eBay

sakic92710 · ‎09-04-2023

My fellow Canadians, how are you managing through 2 main factors of selling? 1 - Americans seem to be less interested in cross-border shopping. 2 - Dealing with the huge increase in cost with cross-border shipping on small, inexpensive items such as sports cards, pins, buttons, patches, etc? My sales have plummeted over the, almost, past 2 years. Since fall of 2021, trying to create many sales on eBay as been awful. I used to get 15-20 sales a week, on average. Now I get less than 10 per month! Even tried 30% sales & get little response. Currently sell much more on Marketplace. 1 of my listings there has 371 views. On eBay? 2! lol Hope not many are seeing the dismal failure eBay has become for me. Good luck to all! 🙂

femmefan1946 · ‎09-04-2023

1.) I didn't think I'd seen any drop off in US sales, so I looked at my paper records, which include destination.

There has not been any US drop off, but there has been a strong increase in overseas and Canadian sales since March.
Those used to total about 10% of sales, but now are closer to 20%, which may be related to what you are seeing.

2.)Because I sell into demographics who both read and follow instructions, I am quite happy to forego tracking and use LetterMail whenever I think I can get away with it. The new discount on Tracked Package rates has been an encouragement too when I feel I should track or must use parcel service.

I use Free Shipping as part of my pricing plan.

3.) Since the fall of 2021-- I agree. That's when the pandemic surge in online buying came to an abrupt end. Not just eBay but across the board. My AZ sales stopped dead then and my AZ listings are no longer active.

Currently sell much more on Marketplace. 1 of my listings there has 371 views. On eBay? 2!

How many sales did you get from those 371 views? How many from the two?

Same question- how many Offers?

We also found another venue and have been happy with our sales there. Fewer than on eBay and they charge the buyer more for shipping but the customers seem happy enough.

Are you sticking with local Marketplace sales or have you gone for the business/professional option which as I understand it charges fees?

I do find that Best Offer has been very popular with my customers. About 20% of my buyers use Best Offer and I have parameters set so I only see those high enough to interest me.

msau4301 · ‎09-04-2023

1. In my case I have actually seen a slight increase in US buyers. I just looked at my last 47 sales and 31 of them were to US. This has been the case for the last couple of years, I had speculated maybe the Canadian buyers didn't like the sales tax now added (I recently had a Canadian buyer who purchased 7 items and didn't pay, they hadn't bought on eBay since the taxes were added and were not aware of the change.) The US buyers have been paying taxes much longer. I can't say for sure what the reasoning is but as I say, in my case the US buyer sales are higher than before.

2. Increase in shipping has been bad for sure, I ship larger items than your sports cards, pins, etc (I mostly sell vintage Barbies). I do think in a collectible category people will be okay paying a little more for shipping to get an item they maybe can't find elsewhere but being up against US sellers is always a challenge.

While I have read of others using third party like Stallion, etc. myself I have only used Canada Post and have taken advantage of some of the promotions with eBay lables like Expedited Lite (though just in Canada and regular postage is still okay to use for your small stuff. There are still discounts going with eBay labels as far as I know using the Level 4 discount at least to US which has helped.

I haven't used Marketplace myself so can't compare, eBay is my primary source though I sometimes sell larger items (too expensive to ship for value of item) on kijiji which sometimes takes longer but still has results.

I've been away a large part of August and helping to care for family member but plan to get back at it in a couple of weeks hopefully. Good luck, it's been a challenging time with increased costs for everyone but I'm optimistic people still need to spend some money on "fun" items, everyone could use a smile here and there!

flipistics · ‎09-04-2023

How many listings did you have when you were getting 15-20 sales a week?

38e_avenue · ‎09-04-2023

It's steady here, I can even see an increase this year.

It shows my sales since 1 jan 2021 to 31 aug 2023.

rocketscollectibles · ‎09-05-2023

I don't think you can compare numbers of 2021 with now, it was right in the pandemic. People were at home spending way more on online purchases. It's also summer right now. Same thing. People spend less on online purchases. People travel, go to the beach, drink, etc, etc, etc.

Dealing with the huge increase in cost with cross-border shipping on small, inexpensive items such as sports cards

Letterpost. $1.30.

Edit: I checked and you seems to charge $3.00 US ($4.08 CAD) and $4.00 US ($5.44 CAD) to ship domestic lettermail to canadians while it cost $0.92-$1.94. Seems like there's clear issues in your shipping charges. You also charge $18.00 US ($24.48 CAD) to add tracking while it could be ship registered mail for $9.75 CAD over stamps, or even under $6-$8 with expedited lite.

