Home › Forums › Buying and Selling › Selling on Etsy › Sync etsy and ebay
- This topic has 30 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 3 months ago by T-Satt.
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05/21/2018 at 5:54 pm #40572Anonymous
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Anything using the sync tool ?
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05/21/2018 at 6:00 pm #40574
where is the sync tool? on ebay or etsy or 3rd party?
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05/21/2018 at 6:19 pm #40578
Yeah… what she says! What synch tool?
🙂 mike in Atlanta
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05/21/2018 at 10:25 pm #40595Anonymous
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05/22/2018 at 8:17 am #40607
(In the future, lead with the link to the topic you’re discussing.)
This is really interesting. I wonder how well it imports eBay listings to Etsy since the two platforms have different listing requirements.Are you going to try it?
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05/22/2018 at 9:43 am #40618
Jay that app has been around for so time. Not new by any means. The draw back is the price. It costs a $100 per month for a thousand listings. Now that does not include variations and them being on other channels. That is why they call them “products” and not listings.
Thre pricing is $40 for 250 products that will cross list on 3 platforms, $100 for 1,000 products [listings to us] on 5 platforms [sales channels they call them] and then $200 per month for unlimited product-listings on unlimited platforms.
So in you and Ryannes case it will cost you $200 per month or $2,400 per year to have your items cross lsited and kept in synch with say Ebay, Etsy and Shopify [but you will have to build a Shopify web site, then heavily SEO it, market it and social media drive it. A full time job to say the least.
I think we may even not proceed with our Shopify store just for those reasons and save the monthly case, but I did get all our items in the Shopify store as a “backup” but think I may just drop it and save the monthly cost.
Now using Sixbit or WonderLister you can do this for about $20 to $30 per month BUT you have the limitations you already know about with remote assitants using these apps.
I looked for years after Turbo Lister was hitting the skids and there to date is just not a cure all for a decent price out there.
Mike at MDC Galleries
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05/22/2018 at 9:52 am #40621
Thanks Mike. I didn’t even dig that far into it.
I wanted to stick with programs that I knew had been around and seemed to have a solid customer base before we implemented. Inkfrog, SixBit, WonderLister, were the main 3 that I liked. WL and SB were the top 2, and for us, SB won.
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05/22/2018 at 9:36 am #40615
Looks like another Inkfrog/SixBit/WonderLister/ChannelAdvisor program. Pricing is nice at $40 for 3 channels. I would have to compare everything else to SixBit to see if we would switch.
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05/22/2018 at 9:49 am #40620
Hey T-satt… That’s $40 for 250 listings. If you hit 1,000 it’s $100. Big difference.
Mike at MDCG-
05/22/2018 at 9:53 am #40622
Yep…I missed that part.
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05/22/2018 at 10:02 am #40623
I hear ‘ya. I had an interesting day yesterday with the WL team. Not until last night at 11:45 PM did i get it worked out with them and i had been up here working since 4:30 AM. Long ass day.
There was an error code popping up and freezing up WL and they kept saying it was because of the way Ebay was sending back data to their dBase. I said it was a glitch in WL that was because I was including some custom fields I had created in WL into a Search, then multiple sort and trying to view in a custom view.
Yep.. after 3 updates revisions to WL last night, it is fixed and guess what, not Ebay’s issue. Imagine that.Point being, that I was real close to downloading SixBit’s Free version and drawing down all my Ebay listings into SB. Based on the hours I spent with the WL guys.. UUggh last night I would have already had my complete Ebay store brought over into SB and who knows, maybe even gotten the Etsy cross list folders set-up.
Question…how is that SB Etsy interface working out in SB. Based on last niht and the July deadline of WL to have their Etsy interface built, I can just see a bunch of issues coming up down the line in the near future. i just don’t know if I want to go through this kind of stuff much more. Getting too old. I just want to get my items listed, cross psoted and have an APP handle it automatically.
Mike at MDCG
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05/22/2018 at 10:10 am #40624
It is working pretty good right now. They had an issue for a while where the auto-relist on the Etsy side wasn’t working (problem in the logic), but they have that fixed now. Typical new programming stuff.
Some of the SB premade searches are “busted” (even Steve said that), but I made my own to quickly get what I want. I’m sure you can get those working quickly.
