No Promos - So does that mean that sellers are now selling more?

[tellephoto]

Every time Ebay has promos, a number of sellers cry out that their listings get lost in a flood of listings.  So my question is to those sellers.............Are you now selling more, because there are no promos?  Just curious.

[hlmacdon]

Sellers in the more mainstream categories where competition is more abundant would have a different opinion, but personally I find it makes no difference whatsoever. Maintaining your inventory and making it consistently available makes far more of a difference in sales, regardless of the number of competing listings. My drops in sales correlate with periods where I haven't had the time to keep listings as current as I would like or periods when I have had less new items to draw buyers.

[reallynicestamps]

I agree. Keeping in mind that my items are often one of a kind, as is true with may collectible and vintage sellers, the more I have listed and the more often I list , the more I sell.

When I took a sabbatical last year to move out west, it was not until my listings went over 200 items on this account and between 150 and 500 on other accounts that my sales went back to where they were before I put my Stores 'on vacation'.

You can't sell what you don't list.

But if a seller is in a category with thousands of other sellers of identical products (as is the case with dropshippers, for example) then the number of items listed is bound to make a difference to the number of sales.

Other factors are feedback /trustworthiness, TRS/ fees, attractiveness of listings, customization for phone sales, and down at the bottom of the list, price.

[momcqueen]

I'm selling fewer items but the total dollar value of those items remains about the same as always. Without the 'free' listing promos that we've gotten accustomed to seeing, I'm paying extra for almost 400 listings past my store subscription. It's a little tough to swallow but I have compensated by eliminating the ISV fees that I was adding selectively to some of those items. (I cannot afford to go past a certain $ amount per month in ebay/paypla fees if my sales figures remain the same as the always tend to be.)

With a few years to look back now, I can see my sales figures average about the same amount each month, higher at gift0giving holidays and lower in the late spring and early summer. Unless I find I am holding something hot to sell. That part is unpredictable. 

[hlmacdon]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

With a few years to look back now, I can see my sales figures average about the same amount each month, higher at gift0giving holidays and lower in the late spring and early summer. Unless I find I am holding something hot to sell. That part is unpredictable. 

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That would make sense. Assuming you have roughly the same average inventory availability, the peaks and valleys should reflect seasonality or spike around popular new items. People are often surprised about the consistency of sales and you see many of them theorizing some sort of ebay conspiracy that is holding back their sales. Retail and ecommerce revenue growth in general is driven heavily by promotional activity, with a majority of product sold at discount (retailer discounts or manufacturer sell through rebates), not something that most ebay sellers engage in due to fee structure and general overhead associated with a marketplace and lack of any vendor participation.

That is sort of the limiting factor on ebay sellers, unless you happen to be in a high margin category that still manages to maintain those margins on marketplaces, giving you some flexibility on promotional activity. As an example, many sellers are looking for less than a dollar in vendor (ebay in this case) funding to drive sales. At the national retail level I would be looking for $10-50 per unit from a vendor to drive sales, in addition to my yearly MDF/Coop funds, VIR, etc that I would be throwing into my pricing for promotional periods.

[ricarmic]

Hmm that is an interesting question.

I have had very solid sales for February and March so far, much ahead of last year's Feb/Mar. 

I had attributed this to other factors I've been experimenting with (significant number of items on sale this year plus a few auctions running).

No idea if this has also been a part of the reason.

It is too hard to say anymore what things are helping, I just hope it continues!!!! 

[recped]

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@tellephoto wrote:

Every time Ebay has promos, a number of sellers cry out that their listings get lost in a flood of listings.  So my question is to those sellers.............Are you now selling more, because there are no promos?  Just curious.

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The problem with this theory which dates back years is that from March of 2012 to January 2016 there was barely a week when there was not a widespread listing promo going on.

In 2012/2013 I used to check a couple of categories to see the effect of the promos, listings did increase but not by all that much. Usually if there was a promo there would be a short term spike of 5 - 10% in the number of listings running and many sellers would see a matching increase in sales if they made use of the promos.

The only sellers I can see getting "hurt" by the promos were sellers who didn't take advantage of them, they would blame their lack of sales on sellers who did make use of the free listings.

[jersey..authentix]

So my question is to those sellers.............Are you now selling more, because there are no promos?  Just curious.

Of course. When you have a repetitive amount of the same items, it only increases competition.  There are only so many buyers, ( and that's not many ) that will be looking for that specific item. It's only plausible  that the fewer items in your category available, the better chances that your item will sell.

If it was my decision, I would abolish promos.