Well, not sure, but, I got confused right off the bat. I looked at your listing "Claudio Arrau Chopin 21" and clicked through to shipping and could not get a shipping cost to any of the countries you had listed. Canada worked. So, why would I be a watcher on something with no final price? Or? What did I do wrong? I went in through dot com.
I'm not much help when it comes to shipping as I use flat rate to everywhere. Nice and simple.
Even further, my sales got a hefty boost switching to "free" shipping.
I did that as the move to initial viewing on mobile devices is high and growing. I have my title, picture, final price in one window. Your listings have the album price but not the final price. Clicking through leads to "Oh! I give up" and you may have permanently lost them.
Yes, I know all the various arguments re: shipping, mobile viewing, etc. Not my point.
You sell eclectic items to a narrow group of people. I would be making the whole buying "experience" (I hate eBay's words) as seamless as possible.
How is your shipping set-up?
Even further, my sales got a hefty boost switching to "free" shipping.
I did that as the move to initial viewing on mobile devices is high and growing. I have my title, picture, final price in one window. Your listings have the album price but not the final price. Clicking through leads to "Oh! I give up" and you may have permanently lost them.
Yes, I know all the various arguments re: shipping, mobile viewing, etc. Not my point.
You sell eclectic items to a narrow group of people. I would be making the whole buying "experience" (I hate eBay's words) as seamless as possible.
How is your shipping set-up?
Take a look at
http://www.ebay.com/sch/realjazz-123/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=
You see only 44 listings shown on eBay.com (USA)
More than 30 listings are not seen and that may be part of the problem.
Why?
Most likely the shipping method or shipping cost to the USA are incorrect or not shown.
For example, your highest price listing 221784856592 does not show up on eBay.com because the shipping method or shipping charge is not entered correctly.
I list on com and use flat rate shipping. Down at the bottom it is stated as (?) "standard international to US" "...World" "...Canada". Isn't there a similar option down at the bottom of shipping on ca?
@realjazz-123 wrote:Thanks to you and Mr. Elmwood for your useful comments. I have not been using shipping calculator in the correct way. I just relisted an item and see that I have not been specifying shipping costs.I assumed that writing full shipping in body of description was enough. Somehow, doing the same incorrect use of shipping calculator in the past did not have the negative consequences on number of watcher/buyers as it is these days. I am going try to correct my errors and hopefully will see a change.
Why not all of my listings show on com remains a puzzle which I will try to work out. Maybe the shipping calculator oversight affected some but not all?
I am convinced that buying "behaviour" has changed, and suddenly. My personal example is "free" shipping. I tried it off and on with poor results. Tried again this past Jan and my sales took off.
What is more interesting is that I moved price points. I used to do "$16.99 + $8 = $24.99". Now I do $28.99 free shipping and sales took off.
Sunfire dash vent sets. I had them at $21.99 + $8 = $29.99. Sold one set in five months. Changed to $29.99 "free" shipping, and I sold five sets in one month.
Buyers can't do math? Too lazy? Using mobile devices? I opt for the latter. Suddenly, all of a sudden, they want all the deciding information in one window, not now, right now.
Now, RJ, you have a very different clientelle, but, your results are saying that something is wrong.
"Why not all of my listings show on com remains a puzzle "
I know. If the system always worked the way it is supposed to, none of your listings would show on eBay.com since they do not have a carrier and shipping charge listed.
However, the system is not perfect. Somehow it let about half your listings be seen on eBay.com. I do not know why. Maybe they are "unique" and get special consideration.
In any case, it should be your first priority to address the problem.
Looking at some of your sales in the last three months, most of them only attracted one bidder. As such the number of viewers (hits) is not that relevant as long as you attract a buyer, not a viewer.
And yes, lower shipping charges (both in Canada and to the USA) will bring more lookers and eventually more buyers. When I see a charge of Cdn$19 (US$15) to mail a $45 album within Canada, I personally find that excessive and would hit the back button. Yes rates at Canada Post are high but... let's face it, not that high! You really need to look very carefully at your shipping charge policy.
Where do you buy your postage? How much do you actually pay?
Finally, you may want to consider listing at fixed price (BIN) instead of short term auction. That is where the action is today on eBay.
