One week = 0 Sales? 0 Offers? eBay Please add "I PAY YOU" to [Buy It Now], [Auction] & [Best Offer]

[intimewithmusic]

   I'm consistently listing and extra careful with pricing and shipping costs. I've doubled my listings in the last 6 months. I'm using promoted listings.  Others have reported huge gaps in sales. For the 1st time since 2013 I just put my entire store on sale. 7 days and no sales.

   What's up eBay?

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@intimewithmusic 

Sales have been a trickle for the last 60 days. In the past there was a steady stream of new watchers. Lately, not so much. The occasional feedback is nice to get but as of late it's been non-existent.

I downgraded my store from intermediate to basic beginning of May. Now I am seeing 350 available listings(haven't touched) for dot ca plus 100,000 GTC listing + 10 K in select categories. In just checking dot com I now see 1000 Fixed Priced listings when eBay manages my payments + the additional 10 K in select categories. Auction listings are a non starter.

2 questions come to mind. Does anyone know where to put 121,350 listings? It's not that big of a house. Does anyone know how many listings you receive if eBay doesn't manage your payments?🤣🤣🤣 I wonder if that last statement was proofed?

-Lotz

[ricarmic]

Do you keep an eye on you late shipping rate? I would be interested to know if it has been increasing?

Mine has, and where it has been increasing sales volume has been decreasing. 

If time allows I'll create a separate thread about this.

As a note, our worlds are different, but I never found sales worked to increase volumes when I tried them, but I haven't used them in a long time.

[intimewithmusic]

Is it possible all of the new "Seller Features" eBay recently  introduced actually increased the number of items for sale to the point Watchers have thinned out across the much larger available inventory?

[intimewithmusic]

Shipping is such a big deal I base my selling price on the rate from Western BC to Florida. Most items over 2kg  aren't worth listing to go Exp Parcel. For example a used cymbal boom stand sells in a brick & mortar for $59. (New $99)) Online it goes for only $35 with a packed weight of 4.15kg. Shipping cost to FL is $38.04. Total Buyer cost is $80 incl sales tax) 

The cost to ship same from CA to FL is only about $17.

The way our industry is competing is not to sell the entire item. Instead many are sripping them and parting them out piece by piece.  Many historic and perfectly good musical  instruments are being gutted for parts due to the high cost of shipping.

With respect to putting things on sale. As a former brick & mortar retailer it's part of the game either during slow periods or for seasonal reasons. The mistake store owners make most often is to put slow moving items on sale during periods of low demand. For example you wouldn't want to have a paint sale in December or a snow shovel sale in July.  Putting items that were in current demand on sale is one of the reasons Canadian tire came back from the brink of bankruptsy. 

I watch a couple of sellers in the USA. Their store has 7500 listings. Sales, after fees and shipping are always avove $1000USD/week. Last week they had a drop to $800 and they put their store on sale (20%). They did the same thing 2 years ago. Maybe they do it every summer I don't know but thought it couldn't hurt to give it a try. 

I'm in day 2 of 10. Still haven't seen any activity but will let you know. 

[darak10]

totally agree about sales.  Lotz and I have had this discussion many times about promoted listings vs sales and which works best and while I've always maintained promoted listings dont work from my experience neither do sales.  I had a giant boxing week sale and my December 2020 sales were still four figures less than my November sales.

I think its really as simple as this: if people want something, they will buy it.  I've come to see that if its not selling even on a sale, its time to pull the listing and take it to value village for a 20% off coupon.  

[ricarmic]

Regarding shipping do you happen to keep an eye on your "late shipment rate" on your my ebay page?

I watch mine relatively closely.

The US one has risen to 1.74%  in the last few weeks  - US sales have tanked as this number has risen

The Global one is somehow miraculously 0% - I have more than usual sales to all kinds of scary countries and Canada is stronger than normal.

Overall my sales are very slow as well. 

[femmefan1946]

@intimewithmusic 

I'm continuing with PL on the basis that, if it doesn't work, it doesn't cost anything either.

And I'm firm on never allowing more than one percent.

But anecdotally, I noticed that with PL , while the actual promoted item doesn't sell, when I have a lot of PL listings at the beginning of the month-long GTC cycle, my sales of other stuff goes up.

It's not data, but apparently, the milkshake is bringing the boys to the yard, but then they buy the banana split.

[bentley65]

This answer is great! It also made me smile about the milkshake part! 🙂

[kawartha-ephemera]

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@intimewithmusic wrote:

   I'm consistently listing and extra careful with pricing and shipping costs. I've doubled my listings in the last 6 months. I'm using promoted listings.  Others have reported huge gaps in sales. For the 1st time since 2013 I just put my entire store on sale. 7 days and no sales.

