eBay

musicyouneed · ‎09-01-2016

I used to only use Canada Post for shipping to the US light packet, for $5.70. Since I had free shipping for Canadians which equaled $3.10, I charged $3.50 Canadian to ship to the US. Now I am using another service which costs me about $4.00 (plus a little bit of gas) Canadian instead of the $5.70.

Since I have a store now, Yipee!, I was going to put a sale price of 10% on almost all of my CD's for a short time to see how it goes. Then somewhere down the road, increase my CD prices by $1.00 and put both Canadian and US as free shipping.

What do you think? Do you think having a sale is better than offering free shipping to the US?

mr.elmwood · ‎09-01-2016

I price-point and use free shipping.

Sales, for me, do not work. Any product I sell has several competitors with prices all over the map. A sale, then means what, to the average buyer? I am just another price.

I believe in "free" shipping as it gives me more latitude for price control and price pointing. "Free" shipping is becoming the norm. When I shop, anywhere, not just eBay, I do not feel the need to pay shipping. That is an instant back button to me.

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momcqueen · ‎09-01-2016

I'm not certain that i understand the question but if I do, here is my advice:

Do both.

Add the cost of postage to your item price and then increase it by ten per cent so that you can later mark-it-down.

People love the idea of a sale almost as much as they expect free shipping.

I find Markdowns and no-markdowns are a more effective way of accelerating and then decelerating purchases than putting my store on Vacation. No markdown often equals no orders for me which is fine because I don't like hiding listings. If I've paid for them, I want them to remain visible.

But that is just me.

You are going to get a different answer for everyone who gives a reply.

Crowd-sourcing business strategies is not always the best solution. You just might find a competitor is giving you terrible advice just to see if you take the bait. I don't know how likely that would be but it is still something to consider.

musicyouneed · ‎09-02-2016

Thanks for the info. If I create a sale for the weekend, does it apply to all my listings both on .ca and .com that are in my store, or just the .ca ones.

femmefan1946 · ‎09-02-2016

That's what I've heard called the 'Sears' discount.

Put up an item for sale for a couple of weeks, then discount it for six months.

Sears did it all the time--even got slap on the wrist fines from the Consumer Protection Agency (which I think was killed in the Mulroney years) and then did it again.

The fines were just a cost of doing business.

It's actually quite effective.

momcqueen · ‎09-02-2016

The retail chain that I remember getting into real trouble for it was Suzy Shier.

The clothes would come into the store with tags that said reg. $49.99 now 50 % off when, in reality, they had never sold for $49.99. It was a thin ploy to make things seem like a better, more urgent deal than they really were.

Accurate or not, consumers like a sale as much as they like free shipping.

Shipping is never actually free. It's price-included but I do believe many people think sellers offer it when the Postage Fairy visits, leaving free shipping under seller's pillows.

mr.elmwood · ‎09-02-2016

Sometimes it really is free. I order things from Lowes. I can go into the store and buy stuff for $49, or, I can buy it online for $49 and then they pay the shipping to me, effectively making it free.

A lot, most(?), retailers are doing this.

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pierrelebel · ‎09-02-2016

" If I create a sale for the weekend, does it apply to all my listings both on .ca and .com that are in my store, or just the .ca ones"

The discount applies only to the items you selected to offer at a discount. Where they are listed (eBay.ca or eBay.com) is immaterial,

Using the Markdown Manager you can discount a few items at 10%, a few more at 15%, a few more at 20% (three different promotions) while most listings remain at regular (not discounted) price.

You try one way, then you try differently, until you get the formula that works for you.

Personally, I offer all my items with "free shipping" and I discount. It works for me, for my products.

momcqueen · ‎09-02-2016

@mr.elmwood wrote:
Sometimes it really is free. I order things from Lowes. I can go into the store and buy stuff for $49, or, I can buy it online for $49 and then they pay the shipping to me, effectively making it free.

A lot, most(?), retailers are doing this.

That is still not free shipping.

In your example, the cost of 'free' shipping is still included in the purchase price. Lowe's has decided that anytime an order totals $49 or more, they have cleared enough profit on it that they can include postage to the buyer for no additional cost.

That 'free' shipping merely replaces the 'cost' of having a store filled with employees named Earl and Debra-Anne, rent for the space, the hum of fluorescent lights and cash registers.

Do you see it?

ricarmic · ‎09-02-2016

My beliefs:

-items with free shipping get higher visibility

-items on sale get higher visibility

I do things very similar to Pierre. I have free shipping and I have multilevel discounts (the older it is the more it is discounted. Anything running less than a year is not discounted) - if you're looking at my stuff - bye bye vacation 😞 I just woke my store back up and the sales don't start till Sunday likely.

To figure these things out I have and continue to do experiments. At one time like Mr E., sales did no good for me, now they seem to have a big positive impact. Tomorrow who knows. I live in the stamp world so what works for me might not work for you or even for other stamp folks - what works for me might not work for Pierre, femme etc because while we're stamp people we sell largely different stuff different ways....

So that was the long version of suggesting you take all the ideas you see presented by folks here and try your own experiments in your category/style to see what happens...

momcqueen · ‎09-02-2016

My only cautionary advice with markdowns is that they take a while to filter into the Best Match soup. If you put an item on markdown and then try to filter your search results by Price Plus Shipping: Lowest there is a lag within the search results (from what I have noted) while ebay recalculates the new price plus shipping. On sale, your item might be lowest price but not appear that way for an undetermined amount of time.

musicyouneed · ‎09-02-2016

Thanks for all your advice.

I have a 10% sale on for 3 days to see how it goes first, as that is the easiest to try first. It is a lot of work to amend prices and put free shipping when you are dealing with almost 1300 listings. I am just experimenting to see what works, I may end up with a combination of different things. Some might have free shipping and others I will put on sale. I may try new listings with free shipping and leave the older ones at 10% off.

The whole point is getting things sold. So whatever works I will continue and try different things. I may even sell things as a lot on .com as media mail within the US is very inexpensive. I can mail 5 lbs of CD's equal to about 15 CD's for about $5.00USD. Never in Canada.