I need an attaboy and perhaps some advice

If you post the link to your store, people can give you some specific advice.

Yes, please do post a link. I’d be happy to take a look.

What’s the sourcing like in your area? Are there some new sourcing opportunities now that you’re free during the day? Check out auctionzip.com to see a calendar of auctions in your area.

Without seeing your store, and based solely on my own experience:

I’d suggest listing more, and really honing in on bread & butter items that sell semi-consistently. Once you’ve got a good base of bread and butter, all of the one-offs really fill in the holes and push your numbers up.

Also, go get it! It’s really just a game of numbers. Put the work in, and the numbers will come. There’s a good chance that I’ll be in a very similar situation in the coming months, but I know if I put in the time and effort to ramp up, the money will follow. The more you list the more you sell. The more you sell, the more you learn, and the better you get.

One recommendation I would have is to get your store categories broken down, ie, women’s tops and blouses, women’s dresses, etc. Right now if a buyer clicks on your store, it’s all grouped together under “other” so they have to look through everything. In my personal experience, I have very little luck with most women’s clothing…my thought is that women like to try things on. I do have good luck with women’s coats, shoes and boots. I concentrate more on men’s clothing and have very good luck. My best brands for good returns on my investment are Carhartt, Duluth Trading Co., L.L. Bean and Harley-Davidson. We also have luck selling larger men’s, 2XL and larger. Your photos look very professional and you seem to be heading in a good direction. Throw in some tools and hunting gear too! Best wishes to you!

Hi,
I’m pretty new to full time eBay…but have been selling part time for years. I’m no expert, but in general I think you have a lot of fairly ordinary stuff and fairly high prices.
Neither of those two things is a problem on its own, but the two things together don’t make a great combination.
For example, the American sailing ship plates…people list those all day long and can’t sell them for $5, so selling them for $50 is highly unlikely to happen.
That’s not to say that this is true about all your stuff. There are some great things listed on there too…

What HAS sold for you? Maybe focus on those things?

Sorry if this is harsh…but I’m kinda a tell the truth type. 🙂

I like your items, art and photos. The prices seem high to me. I’m sure if I were an outsider looking into my store, I might say the same about mine. But I have another job so I go for the “slow dime” rather than the fast nickel. If you need to get cash flow going at least short term, you might get a good sale going. If you don’t have trouble sourcing where you are, I’d recommend that you take a hard look at pricing. I also use Pinterest to expose art and other interesting items. It’s fast and free and google likes Pinterest. Good luck!

Just some random thoughts looking at your store:

Some people like the negotiation of Best Offer; some people don’t want to bother with the back and forth. I suggest pricing the less expensive stuff without best offer. For example, you have the book Behold a Pale Horse at $20 or best offer. Looking at sold listings, the book sold between $10 to $17, and most of them included shipping. Perhaps you should pick a price somewhere in the middle (maybe based on the condition) and include shipping. I personally don’t like to include shipping, but sometimes you need to because of the competition.

Another thought is that you don’t use the full characters allowed for the listing title. Occasionally, I have shorter titles when I just can’t think of anything else, but, in general, I try to tack stuff on the end. Looking at the book example, some sold listings had the publisher, something about UFOs (subject maybe), or the sub-title.

For handmade stuff, you might think about Etsy. I don’t sell on Etsy, but I understand that something handmade will sell much better there.

For your other clothes, the market, in general, is very competitive, so you do need to look at lowering prices and maybe getting rid of make offer. To set a good price, be sure to do your research and look at sold prices of similar items.

Photography looks good, maybe a little dark in some of them, and some listings could use more description.

I like the items in your store. You’ve got bread and butter like clothes and shoes, you’ve got collectables, household, books, etc. A nice variety. I think you are doing well.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by Sharyn.