   What's up eBay?

---

I've also experienced a big decline in sales, they began to falter at the beginning of May. My total listing count has doubled and more since last summer due to the long-running free listing promos, as a result sales increased greatly. Throughout the fall, winter and right to the end of April sales were remarkably good, steady and seemingly highly predictable too. The first week of May was still good but there was a noticeable turn in trend that week which has continued downwards week by week to the present. Sales are now reduced to just a very few scattered here and there, also of note has been the total absence of buyer questions and expressions of interest. As for feedback those have also slowed to a trickle even though there's hundreds of opportunities for buyers to do so ... it's as if buyers signed off and disappeared!

Back at the end of April I did note that traffic was slowing in terms of impressions, the PL portion in particular had plateaued during March and slowly declined through April. Even though total listings were increased during those months impressions continued to decline. As noted above, as May progressed the trend continued unbroken, by then organic impressions were definitely deteriorating as well, sales soon followed once that happened. With the nice spring/summer weather arriving here and crashing sales I decided to take an ebay vacation ... the extra sales have been nice but at this time think I'll just kick-back for a bit and enjoy some down time.

Why have impressions declined? In my own case there's probably numerous factors influencing performance some of which I'm responsible for. The downward trend had already been firmly in place for several months but it sure hasn't helped that the last few weeks I've listed little that's new, and none of it particularly exciting for buyers.

I also believe the free listing promos that led to a large increase in listing count over a short period of time is a big factor.  Like many others I took the opportunity to dust off a lot of old unsold items that had fallen off the ebay system, using saved photos and text files at least a thousand brand new listings were created quite quickly. So, within a month all of a sudden I had 1500 or so listings where before there had been 500. With virtually everything Promoted, impressions climbed by leaps and bounds resulting in a sharp increase in sales resulting in even higher impressions. The upwards trend lasted about 6 months before levelling off, then the long slow decline began. This should not have been a surprise and I had been expecting a retreat in traffic as those 1000+ listings aged. Following individual item traffic reports had clearly shown that impressions and views of OOAK items trailed off after 4 months and items older than 6 months attract much, much reduced traffic ... if an item hasn't sold in that length of time the odds of it been seen are relatively poor compared to newer listings, Promoted or not, it doesn't matter. As I had expected this visibility degradation to occur I did end and Sell Similar a few blocks as they hit 6 months but doing so had no impact on the impressions trend, I do not believe ebay's system is that easily fooled. 

I do believe there's other contributing factors other than just aging listings at work here though. For instance all through May there have been all those category and IS changes made, I would imagine those changes would by necessity lead to changes to search and how PL are surfaced. Coincidence or not?

[lady.stark]

Since March 27, I had had no sales at all for 2 entire months. Surprise, surprise, I sign up for MP, and I now sell stuff.

[intimewithmusic]

Hi darak10,

With respect to your comment "I've always maintained promoted listings dont work".  My experience in sales suggests 2 things to chat about.  Public spending habits and promotional methods are subject to change. I try not to maintain the same strategy year after year. Rather than do nothing I switch it up or try new things even if they failed in the past. If you have a sales team this is so important to keep them fresh & motivated. these days my sales team is my blind dog Ringo...

During a Grey Cup season a few decades back a news person asked the CEO of Molson's how they justified spending millions on a few seconds of Grey Cup game ads. He said, "I don't know but I if we didn't our competitor would."

My take on promoted listings is different from yours. At first I had the same experience as you so I stopped using the tool. In 2021 I tried it again but a bit more "surgical".  It depends on how many comparable tiems are active on ebay. If my item is a "one-off collectible" or a historic item like ephemera then I wouldn't promote it. 

   I just listed some rare Ludwig timbales. (IE: Tito Puente drums) There's no other active listings. They are on top at the get go. I listed a bunch of video game controllers and accessories. I want them moved out so I promoted them at 1.3% because there are 20 other active listings. The people who sell controllers rarely promote them due to the low profit margin. Promoting does float your item to the top of a big pile. It doesn't have to cost much. On $30 worth of controllers it cost me 33 cents. If I have a choice of placement in a sea of "same sames" I'll take the top any day.

 Sellers who recognize promotion strategy usually go in at 1%. I stole 1.3%  from Troy over at Mountain Man Treasures. It was his idea. It's a few pennie over 1.1 or 1.2.

