Poor search results despite better prices

[mathman87vw4]

I'm trying to offload ultra low-end cards and I'm having extreme difficulty doing so.  It seems like nothing I have tried is generating sales.  I'm seeing some sellers move as much 2k+ units over 6 weeks and I'm thoroughly frustrated that I've only achieved 1% of that.

I concede that I can't compete with sellers in the ultra low-end space willing to do free shipping for 99c cards.  However, I see lots of sellers who charge high shipping fees and still making a ton of sales. Initially I charged a fair bit ($1.38) to cover postage and eBay fixed fees, but I mentioned in my title that I would manually refund shipping if they purchased more than one unit.  Recently I tried a bunch of things like dropping my fees to 48c, upping my promoted listings percentage but nothing has worked.  The same sellers consistently appear at the top with their high shipping fees and are making tonnes of sales.

It seems like the only thing people use is "Best Match".  Nobody seems to sort by lowest price + shipping; I would like to think I would have more sales if they did because I feel my shipping prices are competitive.

I like to think I filled out all of the item specifics fields to the best of my ability but it didn't matter.

I'm almost out of ideas.  The last thing I can think of at this time is photos.  The top-ranking listings seems to have photos for each variant.  Low-end listings have 120-200 variants and it would take forever to upload photos for all of them.  I don't have photos for every individual variant because it is so time consuming to add them.  It already took an awful lot of time to add all of those variants.

I've heard of terminating listings and reposting but it feels insane to put the exact same posting and expect different results.

Any guidance would be appreciated.  I'm not looking to make huge profits here.  I'm trying to utilize my spare time to recover as much of my money as I can.

[reallynicestamps]

I looked up your account and it says you have over 400 lots listed.

But I can only see 12.

What's going on there?

The fewer lots you have listed the less time a customer is likely to spend browsing. And of course, the fewer lots the less likely you are to show up in Search.

Someone may be looking for a Rocket Richard card, just not the one you have listed (I know you don't - we're fantasizing here) but stay for the Wayne Gretzky rookie he didn't know he wanted. 

I've heard of terminating listings and reposting but it feels insane to put the exact same posting and expect different results.

The idea is to refresh your listings by ending them early, waiting a day or week, then relisting them as Sell Similar which puts them up as Newly Listed, a favourite Search for many.

The top-ranking listings seems to have photos for each variant.

You didn't think this was a real job? It can be.

You only list the variants you actually have. There maybe 100 variations, but it seems unlikely that you have all of them.