Mark down strategy advice please.

[ceenare]

Hello,  I started a store only to sell off a long time collection of model trains. Once it's gone, I'm done as a seller.  I went mostly with BIN, good til cancelled listings. Very few "make offer" listing.  Sales were brisk the first two months with the most desirable stuff going first. Now, sales are a trickle and little is moving.

My question is- would I be best to use the Mark Down feature offering across the board discounts (ie 25% off)??  Is there another option- or should I just just reducing my BIN price or add the best offer feature? Im open to suggestion. TIA.

[ricarmic]

Have you tried using promoted listings?

Using the 1% (lowest possible) level can work wonders, it has been a dream for me.

I have experimented with markdowns up to 35% off. There was slight small burst in sales, but nothing nearly as positive as using the 1% promoted listing approach. (and the 1% costs you only 1% as opposed to 25% in your case or 35% in my case)

Having said this, I think it works perhaps better for me because I have over 3,000 items with 1% off across 100s of sub categories, so at any point there aren't others competing against my 1%ers. 1% only works if there aren't lots of other people also using promoted listings with higher %s. For certain it increases visibility if it is working which helps both promoted and non-promoted items sell!

[femmefan1946]

I agree with @ricarmic on the 1% Promoted Listings.

You keep more money than you would with a markdown.

Your items feel as if they hold more value than a discounted item.

You can still use Best Offer.

An advantage to Best Offer is that you can look at your customer's Feedback Left for Others and use that as a measure of his character.

You can also set up BO to automatically (but politely) refuse offers lower than you want to consider.

You could also add a note to your Descriptions that you will combine shipping on mutliple purchases. And perhaps encourage offers on bundled purchases.

Or bundle your 'leftovers', making single lots from two or three smaller lots.

Also be sure of your purpose in selling off the collection. Do you need money urgently or are you just trying to make space in your home?

Do you want a fast nickel or a slow dime?

[recped]

You might try Offers To Watchers first (if you have any).

[ceenare]

Cool. I thank you. will check into what that is and all about.

[ceenare]

I definitely do. Thank you. This simply means to send an offer of a discounted price? What percentage spurs buyers?

[recped]

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@ceenare wrote:
I definitely do. Thank you. This simply means to send an offer of a discounted price? What percentage spurs buyers?

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I don't do offers or sales (although I will reduce prices on expensive items that have been listed over and over again).

I don't know what percentage it takes to get a buyer to pull the trigger, I do know that for myself when I get one of these offers on an Item I'm watching and it's a paltry 5 or 10% I just laugh.

Of course it depends on the item and how much interest I have. If it's a new in box current item that sells everywhere for almost the same price then maybe 10% would prompt me. On the other hand if it's a vintage/collectible item that isn't a critical thing I must have now it might take a 25% discount to even get me to consider buying.

[ricarmic]

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@ricarmic wrote:

Have you tried using promoted listings?

Using the 1% (lowest possible) level can work wonders, it has been a dream for me.

I have experimented with markdowns up to 35% off. There was slight small burst in sales, but nothing nearly as positive as using the 1% promoted listing approach. (and the 1% costs you only 1% as opposed to 25% in your case or 35% in my case)

Having said this, I think it works perhaps better for me because I have over 3,000 items with 1% off across 100s of sub categories, so at any point there aren't others competing against my 1%ers. 1% only works if there aren't lots of other people also using promoted listings with higher %s. For certain it increases visibility if it is working which helps both promoted and non-promoted items sell!

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Todays stats, in the last 48 hours, 6 promoted items sold as single items, 3 promoted items sold in sales of 2 or more items to the same buyer. In all the group purchases, there was only one promoted item, it could be just coincidental, or it could mean the promoted item caused all the other sales once the  promoted item brought the buyer in. Note that the promoteds in groups was 33% of the group sales (there were 9 group orders with 2 or more items purchased). Total items was 31.

All my promoted items are 1%. (but remember there are about 3,000 of them about 66% of all my items have the 1% promotion).

[ceenare]

Hello, I wanted to report after starting a 1% promotion I have had flurry of buyers. I can only assume as a result. So good results I think. My store is small and limited qty at 200 items listed getting smaller daily. Should I notice a slow down, would the next strategy be increasing the percentage?

[ricarmic]

Hi! Nope. I doubt it makes any difference and if it does, I do not expect it will be much.

Alternative approach, leave the 1% running for a few days, when things slow down, end the 1% promotion (don't pause it, end it). Leave it ended for a couple days or so, then restart them all at 1% again. The thing that helps is you'll have a surge of views and purchases and that gets the search engine thinking you've got something good....which means it shows your stuff to more buyers, which means more stuff sells,,,

[travis7s]

I swore off promoted listings last year (I tried anywhere from 10-30%) because I kinda had a crackpot theory that it caused my sales to crash. The stats were compelling but I didn't wait and run enough tests to prove anything. That said I'm open to trying the 1% system to see.

As for markdown sales, I almost always just put it at 5%, it usually gets me a sale or 2, nothing crazy. I do think it gives you a bump in search results, and eBay will also alert all the watchers.

[kawartha-ephemera]

In your listing descriptions you mention that buyers must be PayPal Verified. I recommend removing this restriction everywhere it has been enabled. Enforcing this unnecessary requirement is severely limiting your pool of potential buyers. There are a great many excellent non verified PayPal members, also keep in mind that many ebay buyers are not even PayPal account holders these days.

[ceenare]

Thank you. Its a plan.

[ceenare]

Ok. Thank you. I don't recall checking that box- regardless, I will have a look at that. Many thanks.