No sales for 3 weeks..

[the_vintage_times]

I have close to 300 buy it now listings and have not had a sale in three weeks...
I check similar stores and they consistently make sales...
I've lowered my prices, offered free shipping, spoke to ebay about it and still nothing.
I'm really starting to worry what's going on!
I list a couple of auction items and they sell.....
I'm at a loss, any ideas as to what's going on?.
Thanks Steve.

[flipistics]

I feel like old advertising is something that you need a lot of volume to succeed in. You'd probably want 10x that listing volume if not more.

A few things to note (I say this having not checked any of your competitors to see what they're doing):

1. For shipping you indicate a padded envelope. Unless you're sandwiching it in cardboard, you probably don't want to do this. People will likely assume it will arrive creased and wrinkled. At this price point, a stayflat is probably appropriate.
2. People want to know exactly what they are buying. Any trimming you are going to do should probably be done prior to photographing (imo). Your images should also show all the edges for this reason.
3. eBay likes more than one photo. There's suggestions that fewer photos may penalize you in the search rankings. I realize additional photos may seem silly (and in some cases they are), but keeping the bot happy is worth a few extra seconds.  (pictures of the corners are great for increasing the count with very minimal extra time)
4. For shipping in Canada you're listing it as $4.99 lettermail but you indicate you're sending them in 12x17 mailers. This is larger than the maximum allowed oversized lettermail size. That won't matter to the buyer, but you might not enjoy it.
5. Use more keywords in your titles. Find additional things in the scene to highlight. This is extremely important for things like advertising, postcards, etc. Make sure in particular to always note things like old cars, boats, planes, famous buildings or landmarks, etc.

[reallynicestamps]

You had sales on April 26, April25, April 21 although there was a lapse between that sale and the three on April 12.

It might help your mental health if you kept paper records of all your sales, or even your own spreadsheet separate from eBay.

Do you get multiple sales from single customers? I notice you often sell a few similar adverts on the same day.

I agree that Free Shipping is a useful encouragement for sales. I would point out that it does not lose money for the seller , since most of us who use it are actually adding our shipping cost into our asking prices.

I disagree with lowering prices which in my opinion tells the customer that you are not sure of the value of your items.

But using Best Offer, with your acceptable /not acceptable  parameters set, does seem to encourage some customers to play the game until they find out what your "real " price is.

And the bad news is that Promoted Listings do seem to work. At least they work better than making greater discounts to customers.

One  Canadian seller has been experimenting with PL vs discounts. Annoyingly, he finds the PL works better, at a lower cost, than customer discounts.
https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/experiment-with-almost-give-away-listing-pondering-probl...
#6 of 13

EBay is not our friend, eBay is our landlord.

And everybody hates to give more money to the landlord, even if it works.

[reallynicestamps]

Find additional things in the scene to highlight. This is extremely important for things like advertising, postcards, etc.

I agree.

If we scan, rather than photograph, it is easy to show a small part of any flat thing (for me, stamps, for the OP , pictures or slogans?) in greater detail.   Like this:

[rocketscollectibles]

Slow sales is almost always because of low demand or bad pricing. I did a quick research of sold listings for 3-4 of your magazines because it's most of your store, and no one had a single sale past 90-days on ebay. Quickly see that your pace is caused by the fact there is low to no demand for those items. It's a vintage niche and your store is small, i think slow sales is to be expected. Otherwise i'd recommend promoting 2% everything if it's not already the case. 

[msau4301]

You already have some great advice here, one thing I would add as a vintage collector myself. I would start listings off with the word vintage. I know when I do a search it is always the first word I enter then sometimes year, etc. I have bought vintage Barbie advertisements and articles here. I have bought vintage TV Guides and Rolling Stone magazines for example and I might not know something specific but I would narrow it down by vintage and year.

Also you said "I list a couple of auction items and they sell...." Myself I do almost entirely auctions, they always do well for me. I think when something is listed new you get a lot more exposure (either that or I'm just very, very lucky). If there are items that aren't selling I will combine a few together and see if that helps.

You don't have to change everything, I know for me if I think things are slowing down I will do a few new listings of items I think will be popular to draw people over. I think most people once they are looking at your stuff (you know they were interested in at least something) they probably peek to see what else you have.

You have some interesting stuff there for nostalgia buffs (I am one) and follow some of the great advice here by fellow members, like more photos, adding details (cars, royal family, etc.) I haven't tried promoted listings yet myself since I've still got activity but will if things slow down. Good luck!

