eBay

aubreyclay56 · ‎08-08-2015

wow ebay is sure cheap on the free listigs oh well my sales are down from 30 a month to 12 guess we all suffer

tellephoto · ‎08-09-2015

I am sure that its a strategy to make sellers buy a store. If everyone stops listing for a month, the free promos just might return.

mr.elmwood · ‎08-09-2015

You do without pay cheques for a month, not me. My store pays for itself on the first day of every month.

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pierrelebel · ‎08-09-2015

tellephoto -

I took a quick look at your listings and, quite frankly, I do not get it.

You relist unsold items - some at auction, some at fixed price - with only seven day duration. Why? You could get 30 days visibility with your fixed price listings for the same low cost.

I checked your completed listings of the last three months and very few have sold. Yet you are not making changes to your listings.

Have you considered offering lower shipping or even "free shipping" to generate some interest in your listings?

Have you considered giving your actual location (city, province)?

When business is good, sellers do not need to think too hard about their marketing practices and policies. However, when sales slow down, one should re-evaluate.

Good Luck.

rose-dee · ‎08-09-2015

I've come to the point where I believe these promos never had anything to do with helping sellers generally. I think eBay has been running market experiments for their own purposes in deciding on policy changes, whatever those might be.

I also personally don't think the purpose of promos was to encourage more sellers to opt for stores. Otherwise, why offer so many auction promos? Stores (up until very recently) only provided free Fixed Price listings, and eBay says something like 70% of their sellers now list with FP.

As for a serious sales downturn, I'll repeat what I said on another thread: I think many of us who are selling vintage, discretionary, or OOAK items have been really struggling over the past few months. I've seen a lot of references to this on the boards.

I've come up with no reasonable explanation for the considerable drop-off in sales volume, certainly not anything I can attribute to my own doing. Normally July is a rather quiet month for me, and I expect that each year, but things have been remarkably slow now for months. August isn't shaping up to be any better. Items that were selling in a flash a year ago are now just sitting for months.

All the parameters of selling on eBay over which I do have control have not changed; if anything, I've worked on improving them. There really is little else I can do. I can only conclude that this longstanding slump is due to factors over which I have no control, i.e. something eBay has done in the background to make the site and/or its listings less popular, or simply lack of discretionary spending generally.

It's a discouraging thought to contemplate, but perhaps the heyday of buying and selling anything but brand new, brand named, commercially produced or manufactured goods is gone. If so, eBay certainly had a hand in encouraging that trend.

And please, (to Mr. Elmwood), do try to remember that you're selling things people need. I think that does make a difference in benefiting from a steady market. Not that you don't have to work to make your listings, prices and shipping attractive, but you don't have to work at creating a market from nothing. People will buy what they need for a particular purpose if they can get it at a reasonable price. People will think hard (especially in difficult economic times) about spending money on something they can easily do without.

73rhc · ‎08-09-2015

"I also personally don't think the purpose of promos was to encourage more sellers to opt for stores. Otherwise, why offer so many auction promos? Stores (up until very recently) only provided free Fixed Price listings, and eBay says something like 70% of their sellers now list with FP. "

I think the post was saying just the opposite. The lack of promos would be a possible strategy for sellers to be encouraged to opt in to a store. That's how I read it!

rose-dee · ‎08-09-2015

@73rhc wrote:

I think the post was saying just the opposite. The lack of promos would be a possible strategy for sellers to be encouraged to opt in to a store. That's how I read it!

I don't see why fewer promos would encourage people to opt into a store. For example, I would think that someone without a store who did well on a FP promo might think it would be worth it to get those listings for free every month.

Reducing the number of promos (especially if they are measly auction promos in restricted categories) isn't going to encourage anybody to look for a way to list more items every month on a regular basis. At least that's the way I see it -- you give a little bite of the candy to encourage sale of the whole bag.

As I said, that all might make sense if that really was eBay's motive, which I doubt.

73rhc · ‎08-09-2015

Actually, it does make sense. Sellers have been adding more listings than they normally would have, sans promos. Now these sellers gave a ton of listings in their unsold area. So what's a seller to do if no new promo is forthcoming?

rose-dee · ‎08-09-2015

I meant to add that I suppose if you're looking at it from the point of view of getting non-store sellers "dependant" on having free promos to rely on, you could say this was a sort of backward, reverse-psychology type of strategy.

Still, it doesn't seem a very smart thing for eBay to do (basically frustrating and putting off a whole lot of its sellers) -- like giving and then yanking something back -- bad, very bad marketing. It also, IMO, goes against the proven marketing practice of offering a free introductory trial of something in order to get longer-term sign on.

No, I think, as usual, eBay had something very different up its sleeve when it started these promos, because the whole character and type has changed.

73rhc · ‎08-09-2015

"getting non-store sellers "dependant""

Who else???

Speaking solely for myself. When eBay makes changes, I roll with the punches. I don't read between the lines. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, like many here.

reallynicestamps · ‎08-09-2015

Never put down to conspiracy....