The fact you list on the .com in US will also chase canadians buyers, you're adding a useless 5% currency conversion hidden fee to your buyers. Many canadians (like me) do not buy to canadian sellers listing in US.

sakic92710 · ‎09-07-2023

It never costs $0.92 to ship with lewttermail in a bubble envelope. Never $1.94 either because you forgot to add tax. Also, do not forget eBay takes your unjustified cut of the shipping. Also the cost of envelopes, etc. $18.00 is for parcels. They do not get shipped via registered mail. Have you seen the cost of shipping a parcel out West? I charge less for local.

reallynicestamps · ‎09-08-2023

Buy US or International stamps in booklets.

The $1.30 US rate for 30 gr is also the domestic rate for 50gr and there is no GST on " stamps that will be exported" that is on the non-Canadian rated booklets.

Or buy discount stamps here on eBay or elsewhere.

I'm not just Scottish, I'm Aberdonian. We look on other Scots as spendthrifts.

I don't trust Registered outside of Canada, although my friendly PO clerks tell me the USA is fine. I am still old and cynical.

Package labels are discounted up to 53% bought on eBay. I often use those instead of stamps because the discount can be better than buying estates.

I buy envelopes while I am thrifting, and use my quarterly discount coupon to buy branded packaging. The price shown is way too high, but take off the discount and the small poly envelope goes from 39.5c each with tax to just the 4.5c of tax.

You do need a digital scale, a tape measure, and to use metric because Canada Post went metric in 1974 and everything else is guesswork.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎09-08-2023

@reallynicestamps

@sakic92710

@rocketscollectibles

Also still important to remember that just because you put the postage on a letter with the lower stamp value (when it's slightly oversized) there is still a chance it could be returned to you. See highlighted part.

Rules for up to 50 grams

Bubble envelops tend to get questioned as being oversized.

You can hand to clerk at counter and they can yay or nay you or you can drop in mail box and cross fingers. The way I look at it when it doubt...next stamp up. 1.30 almost always turns into 1.94. Saves risks possible delays, extra handling and those possible return to sender.

-Lotz

sakic92710 · ‎09-08-2023

It depends. Mostly 400+ When it became much harder to get sales, I tried as many as 700+

flipistics · ‎09-08-2023

@sakic92710 wrote:
It depends. Mostly 400+ When it became much harder to get sales, I tried as many as 700+

I was just curious because it looks like you're at 150 now. Obviously lower number of listings will (usually) affect number of sales. 20 sales a week with 150 listings (properly priced) would be very impressive.

I do know I've seen a big slowdown in August and so far in September, so it's not just you. Part of that is my fault for not listing enough though.

toronto-art-lover · ‎09-08-2023

"eBay takes your unjustified cut of the shipping"

That is a big issue, especially when your item is sold for $50 and shipping cost is $50 (for example, a large pre-owned painting). eBay charge me an average 16% on Shipping Costs my buyer pays.

sakic92710 · ‎09-08-2023

There was a short time when I was down to 15 listings. I, actually, had 4 sales then. lol

ilikehockeyjerseys · ‎09-11-2023

A good place to sell cards in the under $20 range to US buyers is Check Out My Cards aka comc.com. It's a fulfillment service for trading cards. They also list your cards on eBay for you as well. I won't give a big breakdown of how the site works because it is already listed in their FAQ.

There are some upsides and downsides to COMC, but I would consider it if you simply aren't able to move the cards on eBay due to the high price of shipping ot the USA. Although, you have to keep in mind that if there simply isn't a market for a card, it won't move anyways.

There is no legal way to sell extremely low cost items to the USA because at minimum you're lookin at 7 dollars for shipping because everything has to be sent parcel. So if your business model is based on needing to send cards to the USA for $2, you're out of luck. That is why a platform like COMC might be your best bet if lower priced cards are what you used to sell.

rocketscollectibles · ‎09-16-2023

I missed this reply. You can ship bubble mailer at $0.92 if it's under 30g and not too thick. Stickers, cards, etc. I ship this way dozens of times every week. You talking about the cost of envelopes, white envelopes cost $0.02-$0.05 at the dollar stores. Bubble mailers should never cost over $0.30. Nothing justifying many bucks. If i would ship what you ship, it would cost me 1/3 of what you charge. You're also saying $18.00 (USD) is for parcel, but i already checked, many of your items can be shipped registered mail or expedited lite. You're literally charging $25.00 CAD to ship a trading card. It could be shipped buying a $8.00 CAD expedited label right on ebay.

Truly unfortunate to see your closed mind and how firm your reply is. While some major mistakes there.