
09-12-2021 07:58 PM
09-13-2021 05:01 PM
09-13-2021 06:04 PM
Sometimes when sales are slow I will end old items and relist them with 2 or 3 items of the same type in one listing. For example: 2 books by the same author or 2/3 books with the same theme like bio, history, childrens; 2 or 3 mugs instead of individual mug listings; 10 or 12 postcards instead of 1 or2.
The shipping price of several items often seems like a real deal to buyers - shipping of 1 mug $20. - shipping of 2 mugs $23. Plus, buyers think they have discovered a great bargain with a bunch of treasures for one price.
It doesn't always work but quite often it does and I end up clearing a lot of old inventory
09-13-2021 09:17 PM
It’s so frustrating. I pay $60 a month and I can’t manage my store.
We are gettig so many Free Listing Promotions that I downgraded one of my Stores from Premium to Basic, and I still am not using my free Store listings , they are all part of the Free Listing Promotion.
Some have mentioned dropping Stores entirely, but I use the sub-categories and enjoy the slightly lower FVF and the promotional branded shipping materials enough to keep them.
I agree @lucitabby , closing stale listings for a rethink is useful. I have noticed that when I close and then relist (usually as Sell Similar) I often get a sale of the relisted products. I think they are seen by the bots as "new listings" and get that tiny boost in Search.
09-14-2021 08:46 PM
My last two or so weeks might have been my worst two weeks for sales all year. Sales both in volume and dollars are down nearly fifty percent compared to last month. My sales volume has been pretty consistent, even through previous periods where people have felt there have been eBay slowdowns.
We don't sell in the same category, but just some food for thought. It is possible that with people having spent more money than usual on vacations this summer due to the lockdowns ending, and with back to school, online shopping isn't a priority both time and money wise.
eBay is generally inconsistent so while sales being down isn't good, I don't think you can pick a span of a few weeks and get worried. You should always look at things over a longer period of time. In my situation, things tend to average out, at least when adjusted for how many items I list since listing more tends to lead to a short term boost in sales.
09-15-2021 12:33 AM
If your sales were good then they stopped, my advice just wait it out and dont make any major changes. chillax, it will swing back again, always does. Yes had slow sales last 2 weeks august, picking up now.
09-15-2021 01:35 PM - edited 09-15-2021 01:36 PM
compared to last month.
That's the problem.
Because retail works on a rythym more or less, comparison to the previous month is useless.
Compare to your sales in August 2019 or 2018. (Ignore 2020 because it was an outlier. Most sellers saw a pandemic surge in sales last year.)
When I worked retail, we could not get BBQs in fast enough from April to June.
But any we had not sold by Father's Day, would be on clearance or stored until the next April.
Here on eBay, unlike most sellers, my worst selling period is November to Christmas.
My best is Boxing Day (it's that precise) through May.
09-15-2021 05:23 PM
09-15-2021 05:27 PM
09-15-2021 06:00 PM
As a note, personally I believe that trying to attract folks with larger sales for the kind of stuff you sell generally just sells the item for less to the same person that would have purchased it at the top price.
As well, I think the "recommended" promoted percentages are also overdoing it, but that is my belief in my categories. I'd stick with a low "eternal" percentage. You can do tests to see if your items are coming up more often than competitors.
Listing as much as you can new stuff will have an impact, it is astounding to me how many items sell whilst I am listing new items. Far too many sell during that time than would be statisically accurate.
Unfortunately everything I (and virtually everyone else suggests) is based on our experience in our categories, so you'll have to experiment and figure out what works for you.....
09-15-2021 08:15 PM
and the highest promoted percentage for each category.
Okay- anecdote is not data but.....
I find that Promoted Listings do bring the boys to the yard, but then they don't necessarily buy the PL product, often they are buying other stuff.
So I put up a high value stamp of France and end up selling a pretty, low cost set from Mali or Gabon (French colonies). Or a John Norman book and sell another of his titles or pehaps another author.
I only give eBay one percent for PL that sell. I'm way too cheap for anything more.
Worst part is I just renewed my subscription on Aug 1st.
Ugh.
Did you go for the cheaper Annual Rate, or the more flexible but pricier Monthly Rate?
There is no penalty for ending the Monthly.
Do the arithmetic before you cancel an Annual Supscription.
09-16-2021 08:45 AM
Are you near Edmonton, or close enough to check out an alternative delivery service like Chitchats? I found for some items the cost to ship inside within Canada was much, much cheaper than Canada Post. I read the post about the $35 shipping for the pyrex pot, and that does seem high, even for Canada.