Here are my thoughts. I’m no expert (yet), so the advice is worth what you paid for it. 🙂 I’m having a super slow period in my store right now myself…

I agree with the comments on your prices being high. For example, David’s Bridal used heels are currently selling for a max of $25, but mostly in the below $20 range, and many below $10. You have them listed at $40. Yes, you have best offer, but some people don’t like to deal with that. If I wanted to get things moving b/c I was hungry for cash, I’d price them for $17 w/o best offer. The “price high and wait” strategy is great once you’ve already created a steady base income and want to grow, but you don’t seem to be there yet.

You may need to up your game into higher end brands to get the prices you want. The wild rose psychedelic heels are really cool, and yes, if you wait a long time, someone will come along who really wants them and will give a decent offer. But in general used wild rose heels are selling in the $10-15 range, so your $60 price is putting a huge premium on the coolness of the pattern. Please keep in mind that although J&R “price high and wait”, there are a lot of items that they sell that didn’t end up selling for high prices, and so they eventually sell them for much lower prices. They’re just not as much fun to talk about.

You have a lot of really cool vintage clothing. This is the type of clothing that are super long-tail for me, and 90% of the time, sell for only a small fraction of how much I think they are worth. But I love to buy them and can’t resist, so they keep piling up in my store. I guess my point here is that, at least for me, cool vintage clothing doesn’t provide a reliable and sizeable income stream. Probably would be more reliable if I priced a lot lower – don’t know.

I was looking at your iris skater dress. Turns out “iris” is an Anthropologie brand, which is a bonus. So put that in the title.

I would also suggest that you more consistently put the Brand name in the title. Although it helps that it’s in item specifics when someone searches for the brand, let’s say that they only search for “skater dress”, and as they are scrolling through the results, it would be useful for them to see Anthropologie in the description, and that may catch their attention.

Ok, so this was just a random collection of my thoughts. I hope you find it helpful.

I would offer that you do not waste your time and energy repricing anything. That does not guarantee sales. Instead have sales. People love to see sales and discounts. They have no idea you lowered the price without an actual sale showing. You can do a sale of free shipping, or by percentage, or by a certain amount. Group items together by sale amounts. For example, if you have a bunch of clothes you think are priced too high, mark them down by 15% this week. Then whatever is left of the pile next week, mark down by 20%. Know your limits – how much you can mark down and still be in a reasonable sale range. In addition, as previously stated, create categories. While many shop based on the item they are looking for, some actually take the time to go through our stores. One final thought – start listing what you would be shopping for right now based on where you live and then add items for people on other side of the country and even for people living in other countries if you are part of Global Shipping.

By the way, you can do it. If you no longer work for someone else, put all that time into your business especially in these early day. Work eight hours a day. Make lists. You’ll see the progress in just a month.

For the record – i was laid off as well last April. I just sort of dove in and did not look back. While i am not where i need to be yet, I know i will make it there and things are ok (and i am having a lot more fun now.) I am not nearly as experienced as some others but here is what i have learned (a lot from this forum). For full transparency — I did and do have a cushion that helped me “brave” the venture and i always have been a saver, nonetheless the pressure is real and of course at times it is scary. Here is what has helped me:

– do your weekly numbers. Copy someone who is really good at it, and then make it how you want to see them and how they help you. The longer you do the numbers the better they get, and the better they help you see your path forward and what needs to happen to make it work. Ultimately advise from others does not get you very far beyond getting started – you need to know your business and watch it closely to develop your strategy based on empirical data.

-selling the stuff that is given to you, or laying around the house, is great. However, remember that this stuff likely is not going to be as good as what you hand select via picking and sourcing. I have listed a lot of less great things that will be long tail — and had to remind myself to get out there and find the cream as well. Personally i look at getting through some of the less great stuff as things just to help me get better at listing.

-Develop a strategy sourcing – know what is in your strike zone, and do not swing at pitches outside of your zone. Know how much profit you want to make on an item to spend x, how much if you spend y. Understand if you sell a lot of different products what takes you more time to list and factor that in. I developed and keep working on my own formula. For me since i work alone I feel like being disciplined is all the more important.

– Focus on getting really good at listing. I am always working on this myself and am not where i want to be. But if you are just outstanding at getting really great listings up really fast, and as long as you are good at sourcing, nothing can stop you. There are some who are a lot better at listing fast than most (amazing taste comes to mind) – but have the mindset at getting better than what is normal listing. Look for ways to hack each business process.