[shoppergurl08]

Yes, I agree with the volume.  I have a couple of hundred print Ad's myself and they're extremely slow movers, unless you have at least a few thousand of them.  I sold one today, first one in about a month.  I don't specialize in them, as I have a lot of backlog merchandise that I'd rather list first.  I do have a fair amount of older life magazines which will enable me to list a few thousand of them, and I'm honestly not expecting many sales until I reach that 3000 or 4000 mark.  If print Ad's are your niche then I'd suggest increasing your volume.  It's similar to CD's, which I focus more on.  Not a huge demand for CD's, however there are still people out there who collect them.  I sell them as I'm a music fan / nerd and have always liked CD's as I collected them in my younger days.  Having a couple hundred of them listed won't result in that many sales, but when you have a few thousand of them then the buyers appear.  

[flipistics]

Yeah, my media store currently has about 375 CDs listed and I sell about 1 per week on average (Canada only). DVDs sell much better though. I would imagine things like advertising, post cards, etc would probably have roughly the same sell rate as CDs.

[needsmorerobots]

Here's my take:

1. For the adverts you have I am unclear if they are reprints of a magazine ad or original pages removed from vintage magazines. It would help if this is clear and that each ad (be they original or reprint) haave their own description line that never changes. 

2. I find my customers like to know what they are paying for. Free shipping may work for some but for me I like to know the cost of shipping. Keep the shipping cost away from the item you sell.

3. I love the look of your store, but I suggest you do something about the listings.

I see you sell watches. I love watches and I love vintage. I own a number of watches for different occassions and different purposes, but to wade through at least two categories (Vintage Watches, Jewelry) where I'd thought they'd be only to find ads annoyed me to no end. If I was your customer, I would've given up. Take the categories for ads and make it clear. It would help with navigation i.e. "Vintage Ads: Watches" or "Printed Ads: Vintage Watches".

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

I mostly sell media, but I also sell collectibles like sports jerseys, sports cards, action figures, graphic novels, etc.

Based on my experience, the collectible market is ice cold. It was red hot during the pandemic. We are now in an economic downturn. People also have to go back to the office, which means their cost of living has gone up. Work from home is a lot cheaper than going to the office. Which meant that during the pandemic people received raises by proxy. Those raises are now gone, and on top of that the cost of neccessities has gone way up. 

300 is a very small inventory. I have roughly 3000 items, and I am happy with 300 or so sales a month. Keep in mind, while media like DVDs and CDs are niche, they are still more far reaching than something like vintage signs. 

Right now, you have to fight and claw for sales. I would suggest revising your prices. I would also suggest looking at your current inventory as a sunk cost and re-evaluating what you are happy to receive for it, even if you don't turn a profit or you only turn a small profit. Run steep sales. 

The other thing you should do is strongly market combined shipping. Make flat rate combined shipping rules. Whenever you engage with a buyer such as sending a counter offer, or sending an offer to the buyer, remind them that they can save even more money with combined shipping. Try to frame it in a way that you are assisting them, not being pushy.

[the_vintage_times]

Thanks for your input, I will certainly make some changes based on your input...
Steve.

[the_vintage_times]

Thank you for help, some good ideas...
Steve.

[the_vintage_times]

Thank you...

Steve

[reallynicestamps]

@ilikehockeyjerseys 

We are now in an economic downturn.

I disagree. Inflation is higher than it has been for a decade, but is nothing compared to the 70s and 80s. Meanwhile unemployment is low at 5% . I believe the usual rate over the decades is 6-7%.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230406/dq230406a-eng.htm

And while the pandemic was very hard on many people, others actually saved money during it, because, as you point out, they were not spending money on gas, restaurant meals, or work clothing.  Now those expenses are back, but so are full-time wages.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@flipistics wrote:

Yeah, my media store currently has about 375 CDs listed and I sell about 1 per week on average (Canada only). DVDs sell much better though. I would imagine things like advertising, post cards, etc would probably have roughly the same sell rate as CDs.

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@flipistics 

Current report for traffic including a test of letting all promoted listings end for 5 days at the beginning of May.  Definitely into the red.  Gotta love the eBay on/off switch. 15 Sales last month. 1 sale to date for May. 

-Lotz

[flipistics]

@lotzofuniquegoodies   That definitely seems weird. Here is my media store (~1200 listings) and severely neglected main store (167 listings) for the past 2 weeks. Both are Canada only atm, which is presumably hurting the numbers a lot.