Fore example, I want to see what is listed on eBay but not on Etsy, and vice versa. Their preset searches for this didn’t work, but I put my own together and they did. I’m using the advance search even more now, and it is working well.
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05/22/2018 at 5:59 pm #40708
If you auto cross post from ebay to Etsy do you still put the tags in by hand? I can’t imagine that part being automated.
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05/22/2018 at 6:19 pm #40713
In WonderLister they haven’y gotten the Etsy interface reay to go live yet. Sometime toward August. But Shopify is working and it uses tags.
So what WL did was build a tags field and a vendor field into their main listing form. So as we go down the blank listing form and filling in fields just as everyone does on Ebay, when we come to the field that says tags we eneter them in there. When WL posts our listing to Shopify, it posts all the tags just as we have them on our listing form.
I have also spoken to the team at WL and I am assured by the team and also with my urgence, that same field will also put them into Etsy. But we will have to wait and see but all the tags are put into Shopify.
Also all of the item specifics and the condition field from Ebay is auto inserted into the description area of our Shopify listing.
Basically on our Shopify listing about everything is auto inserted. Shipping, weights, sizes, photos, etc. We only have to select a channel [a shopify thing] and double check it and then click publish.
I did 936 total listings from Ebay to Shopify in about 2 to 3 hours and everything that is on Ebay is on our Shopify listings.
We use the Shopify store as basically a place to have a complete backup of our Ebay store for the time being.
Mike at MDC Galleries
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05/22/2018 at 6:01 pm #40710
For us on SixBit, we have to manually do that part. I’m wishing that we could automate that.
Something I’m going to ask the SixBit guys at eBay Open…
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05/22/2018 at 10:59 pm #40750
T-Satt how could it be automated when ebay doesn’t use tags and etsy does? Would you do your etsy listing first and then sync it to ebay?
thank you Mike for the description of how it works on WL
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05/23/2018 at 12:43 pm #40821
I would like to see Item Specifics for eBay that I could use as Tags for Etsy…
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10/22/2018 at 3:01 pm #50560
Anyone noticed this App (syncommerce) was removed from the official “Apps for Etsy” page?
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12/27/2018 at 9:42 am #54040
Has there been any update to cross posting software/ tools from Ebay TO Etsy?
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12/27/2018 at 1:27 pm #54048
I havent heard of anything that is automatic since both platforms require different sets of inputs.
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12/27/2018 at 3:57 pm #54059
bcfo: Using SixBit, some parts of the crossposting is automagic, and some parts aren’t.
The title, item description, photos, and shipping specs all come over. You have to enter the tags and some other items, but the rest is solid. The best part about SixBit is how it manages the backend for you. When something sells on one, it is removed from the other.
Crossposting to Etsy from eBay using SixBit takes about 1-2 minutes per listing.
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12/29/2018 at 10:27 pm #54112
Jay has commented that cross-listing on other platforms takes away time from ebay (or whatever platform is your main platform) and just redirects money. However, I did the math on this and that doesn’t appear to be true. Check my math here:
Steps for me to list on ebay
I figure there are about 12 steps (some are optional for some items) to getting an item listed: 1. Sourcing the item 2. Research 3. Title 4. Pricing 5. Noting flaws 6. Tagging \ Bagging 7. Weigh in and dimensions 8. Cleaning \ Fixing 9. Container prep (what is going in the container) 10. Photographs 11. Listing 12. Register and move the Container into your Inventory. Steps will vary by item\person.Time Required for an ebay listing\etsy listing
These 12 steps for me take on average about 20 minutes per item. So, for me, to get an item on ebay is a 20 minute investment on average. Now, if I take T-Satt’s nummbers from above (using SixBit and paying a monthly fee) I can list that item on Etsy for a 1-2 minute investment or 10% of my investment to get it on to ebay because I only have to perform step 11 (listing) only for etsy. Now etsy as a whole is a little slower than ebay for most sellers. Let’s just say that etsy only sells 60% as fast of ebay. So, if I list 1000 items on ebay, than will take me 333.33 hours. Cross Listing them to etsy will take me 33.33 hours.Hypothetical Gross Sales on ebay\etsy
