eBay

aurelc123 · ‎11-13-2018

I listed approx 200 atari 2600 video game titles under a variation listing. A bulk of these games are $3.00 a piece. It was working great. Was selling a few titles at once every week or so. Ebay was making money on final value, I was making a bit to make it worth my time.

Looking for advice on how to list these. Ebay's recommendation was to list these individually. This option isn't viable as I would most likely lose money with the listing fees which would likely be greater than my sales as these games do not move quickly.

The reasoning given is a better buying experience but my personal opinion is that listing them all individually actually makes it a worst buying experience.

Was thinking about providing a list and the buyer can choose which games they want. I would list it as best offer. This also makes the buying experience not so good as we would need to go back and forth with what titles they want and figure out shipping and cost of goods.

Thoughts or suggestions?

ricarmic · ‎11-13-2018

Another option would be to group games in natural groups.

You know this stuff much better than me (although I played the originals!!!) but it might make sense to group:

Different sports together

Different space together

Different Donkey Kongs together

etc

if they are naturally purchased together or would be of interest to the same person.

I sell stamps, generally my lower limit for an item is $10 and given much of what I sell is 1c or so a stamp, I've always grouped things together.

It may lessen the sales quantity but the size of the orders goes up against relatively the same time investment to sell the lot.

Probably the biggest challenge will be to know/determine the best groupings.

pjcdn2005 · ‎11-13-2018

It doesn't look as if you have been using all of your free listings on .ca. You also get 50 free listings on .com although I believe there is still a shipping cap for media so if that's the case, it might not work well for you to list there.

I think that listing in groups would probably still be a violation.

ricarmic · ‎11-13-2018

Just to clarify, what I mean by grouping is one lot that has 4 varieties of Donkey Kong games in the one lot for $11.99 instead of 4 individual listings for $3 each....

ypdc_dennis · ‎11-13-2018

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
It doesn't look as if you have been using all of your free listings on .ca. You also get 50 free listings on .com although I believe there is still a shipping cap for media so if that's the case, it might not work well for you to list there.

The shipping cap in select categories on ebay.com was raised to $20 (or more) a couple of years ago from the really low levels in the past.

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/shipping-items/maximum-shipping-costs?id=4655

pjcdn2005 · ‎11-14-2018

Thanks for the info. I knew it had gone up but I didn’t realize it had gone up that much.

femmefan1946 · ‎11-14-2018

One thing to consider is shipping.

Buyers hate to pay shipping because they don't feel they get anything out of it. Obviously this is emotional not rational, but that's how it goes.

How much does it cost to ship a $3 purchase?

If it is more than $3, you are losing buyers. You don't even see them.

That's why lotting your games into groups makes sense. Four (named) $3 games for $11.99 with $10 shipping are going to be more attractive than one $3 game with $5.00 shipping.

You could even consider four games for $21.99 with Free Shipping (because free shipping isn't free).