eBay

mdf_jersey · ‎07-31-2014

Another month ending and another month beginning. Im not sure which is worse, getting out of a dismal sales month or wondering if this month is going to be better. I guess I have to look at the month to be, as the future hasnt been written yet.

July sales for me was the worst July in my Ebay record. I admit that Summers for me are usually slow, but not like this. Normally in these slower months of Summer it is not unheard of for me to be as slow as 4 sales a week, but 4 sales for the month!!! WOW.

Making the big bucks on Ebay.

mdf_jersey · ‎08-03-2014

Heh!!!!! I sold an item. After checking my site for so long, good to see a sale. Hopefully a better month

xtremetech99 · ‎08-03-2014

Past few weeks have been good for me. Some weeks are bad others are slow. But really it comes down to how hard you work on your listings. I have found somethings out that work very well at getting views.

If things are slow then figure out where you can improve. You cant always blame ebay for your poor sales.

greenmangoes · ‎08-04-2014

cumos55,

Thanks for listing those suggestions... Although they apply mostly to the category you sell in I can use some of the ideas. I've been wondering what I can do to improve sales as it's been a little sad :(.

I am open to more suggestions if anyone has any 🙂

You only fail when you don't try!

cumos55 · ‎08-04-2014

(1) A listing will get "old" .....16 month on eBay appears to be critical....

End the listing and relist almost immediately is an approach...... Doing this does restart the 16 month time period.

(2) About every 6 weeks I would do an edit on all of my listings.

The postal code is edited.... Remove the old code... and renter the same code... doing 500 listings at a time....

such an edit was known to have an effect years ago.... might be different today

(3) Putting a store on vacation for a short period of time used to improve the visibility of listings.... a few hours perhaps

Things might have changed...with some of these situations.... could be an effect of Cassini, the new search protocol

Putting up new listings also appears to wake the search engine....

Getting an improved visibility on eBay is most likely category dependent... and in turn the number of listings put up by competitors in a category...

Keywords, and where they are placed in a title could also be important...... Look to see which listings show up on the first page of a search... keyword placement

and... always look to see where one's listings show up in a search.

and ... I do get a feeling that when I do a search for my listings..... eBay knows it is me and shows all of my listings.....something that may be different with a potential buyer....

greenmangoes · ‎08-05-2014

Great!! Thanks for sharing 🙂 I will try these out!!

You only fail when you don't try!

atvds1210 · ‎08-05-2014

Are you mainly selling to Canada? I see free shipping to Canada and regular rates to the US, around $12. With the price points your items are at, for the US that is a large % compared to the price for a lot of items. I understand that this reflects the actual rate but I suspect it is greatly hampering your US sales.

For a lot of items, I take a look at what competing items sell for to the market, all in with shipping, and aim my total price with shipping for that - even if it means listing shipping at below the actual cost. Psychologically a lot of people just tune out when the shipping price is a high % of the selling price, even if logically the all in price is fine. To sell from Canada to the US will often mean a lower net profit because the US shipping cost is much lower for light items.

If you are mainly targetting Canadian sales, ignore all of this!

cumos55 · ‎08-05-2014

Bookseller with lots of inventory are constantly rotating inventory on and off eBay.....

One such bookseller will have millions of books on eBay at any given time.... and much more in reserve ready to be uploaded at the listings on eBay end.

Listings are almost always... "New"

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Many sellers do not put enough information in a title... and then within the listing.....

Booksellers are the worst with listing without enough information

or they may provide photos of information... dust jacket information or Table of Contents...

Unfortunately Cassini can read the content of a photo... keywords are required within the description... in addition to the photos

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Many booksellers will only provide the title of a book...

What do the following title refer to

(1) The Second Law ---- no content in the description

(2) Dummies Across Canada --- no content in the description

and would you buy them

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bb_cool_stuff · ‎08-05-2014

Sales were okay, just over $1900. sans shipping, but had eleven skunk days. Has never happened previously in one month, in fact, more than I have had in the previous six months..

femmefan1946 · ‎08-05-2014

Deciding to retire to Victoria meant staging the house for selling.

And so over 100 bankers' boxes of books left the Book Porch for the Friends of the Library, Value Village, the Public Service United Way Book Sale, and the First Avenue School Book Sale.

The house being sold , I went from about 3000 books in January to 500 books in June to none today.

Sales have been off, but I suspect I know why.

cumos55 · ‎08-06-2014

Sales are down

I sell heavily in one category... books Canadian history..

There are two things working here..

(1) The exchange rate.....

Canadian buyers have made an adjustment in relation to the exchange rate.

My average sale is lower today that a year ago...... Today's average in US dollars.... multiplied by 1.1 gives me a Canadian dollar value about equal to my US dollar average a year ago. ($1.10 Canadian = $1.00 US)

How did Canadian buyers make that adjustment..... without any "thinking " about it?

I can live with this adjustment...

(2) The "Hack"

I would regularly check to see the number of books, Canadian history, that were sold over three months...90 days

Today that number for 90 days is about 20 % lower.... and is reflected in the number of books sold by me each month.

My sales as a percentage of total sales is not different.. today compared to a year ago.....

Everyone in this category is treated equally ... so eBay does not appear to be "playing around" with Canadian history... atleast not evidently so..

Sales are down... and the total number of listings is climbing for Canadian history.... sellers are listing... but not selling...

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The traffic today compared to a year ago is about the same.....

But the traffic is not buying....

Got to list more.... and work the store.....

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and finally.....

My day for retirement from selling on eBay could come within years... Perhaps sooner if eBay does not recover from the hack ... The sooner the..better for that recovery.

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The key to knowing was constant research... looking at what was happening on eBay... and then maybe make an adjustment....

Today's adjustment ...... more inventory ... listings!... and sell more..... Maybe

cumos55 · ‎08-06-2014

Those two books

(1) The Second Law.

Two books listed on eBay.... and with no reference to the fact this is about the second law of thermodynamics in relation to everyday life.

(2) The "Dummies" book... Many would say this would have something to do with "Computers"... The reality is that Dummies refers to cruise missile testing... no warhead and hence Dummies" ... over the Arctic regions of Canada

If the seller does NOT identify the item very carefully and in a very clear manner..... who will buy it?

Many sellers make the mistake of saying "too little" and then "HOPE" it sells...

and then cry when it does not sell

Unfortunately at this time there are clear reasons why things are not selling ... today compared to only a few months ago....

cumos55 · ‎08-07-2014

I get sicker by the day.

Took a good look at my numbers yesterday..

January , February, March and April were good...

and then the number of sales dropped 20 % for May, June and July....

and the dollar value is sicker than sick...

Traffic is there no change... but people are not buying... and when they do buy... it is the lower priced items....

They visit the higher priced items... but they just look.

There is definitely something holding people back from buying....

For books... Canadian history the number of sales is down 20 % overall... So it is not just me.... My percentage of total sales in this category has not changed....

Over the last three months the number of listings in Canadian history is up by about 1000 listings.... Lots of new listings... but sales are not there as they were before.

and the new listings.... lower priced and not necessarily selling.... maybe they should never have been listed....

If things have not improved by May 2015... It could very easily be good-bye eBay....

I do not really need eBay... Should retire peacefully and never look back... atleast as far as the sale of books.

Why did this happen? We will call it... THE HACK....

eBay said little about the Hack at the last quarterly report..... Things will be different with the next report.