-Fix the small leaks. Little costs add up more than you realize.

-For me personally i am at just under 1200 listings and need to get to 2,000 by the summer and plan on going to 3,000 before i think about hiring. Keep doing your numbers and you will come up with what is right for you based on sell through rates and average price sold etc… Know what percentage of your items sell in a day on average, figure out your medium and longer term goals, then develop a daily plan of small steps that get to the medium goals and long term goals. Then hold your self accountable.

– Stalk the sellers you admire (in a non creepy and nice way.) Ask them questions.

Good luck and i hope you enjoy the process!

Geoff and Jay have excellent advice.

I’ve been in and out of jobs for 20 years, and while I hope not to lose my current job, I plan on it to be secure for the future.

I would add some suggestions from my experiences:

-don’t take on any debt, and mitigate as much debt that you have. If you can’t afford something, go without for now. Jay’s advice on the car is great. There are so many good cars people ditch for something new and shiny – and if you need a loan, the payments are easy to cover.

-plan for VERY bad weeks. Make sure you have enough food/provisions for a really long week where sales are slim. We like to have a stock of canned food, cheap things like pasta, etc. on hand for when we are struggling. Buy food when it is cheap, on sale, or meat that is best before that day and is 50-75% off. Even if it is the best before date, it can be frozen for a year.

-grow your own food in the summer – some vegetables and fruits grow really easy. Just find out what grows in your area from neighbors. Some will even give you free seeds or excess food

-look at every dollar that goes out the door – find out where you can save money – water and electricity bills can be cut by just thinking about what you are doing. Like Jay, we have no TV service – just an antenna, and watch shows online on free services.

-think of other ways to make a dollar – I do odd jobs like installing TV antennas, fixing computers, yard work, etc – $20/$50 here and there quickly adds up for your time.

-plan something fun once a week to look forward to – my wife and I plan outings (usually to thrift stores out of town), go to a burger place that is 2 for $5, or other cheap yet fun outings. Usually they end up around sourcing items, but you can have fun and scavenge at the same time!

As a benchmark, our weekly bills are between $400 and $500 for everything – phone, internet, food, electricity, water, property tax, mortgage, etc. I think we can do better, and half of it is our mortgage that we will eliminate with hard work. Build a list of what you spend – and figure out if you can break even or even make a few dollars.

And there is no shame in working for someone else if a job comes around that you may like if it offers you happiness and security.

I have to run, so will offer more thoughts later, but definitely stretch out your listing titles with more information. Right now you’re banking on someone using exactly the words you’ve used in your titles. Add some synonyms to increase exposure!

I took some time to view your store and have a few notes, some of which may be duplicated here already.

-Many of your items are generic run of the mill stuff and priced very high. I can say that many of your clothing and shoes items I would not source even if they had the 99 cent tag of the week. Generic clothing items need something really, really special to pull that high dollar price tag.
– Improve your lighting. You can never have enough lighting. I just improved mine. I now have 6 60W photography CFL lamps and 6 45W CFL photography lamps shining down on my photo table. Invest in your setup – it pays dividends.
– You are missing the name brand in your title on many items. You should also put the shoe model number in the title if applicable. It is my belief that most folks buy used clothes on ebay not because of the color/style/etc, but because of that little name brand emblem that appears somewhere on the clothing item. For instance a Lacoste sweater. They are a guaranteed $25-50 sale just because they have a dumb little alligator on them.

My recommendation to you for sourcing for a while is to apply the active/sold ratio method of sourcing for a while to get your sales up. WHen you find something you want to source, do a search on the basic sales terms for it. Stay fairly high level – Brand, Style, and material at most. Take note of how many current used active listings there are. Now take note of how many SOLD listings are on ebay at the moment (90 days worth is default). Only buy the item if the amount of solds is equal to or greater than the amount of current active listings. That means the ENTIRE inventory on ebay has turned over in 90 days or less. That is a great item to source at any sales price.

