)
Other things I noticed when looking at your listings is that you only seem to be including one picture. This might actually be hurting you significantly in the ebay algorithms. For things like dinnerware, ideally you should probably be showing at least 4 to 8 photos, and don't be shy about adding more than that. You can add up to 24. People want to see that there are no cracks or flaws. Improving the lighting a little where you take your photos wouldn't be a bad idea either. For items like your brown Pyrex coffee mugs (picked at random), maybe do a search and see what other people are adding in their titles because those might be keywords that people are searching for. For example, it appears that pattern is called "butterfly gold". It's unlikely that someone is just browsing the category. They're probably searching for a specific look, and they aren't going to easily find yours if all it says is "brown band".
I'd recommend downloading the "Listings Quality Report" which is under the performance -> traffic tab (and is going away at the end of February 😢). It should provide you with some great additional insights.

@flipistics

For smiles and chuckles I downloaded the listing report for my 1400 + listings

Suggestions as follows

Increase promotion rate to 5/6 %. (0ften when creating a promotion system suggest much higher than those.)
Promote listings that were not promoted
Add more photos for DVD's, PB Books, Magazines, Sports Cards - From 4 to 8 photos
Add EAN numbers to items that are used without package
Add Best Offer to low valued items..10 bucks +-

Personally have had limited luck using eBay's Terapeak. Before and after listing an item. Rarely finds any information other than my current listing. Possibly awesome for anything new in box or in high demand.

-Lotz

dobo5250

OP3 years ago

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i getting close to getting back to good graces with ebay ---- iam now as of jan 1st down to 2.04% defect rate so maybe by jan 20 th i will be out of the dark hole dungenn ebay put me in -- and back to promo listings and lower final sale rate -- the money i have lost so far running ridiculous sales costing me hundreds of dollars will be over soon -- and i will be back to normal way of doing things -- i hope i hope i hope

lotzofuniquegoodies

·3 years ago

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@dobo5250 wrote:
i getting close to getting back to good graces with ebay ---- iam now as of jan 1st down to 2.04% defect rate so maybe by jan 20 th i will be out of the dark hole dungenn ebay put me in -- and back to promo listings and lower final sale rate -- the money i have lost so far running ridiculous sales costing me hundreds of dollars will be over soon -- and i will be back to normal way of doing things -- i hope i hope i hope

@dobo5250

Unfortunately the eBay feedback/rating system is very archaic considering it really hasn't been improved much. Penalizing sellers that haven't sold much so they easily go into the negatives and the converse, sellers that sell tons that have a bunch of bad ratings they barely make a blemish on towards their record. Throw in the fact those negs/neutrals/bad ratings hang around for a year. Takes what seems like forever to move back up in eBay's good graces. It's a catch 22 for the newer sellers. Most of the bad ratings are caused by a transaction going off the rails due to no actual fault of the seller. Like can I control a parcel being late or having a set of weights fall on my package? Probably not. All you can do is sell to the best of your ability and hope (pray) for the best outcome each time. And ALWAYS be proactive when there are problems. If/when you see some one elses nightmare experience on these pages, final it away for your own use...So you don't by chance make the same mistake inadvertently. Merry Christmas to all...and to all a good night!!! Yayyy eggnog!!!

-Lotz

reallynicestamps

·3 years ago

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Looks like posting your troubles here broke the spell, with 25 sales this month out of 78 in this past quarter.

dinomitesales

·3 years ago

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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 .

dobo5250

OP3 years ago

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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

dinomitesales

·3 years ago

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@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

I recognize that very few of your listings are video games, but I just picked that one because it's what I'm familiar with. But many of the points I made can be applied to any of your listings, namely 1) proper keywords in titles; 2) more Item Specifics; 3) cleaning up your descriptions; 4) comparing your prices to what's currently available for sale; and 5) rethinking your shipping to remain competitive, even if it means shipping without tracking. And opening up your listings to at least the U.S. market if they aren't already.

You have a lot of listings up, which is evidence of a lot of work and you should be commended for that! I would recommend maybe sorting your listings from highest price to lowest price in Seller Hub, and picking maybe five of the higher-value listings a day to see if you can improve the title/item specifics/descriptions/price/shipping. Or even 1 or 2 a day, whatever you feel you can manage.

