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Alright so long story short…I am consistently able to purchase vinyl records at one of my favorite thrift stores for 3 for $1. Instead of listing them individually, I decided to make one multi-listing on Ebay called “Vinyl Record Collection – You Pick”. In the description I listed all the records name and title and condition (there was usually about 200 LPs listed at any given time). The buyer was able to purchase multiple records for a flat fee of $3 each + $4.00 shipping regardless of how many they bought – i.e. one record was $7.00 total, 10 records was $34.00 total. The buyer would simply leave a message in the purchase order of which albums they would like. This listing was extremely successful that lasted nearly 6 months. It was re-listed automatically and had 150 watchers and nearly 6,000 views with hundreds of sold albums. One day about a month ago I wake up to message from Ebay saying they had to take down the listing because may be “confused” by the description despite the fact that it was very popular. I’ve been selling on Ebay since 2010 and have 100% feedback with 2,500 feedback points. I called Ebay several times and spoke with different reps, but they all said it could not be reversed. Blah
(great site and love your podcast!!) – Nick w/ Freestyle Finds 🙂 -
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This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I dislike listings like this when the seller has a photo of multiple items and says “pick one”. It’s confusing and complicates the process.
As a buyer, I like one item, one listing. Obviously this means more expense for the seller because you have to pay for each individual listing.
I’m sure you are a great seller and do everything correct, but listings like these just leave to much room for mistakes.
–So did you just have one eBay listing for your whole collection? In some ways it’s kind of genius because you had an entire store inventory in just one single listing.
–Did you provide photos for each album? Or did people just trust that the item was in good shape? -
FreestyleFinds,
It sounds like there was a potential buyer or buyers who were not clear as to your offerings in your listing or as to how to go about purchasing from your listing and they let ebay know about it.
I am just curious how you have continued to move forward as a seller and adjusted your selling strategy.
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That’s interesting- I have been looking at exactly this kind of listing for records. To me seems like a great way to sell lower dollar albums. Nick, I’m confused, is EBay preventing you from making another simular listing? I see plenty of sellers selling this way.
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If you’re just trying to sell records cheap, why fool around with $3 for each record?
Why not just sell Lots of Records?For instance: “This lot of 50 classic rock albums sells for $99. Wear and age use throughout. Perfect for someone wanting to build a quick collection.”
Selling albums for $3 each seems really tedious.
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Yes, you will find listings like this on ebay, but that’s because ebay does not enforce this as aggressively as they could….they probably wait till someone complains. I think the listing is a rule violation, ebay views it as an attempt at fee avoidance (If each of the records were sold individually, that’s a seperate listing fee for ebay—this method avoids that).
What makes this confusing is that ebay actually permits “multi variation” listings, but only in certain categories or sub-categories. I don’t think records is an approved category For example, if I have 20 identical shoes, but ten are brown and ten are black and the sizes vary, I can list all 20 in a MV listing. And these listings follow a special format. What you did was create your own multi variation listing without using the format, and in a category that doesn’t permit it. Look as it this way: If I have ten identical T shirts, but they I have them in different colors, each buyer is buying the same T shirt, just a different color.
Read more here: https://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/listing-variations.html
And here’s the latest list of acceptable categories: http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/sellingresources/multiplevariationslist.html
I would NOT relist—that’s asking for trouble.
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I actually put the kibosh on a listing like this that competed with one of my best-selling items a few years ago. I had individual issues up of an obscure music magazine I was getting $10-20 apiece for. Sales slowed, so I went to Ebay to see what the culprit was.
Some guy had put up 100 issues for $4 apiece + shipping, with a “please contact me for individual purchase” comment in the listing. It looked more like a Craigslist ad than an Ebay one. I reported it to Ebay, and the listing was gone within a week.
I believe you can make pull-down variations of items in the listing, but I don’t know if it can go up to 200 items. It is confusing for the buyer to see listings like this, as you can’t tell from the ad what is actually currently available for sale.
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Yeah, its more like a craigslist listing where someone lists all the stuff they’re selling in their house. They’re putting an entire store inventory in one listing.
If an eBay seller is on top of things and keeps the inventory updated, I guess it can work.
But I see many sellers just too lazy to photograph and list each item. As a buyer, I’d be worried about the quality I was getting of a used item without seeing photos of the exact one I’m buying.
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I am glad i read this post as it likely saved me a lot of time and effort. Not going to do the multi record listing thing. It makes sense why Ebay would not be into it.
I did run my first (legitimate) variant listing the other day — which i like a lot. Hopefully Ebay continues to build it out.
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