Good luck!

I took a 5 minute look through your solds. I may not be the best person to ask because I know nothing about clothes, but everything just seems pretty low dollar. And since all the items are one-of, it seems like it would be kind of a sweatshop.

If you need to boost your numbers I’d branch out from clothing, source in new places, and raise the bar on profit (e.g., don’t buy any one-of item with less than $25 expected net profit, or with cost more than 1/3 expected sale price).

Some of this will definitely just be reiterating what’s been said by others, but…

-definitely add brand names to your clothing and commercial-good titles. Also patterns, colors, styles, anything a person might use to search for that particular item.

-Going forward, your photos should be brighter and better cropped, without the visible over-the-door rack and other distractions in the background.

-Going forward, cloth backdrops should be pressed, not wrinkled.

-Double check listing titles for spelling errors. I found several. Remove extraneous marks such as dashes from listing titles and, again, fill as much of the available space as possible with relevant search terms.

-Handmade pottery pieces should have the words “Studio Art Pottery” in the title, with glaze colors and initials/names if any in the listing title as well.

-Take loving photos of your art pottery and price it higher. This item, for example, with a better photograph and listing title, would probably sell for at least $30. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Handmade-Pottery-8-5-inch-tall-Muted-Yellow-and-Muted-Purple-Vase/222837667995?hash=item33e228f89b:g:nJ0AAOSw9eVXUI-f

-Paintings and other framed art should have the artist’s name and information about the subject in the listing title.

-Handmade scrubs should have buzzwords like “artisanal,” “natural,” “small batch”

-Stop buying low-dollar items.

-Hard goods should have the material listed in the title. Wood, ceramic, glass, pottery, whatever. Photographs of hard goods should show all sides, including underside/base.

-Anything before about 1999 should have the word “Vintage” in the listing title.

-Your listing titles for your artwork should be more descriptive and include more about subject, color, and style. The words “original art” should be included in the title. For example, this awesome piece has almost no information in the title that would lead anyone looking for a great piece of original art to find it. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Go-Go-18-x-24-Inch-Oil-Pastel-by-J-Speedy-Unframed/222800221494?hash=item33dfed9536:g:H8wAAOSwhiZaX5Qh If this were my listing, I would call it something like “Go Go Original Pop Art Oil Pastel Glam Woman Electric Blue Big Hair Retro J Speedy” (I mean, that’s not a perfect title, but you get the drift.)

It looks like, in your artistic life, you have an eye for the interesting, vibrant, and offbeat. I’d take that artistic mindset and apply it toward the items you’re looking to sell. Go back through your shop and pad out those listing titles with nice descriptive words so the title contains terms buyers will be using to find items. Then, next time you’re at the bins/thrifts/sales, don’t settle for same-old same-old stuff. Look for things that really appeal to or interest you, and then photograph them in a way that telegraphs that interest and excitement (I don’t mean you need a professional studio, but photograph them in a way that shows you understand and respect what’s cool about the item. It could be as simple as putting them in front of a plain (unwrinkled) backdrop, or just on a nice piece of wood. It could mean shining an extra light on them, and cropping out more of the background.) Then, feel confident about asking higher prices because you’ve got a novel inventory shown off to its best advantage. (Bonus: photographing bread and butter items well results in higher selling prices also.)

Good luck!

Nicely done! Happy to hear you’re seeing some positive results already. Go get it!

I think clothing sales on eBay have gotten more competitive even in the short time I’ve been selling. My aunt says she used to get $30+ for baby’s Jon Jon rompers and now she’s happy to get $12. With mall brand clothing, I try to pick it up at the goodwill outlet and price some of it very low so that maybe some of those items work as a loss leader – sometimes I think making one sale promotes making another sale. I also think that making lots (ie. 4 size medium shirts from Ann Taylor) sell better than single items. Clothing sales are hard. I’m trying to get more into the vintage things. I also think that the more attention and time you put in, the more you will sell. Good luck with your store 🙂

• This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by KatieScott.