I fully agree with your comment "if its not selling even on a sale, its time to pull the listing". Keeping stuff around was a mistake I often made in brick & mortar. It's the law that you have take an annual physical inventory so you revisit that stuff. the risk on ebay is that you can ignore it or refer to it as "long tail". 

ITWM

[intimewithmusic]

Ha ha. That's a very convoluted promotion of PL. For the past 30 mins I've been providing detail about a listing to a prolific buyer who I think may have been flushed out in a similar fashion.

[intimewithmusic]

Hi kawartha-ephemera

PREVIEW

 I'm a big fan. Ephemera is a huge part of my future so I"m listening.

  Most of mine is music entertainment related. With the changes we are seeing with music becoming "auto generated" by the Millenials my photograph taken  looking up Glen Cambell's kilt is losing it's value rapdly. Soon no one is going to want my Liberace stuff...
In the words of Waylon ( I worked with him too)  "Sometimes you win sometimes you lose...

"eBay Charlie's Got The Blues"

Everybody's gone away
Said they're movin' to LA
There's not a soul I know around
Everybody's leavin' town.
Some caught a freight
Some caught a plane
Find the sunshine
Leave the rain.
They say this town'll waste your mind.
Must be right cause it's wastin' mine
Some got to win some got to lose
eBay Charlie's got the blues.

My heart keeps telling me
There ain't no kid at thirty-three
Play around you lose your wife
You play too long you lose your life.
I got my pills to ease the pain
Can't find a thing to ease the rain
Sometimes I'd like to try and settle down
But everybody's leavin' town.
Some got to win, some got to lose
eBay Charlie's got the blues.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is what you said,

"Why have impressions declined?

I also believe the free listing promos that led to a large increase in listing count over a short period of time is a big factor. within a month all of a sudden I had 1500 or so listings where before there had been 500. With virtually everything Promoted, impressions climbed by leaps and bounds resulting in a sharp increase in sales resulting in even higher impressions. The upwards trend lasted about 6 months before levelling off, then the long slow decline began."

kawartha-ephemera

PREVIEW
You hit the nail on the head. Basically eBay and Seller/item count grew exponentially causing it's loyal seller sales to shrink. 

[intimewithmusic]

That's great. Please keep the rest of us posted to see if that continues!

[needsmorerobots]

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@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:

@intimewithmusic 

2 questions come to mind. Does anyone know where to put 121,350 listings? It's not that big of a house. Does anyone know how many listings you receive if eBay doesn't manage your payments?🤣🤣🤣 I wonder if that last statement was proofed?

-Lotz

---

Why in your garage, duh! 😂

Oh and have an enclosed back yard with cameras. And lots of tarps and rope on hand to make sure nothing blows away. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@needsmorerobots 

According to my Sellers Hub page my limit to list total is 3400 items per month. Sounds like the available listings & monthly limit don't really jive? Guess I shouldn't be surprised. Math has never been one of eBay's strongsuits. I can see eBay bumping up the number slightly but not 118,000 and change. Maybe if I can get em to bump up my limit, I can bill eBay for backyard security?

Step away from the eBay!!!

-Lotz

[needsmorerobots]

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@intimewithmusic wrote:

   I'm consistently listing and extra careful with pricing and shipping costs. I've doubled my listings in the last 6 months. I'm using promoted listings.  Others have reported huge gaps in sales. For the 1st time since 2013 I just put my entire store on sale. 7 days and no sales.

   What's up eBay?

---

Just so everyone knows I'm hitting my stride with sales again.

I do believe it was the new details added to listings that decreased my sales. Items listed from before the update aren't selling but stuff that is pre-update that I edit fully or new listings under the new system (I've been filling in as many details as I can) are selling.

I've had this thought. What if I remove the pre-update listings from my sales list and then republish them, perhaps that might get around this blockade many are facing. Has anyone tried this? It might have the effect of rebooting a computer after it's been updated.

[needsmorerobots]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

@intimewithmusic 

But anecdotally, I noticed that with PL , while the actual promoted item doesn't sell, when I have a lot of PL listings at the beginning of the month-long GTC cycle, my sales of other stuff goes up.

It's not data, but apparently, the milkshake is bringing the boys to the yard, but then they buy the banana split.

---

Okay, that made me laugh. I'm lucky I wasn't drinking something. 😀

[femmefan1946]

There is an opinion that moving slow sellers to the Unsold List then relisting them as Sell Similar, with or without changes, makes the bots think they are new fresh listings and give them a tiny boost in Search

And of course one popular Search is Newly Listed.

But yeah.

Goofy as some of those Item Specifics are, eBay is really pushing them.