Even just going into listings you might not have touched for a long time and tweaking things can trigger the algorithm to potentially show your listings to more potential buyers - eBay likes sellers who are always working on their listings!

dobo5250

OP3 years ago

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again thanks for the helpful advice i will ponder about trying t o fix what you say are wrong with my listings -though i am have hard seeing that matters , maybe it does -- most people that i deal with don't even read the main body of the listing they just want cheapest price for a item they want -- i don't get many sightseers- you need a cartridge of said model you look it up and bang decide to buy or not to buy = you need a breaker for your electrical panel you look up model model and then decide if your cheap enough to buy it from me --

as far as item specific go - most of my customers don't even know what that is let along use it they just tick off cheapest ---then model number of item-- maybe sometimes they will descibe what they are l looking for -- then they email me always asking even when it's under wholesale for a cheaper price

so iam not sure the extra time spent there will increase any sales -- but then i will try a few just to see as you seem to have a handle on the listing side of this business model

my regular tricks aren't working to boost visibilty relsiting/running deep discount sales etc .-- so i should try what you say -- i getting tired anyways of listing pokemon cards 4/5 hours a day --and i have hundreds left to put on - just found another box of them my friend brought over - so maybe a break from that and get into relisting items and fixing them so they will work

neXt week on the DEC 20th when ebay again EVERY 20TH OF THE MONTH will tell me the are closing my account because i am not "A" RATED FOR 6 TIME IN A ROW---BY THE WAY ITS MY BIRTHDAY THAT DAY !!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME !!!THANKS EBAY -

after the 2oth going to try a few auction listings to see if they are better -- i don't know either way that will work

well off to nap ,meds keeping in. when i get up i will redo completely a few odd faucet listings just see if that will work--

even my almost giveaways aren't working -- $1.99 items ---bidets kits that sell for $39/$49 in many stores in the area - they aren't even getting look sees--

ah the frustration of it all - almost makes me want to go back to work -- i have had a few offers from home hardwares in the area-- but they want me for really odd hours and miniual pay rate my health not taking standing for long period of time -- so that might be out of the question

boy i know i sound pathic i know i know -- just really bored with all of this --wish i could just make it go all away

again thanks for your input its worth to read others i know will find invaliuable

reallynicestamps

·3 years ago

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PKG#1249/#146D-TOOLWAY#188040-STAINLESS STEEL TOP QUALITY HANDHELD BIDET-$11.11

Not a good title.

Remember the first four words are those seen by phone shoppers, who are supposed to be half of those buying online.

even my almost giveaways aren't working -- $1.99 items ---bidets kits that sell for $39/$49 in many stores in the area - they aren't even getting look sees--

Try HANDHELD BIDET stainless steel ToolWay #188040 compare at $ 39.00 #1249/146D

I'm assuming the package number is your own inventory number? The customer won't be searching on that.

Tell him what it is (bidet). Sweeten with some more useful info (steel not plastic). Add some possibly useful information (brand and number).

Then in the description:

HAND HELD STAINLESS STEEL TOILET BIDET selling for $11.11 promo price

Your price is actually $7.55 - a further reduction. Cognitive dissonance.

EASY INSTRUCTIONS

ALL PARTS INCLUDED FOR INSTALLATION

THIS A TOP QUALITY UNIT WITH HEAVY MADE VALVE CONTROL LONG LIFE

SEE PICTURES FOR DETAILS

Did you notice one picture has an "almost " naughty word on the package?

Good pictures but this is not a necessary part of the description.

DUE TO HIGH COST OF EXPEDITED SHIPPING

WE OFFER PARTIAL COVERED EXPEDITED SHIPPING FOR $22.22 TO ALL THE CANADA PROVINCES

You can't charge more than you state for shipping. And since what buyers want is Free Shipping (not that that is possible or sensible) I doubt this is useful.

How about ONLY $22.22 EXPEDITED SHIPPING TO ANY CANADIAN PROVINCE

At a guess you are able to fit the product into a Flat Rate Box, which is shipped as Expedited by Canada Post?

We don't get a discount on FRBs, but we can include part of the cost in the price of the product.

EG Item $10 actual shipping cost $25 FRB - post item price as $13 and shipping as $22.

But- and I'm micromanaging here, buyers hate paying more for shipping than for the product.

You might be better to reverse this. Selling price $22 and shipping $13. Or even $35 selling price and FREE SHIPPING.

Worth the experiment since you have a few of these?

WE ALSO ACCEPT WHOLE UNUSED/UNOPENED IN ORIGINAL PACKAGING RETURNS

RETURNS ARE ON YOUR DIME YOU PAY FOR RETURNS ANY REASON

No Returns does not mean No Refunds.

The seller is usually charged with sending Return Shipping if he wants the item back. You can buy USPS shipping labels through Shippo.

And it sounds as if the buyer might have a problem with installation.

I'd lose these two sentences entirely.