I envision some clerk being told to put up promos randomly to pick up new sellers, possibly even a few years ago when she was hired, and continuing to do it because no one told her to stop.

Only slightly more seriously.

I keep repeating that if you can't make money paying full price (about 30 cents a month) for your listing, maybe you should be rethinking your business plan.

Any discounts on those costs (promos, TRS discounts, etc) are just sugar on the steak.

Some items should not be sold online.

Some items should not be sold as singles, only lots.

Some items should not be sold as mail order.

And times change. We are all older than when we started selling here.

The customer changes.

In 1995 there was a market for Beanie Babies, Shirley Temple dolls, sealed boxes of sportscards and used VHS tapes.

In 2010, very few customers would be able to access eBay on their cellphones.

In 2013, the loonie was about at par with the US dollar.

mr.elmwood · ‎08-09-2015

In the last three years I have experienced a rise to TRS. I get a monthly discount that is about the same as my store cost. My store is free. Because I have a store, I get a discount of FVF at time of sale, that, roughly equals my store cost.

So, I pay for my store and eBay kicks back double what I pay them.

In the last three or so years, the Loonie has depreciated close to 40% against the Greenback. All told, I am getting a kick-back of about 45% on every sale.

I don't have the time, need, or energy for "free" listing promos.

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rose-dee · ‎08-09-2015

@reallynicestamps wrote:
Never put down to conspiracy....

Oh, but conspiracy theories are so much more fun to contemplate than mere stupidity.

Although come to think of it... eBay has made a lot of what IMHO, are colossally stupid decisions. Maybe this is just another one in a series.

Meanwhile, we plod on...

rose-dee · ‎08-09-2015

@reallynicestamps wrote:

I envision some clerk being told to put up promos randomly to pick up new sellers, possibly even a few years ago when she was hired, and continuing to do it because no one told her to stop.

Actually, the "dolt-at-the-switch" explanation may not be as far-fetched as you think.

A TV news clip last night reported that women have been freezing in offices for decades because someone set the "ideal" office thermostat temperature to suit a test group of primarily male office workers back in the day when far fewer women occupied office positions.

Nobody thought to check in 50 years... just let 'er rip.

73rhc · ‎08-09-2015

As I agree with the first line in your post. I must disagree with the remainder.

More specifically "I keep repeating that if you can't make money paying full price (about 30 cents a month) for your listing, maybe you should be rethinking your business plan."

Back in the late 90's, well over 95% of my items would sell the first time that they were listed. That is not today's reality. If I can list 300 items thorough a promo it can save me $90 in listing fees, then I'm in. Items now tend to sell over a longer period of time. It can take a year for it to sell. But it eventually sells. So one item relisted 12 times in a year can cost $3.60 for a 30 day listing. Multiply that be the same 300 listings and the listing fees go through the roof. So in many cases, these promos allow sellers to remain in the game! Without having to spend even more to get a store! To take advantage of the extra free listings.

That's my two cents.

73rhc · ‎08-09-2015

When the conspiracy theorists get anywhere near eBays success, then we can talk about who's making the stupid decisions.

mr.elmwood · ‎08-09-2015

@73rhc wrote:
When the conspiracy theorists get anywhere near eBays success, then we can talk about who's making the stupid decisions.

First, they need to move out of their Mom's basement.

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rose-dee · ‎08-09-2015

@73rhc wrote:

Back in the late 90's, well over 95% of my items would sell the first time that they were listed. That is not today's reality.

Yes, this is quite true. Which to me begs the question: is eBay making more money on listing fees over, say a 12-month period, than they would if the same relisted and relisted items were selling the first time out?

It's an interesting question I think, that is connected with the promos. If one assumes eBay would make more money if sellers were turning products over faster, why swamp the site with free listings?

This was especially odd when eBay was offering free listing promos in the hundreds of thousands over a 5-day period. Maybe they realized that all that unsold stuff was just getting relisted, relisted, relisted at each promo, cluttering up the site but without significant result, and had to start restricting the promos to "new" items only.

Like Mr. Elmwood, I find the promos are often of very little use to me, for the same reasons and more. The excess time and effort involved in taking advantage of a sudden "pop-up" promotion rarely nets me much more than a sale or two of inexpensive items, which barely pay for my time (at minimum wage).

Often the promos just aren't the right kind or duration anyway. My experience has been that setting up auctions for a promo has been a complete waste of effort for my items. In the end, whether FP or auction, I find myself with a whole bunch of unsold stuff sitting around waiting for the next promotion, which more likely than not, will not help clear them out. I find that spending my time on my own promotion, marketing and markdown sales has been just as effective, if not more so.

rose-dee · ‎08-09-2015

@73rhc wrote:
When the conspiracy theorists get anywhere near eBays success, then we can talk about who's making the stupid decisions.

Personally I think eBay has missed the boat on a number of scores, bad decision-making included. They may be successful in relation to some other online venues, but I think they could have been stupendously successful if they had applied more creative and rational thinking. They've turned their back on a lot of potential.