If my sell through rate is 4% on ebay, then my sell through rate is about 2.4% on etsy (2.4 is 60% of 4). And assume that my average selling price is $38 on ebay. This means that in a month on ebay, I should have gross sales of about $1520 (4% STR and $38 ASP based on 1000 items). The etsy gross sales would be about $960 (2.4% STR and $40 ASP based on 1000 items). I put $40 ASP because Mike from Atlanta says that things sell for a little more on etsy. Plus, you pay less fees and no promoted listing fees or sale discounts.Conclusion
For my 33.33 hours invested into listing onto etsy for 1000 items, I will gross about $860 ($100 is to pay for Six bit monthly subscription) a month on an on-going basis. So, this was my rationale to persuade myself that cross listing on etsy should be a no brainer. What do you think?Disclaimer
I realize that my numbers are made on assumptions that could be wrong. Also, the numbers will differ for each person and even each person will flucuate from month to month. Jay has said that etsy didn’t seem to work for them, so maybe for J&R, my numbers are way off and won’t work in their situation.Mark S
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12/30/2018 at 8:53 am #54125
Mark: Great analysis on the value of crossposting. I had a couple of thoughts while reading this:
Yes, the 2 minutes that you spend crossposting to Etsy is only 10% of the time you spent listing on eBay, so the ROI on that platform is much better. You are getting an incremental sales bump of 60% for only a 10% investment of time. This is the great part about crossposting, as you are going from a 4% STR on just eBay to a 6.4% STR on eBay AND Etsy. Now, only time and your actual numbers will tell if you will fully realize that 2.4%, but it is well worth it to try.
One downside to that though: the hour that you spend crossposting to Etsy (the slower platform) is also an hour that you could have used to get more listings on eBay (the faster platform). This is the conundrum. You can’t spend that hour twice. So my advice to fix that is to slowly spend time crossposting in hours you wouldn’t normally list. So for me, in the morning when I am doing my admin work, I spend a little time on crossposting. I’m expanding my reach and keeping the same amount of listing time as before.
One other issue that of time in general. Now, your process is 20 minutes long to get things to eBay. Adding crossposting, your time invested in listing is now 22 minutes long, as you have to add the 2 minutes to crosspost to Etsy. So now the game is: How can you hit both platforms in 20 minutes?
Basically, I’m saying that to fully realize the benefits of crossposting, you need to still list the same amount of items each month. You can’t let the 2 minutes to crosspost allow you to list LESS each month. This is always Jay’s point: You are spending your time crossposting instead of listing.
So, to get your full realization, you need to list the same amount that you did before, only now on two platforms. If you can improve your process to list AND crosspost in 20 minutes, now you have something!
Lastly, on your $/hr discussion, that can be a bit confusing. Yes, the extra 2 minutes should yield extra sales and improved velocity, and about 5X return on your time sounds right. But a $4.56/hour rate calculated this way can make folks think that this is all we are making by doing eBay (half of minimum wage).
The time factor is off when using a month of sales divided by all time to list your total inventory (several months). If we stop listing altogether, we get an INCREDIBLE $/hr. All profit, no listing time (though you do have to ship).
I agree with your analysis though: What is the ROI on my time spent crossposting? Doing what you did does just that, showing that spending the time to crosspost is a valuable way to spend your time. This is the type of analysis that shows where time SHOULD be spent. This is also the reason I want to spend more time sourcing and less time listing. Sourcing properly is the name of the game when going full time.
Listing, Photography, and Shipping at this level are all $15/hr jobs. Sourcing properly is a $60/hr job…
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12/30/2018 at 10:04 am #54131
I like it Mark. The numbers sound exciting. You have the hypothesis. Now you have to put it into practice and see if it’s a repeatable theory 🙂
Your numbers are “robot vision”. All logical, but can you (or someone you hire) crosspost each eBay listing in two minute increments again and again and again. I think your 33.33 hours time frame to crosspost 1000 items might be optimistic.
I don’t know of any Scavenger who has crossposted the majority of their eBay store to Etsy. Usually people are all eBay and a little Etsy. Or all Etsy and a little eBay. I don’t know anyone who is making consistent income on both platforms simultaneously.
I wonder if the only barrier has been the brute force of cross-posting . I’d love to know if you can almost double your money by doing so.
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12/30/2018 at 10:10 am #54133
Jay,
Yes, that is the challenge. And of course there is a learning curve at the beginning.