10-06-2021 09:07 PM
10-06-2021 09:10 PM
10-14-2021 02:52 PM
10-14-2021 09:18 PM
interesting to know, I sell alot of the same stuff and Im down nearly the same amount for the month as well. Would love to know what exact day the downturn for you started.
Whats going on recently isnt related to stuff we arent doing, or related to consumer trends or market forces. Check out the dotcom message page, its full of sellers saying all the same things as we are here. There are some major problems going on right now with the site. My theory is that something is seriously wrong with components of how their IT department are rolling out site changes, updates and reconfigurements.
go check out auction collector on utube and his video yesterday, youll know which one I'm talking about once you see the title, he goes on a major rant about everything thats gone wrong so far this year, its very entertaining, and provides some comfort in realizing this is not just a one or two or ten person thing, whats going on with inexplicable disappearance of sales is going on for thousands of sellers on here, as you will see in the comments. In addition to seller issues like the ones we are talking about, there's customers there posting about how they are not able to buy items at all, the way they describe it there appears to be some pretty major glitching going on.
10-15-2021 01:19 AM
Appears eBay Canada is being worked on this evening. Showing views and watchers in Sellers Hub but traffic report is missing. This happened yesterday(Wednesday) on dot com.
As for Item Specifics currently the only ones requiring them are listings I created previously on dot com as test listings.
We shall see what happens overnight. Let the ummm "games" begin!!
-Lotz
10-16-2021 03:42 PM - edited 10-16-2021 03:43 PM
I noticed the "views and watches" numbers disappear, but since I'm almost exclusively on the App, I figured it was just another App bug. Everything seems to be back to normal now.
I agree that my sales are down, and I have twice as many listings. Prices are cheap. Almost all sales are below $20 and even eager buyers are reluctant to spend. Hard to know why. Covid? Increased sales competition (Poshmark, Mercari, FB Markeplace, Amazon Marketplace)? Lazy buyers (relying on a Google search only)? Ebay's search engine changes?
I'm going to experiment soon with Promoting my more expensive items to see if it boosts sales. It's getting pretty bad!
10-16-2021 04:30 PM
@teenytrinkets wrote:I noticed the "views and watches" numbers disappear, but since I'm almost exclusively on the App, I figured it was just another App bug. Everything seems to be back to normal now.
I agree that my sales are down, and I have twice as many listings. Prices are cheap. Almost all sales are below $20 and even eager buyers are reluctant to spend. Hard to know why. Covid? Increased sales competition (Poshmark, Mercari, FB Markeplace, Amazon Marketplace)? Lazy buyers (relying on a Google search only)? Ebay's search engine changes?
I'm going to experiment soon with Promoting my more expensive items to see if it boosts sales. It's getting pretty bad!
I'm at 3 sales for the month of October. As of late almost everything I send has been letter size so much lower value than in the past.
Views, watchers and traffic are features that have come and gone or returned in a different form for over a week. What works as it should on dot ca works completely different on dot com and vice versa.
I've had listings state that I could send a random offer, click on the listings and was told that I couldn't.
Delivery estimates show on listing Buy it now area (where ships from Canada/Return policy show) and check later to discover nowhere to be found. (Those flags definitely vary compared to what displays for US sellers.)
These changes/modifications/tinkering will definitely have a break in time much longer than anyone truly can imagine.
-Lotz
10-26-2021 11:09 AM
10-26-2021 01:38 PM
yeah I totally hear you man. Its no fun. The sad reality is an enormous number of factors have converged against sellers this last year, from MP rollout to ongoing site IT problems to Brexit to EU VAT implementation on per item basis to US /CAD exchange rate being high (US customers start going bye bye on my stuff at 80 cents and over Ive noticed) to Canadians and everyone else wherever they are getting nickel and dimed to death via the supply crunch, utility bills and inflation. Its a recipe for a death by a thousand cuts for alot of us.
If you run across someone on here whose response is to tell you you're doing something wrong or this and that and the other thing and offers no empathy for what you are going through, be very careful about taking more responsibility for your struggles here than you should. We arent to blame for the massive headwinds affecting e-commerce right now. For the vast majority of us, even those who seem to think otherwise, all the factors I listed above are completely beyond our control and negatively affect our ability to succeed here. Its just reality, and any attempt by anyone to rebrand it in order to blame & shame someone for struggling because their egos get off on it should be completely ignored. As for me, it means a side job for the interim and a re-evaluation of how and if I want to go forward with running an online business beyond that. Its a time for hard decisions unfortunately. Good luck fellow seller, the waters are pretty rough out there!