I am not sure this would work as well with Mercari and Poshmark. Because if the STR drops to say 25%, I don’t think it is as attractive. Also because I have not found any multi-platform listing tool that says they can cross-list to Mercari and Poshmark. So, Mercari and Poshmark will probably take more like 5 minutes to list making it even less attactive.
The other night, I sat up till 2:30AM going through 21 multi-platform listing tools looking for one that said they worked with Mercari and Poshmark and not one of them did. Does anyone know of a tool that will do that?
Mark
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12/30/2018 at 10:49 am #54138
Mark: No other multi-platform tool will have Mercari or Poshmark because they don’t have an API that programs can use. I asked SixBit to get there with Poshmark at eBay Open, they looked into it, and there is not an API. Any crossposting there will have to be manual.
Now, from my experience, the crossposting only takes 1-2 minutes per platform, and if I do both Mercari and Poshmark at the same time, it is about 2-3 minutes per listing. Copy and paste, and those platforms are very simple to list on.
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12/30/2018 at 10:33 am #54136
20 minutes per item seems high? I only tend to spend that much time on an item if it’s really something special, and expensive. For cheaper items, it is just the normal processes of minimal research/list/sell/repeat. Most items are pretty normal and not worth a lot of time spending on.
I wonder if the problem with listing on these venues is the cross-posting? Yet at the same time, if you can make $860 a month per 1k items on Etsy for the same items on Ebay, it shows that there is a greater dedicated audience waiting on Etsy to buy those items than one may think. That is a significant amount of shoppers only looking at Etsy, when they maybe used to also look on Ebay.
If there wasn’t such a clearly high split between the venues, it wouldn’t be too big of a deal. It would be easy to just list on Ebay and call it a day. Yet, those numbers show there is a significant declining audience for those items on Ebay that are waiting to see them on Etsy.
Still, when you have an inventory that is already great in numbers without cross-posting software, I think it is best to just have a dedicated inventory on each venue. I could not cross-post 10k items onto Etsy from Ebay. I would not want to even if I had the software. Instead, I carefully pick out items that people may be more interested in on Etsy and just list them straight to Etsy instead of splitting them from Etsy to Ebay.
I think this comes down to whether you are in control of your inventory, or whether your inventory is in control of you. Do you have certain types of items that you are buying with dedicated audiences on each venue – or, are you at the whim of what you find out in the wild, and having to figure out the easiest way to get them listed across all venues in order to eke out the maximum amount of profits per venue?
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12/29/2018 at 10:41 pm #54114
Oh, and the last part that I forgot is the final $\Hour. This is measure wheather this is a good idea or not.
Ebay: $1520 gross for 333.33 hours or $4.56 \ hour per month on an on-going basis, assuming I keep replenishing items.
Etsy: $860 gross (after Sixbit expense) for 33.33 hours or $25.80 \ hour per month on an on-going basis, assuming I keep replenishing items.
So, I would be making about 5X more per hour for my time invested in cross-listing, than the time invested into the original listing.
Mark
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12/29/2018 at 11:33 pm #54115
Thanks for running those numbers! I am thinking of trying to have all of my niche products on etsy to focus the effort for me a bit more to start with.
It seems like many sellers are now “sourcing once, listing thrice.” -
12/30/2018 at 8:55 am #54126
It seems like many sellers are now “sourcing once, listing thrice.”
Love that line. Imma gonna steal it! 🙂
Of course, we now have some things on 6 platforms…
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12/30/2018 at 11:03 am #54141
Almasty: Great points. Love it.
I think the biggest barrier is the time to crosspost and managing the backend. Many don’t see the value in the time to crosspost, and maybe don’t have an efficient way to do it. I love SixBit for this, as we can crosspost either to Etsy through SixBit or manually to Poshmark/Mercari in about 2 minutes. Because Sixbit has all of the data on our computer for the listing, including photos, crossposting is a breeze. This is a benefit of owning your own data…
The backend is another issue, as people can’t remember what is listed where. This is why I love SixBit on the Etsy side, as it pulls things down from eBay for us, and why I use the SKU field in eBay to show -PM for Poshmark crossposting and -MC for Mercari crossposting. I also put the SKU in the Item Description on Poshmark/Mercari postings at the bottom. Helps us find the item and tells us all the places to pull the item down when it sells.
I look at it this way. EBay is still the Big He Bull of used items (Amazon being the king of new). So they still have the largest audience, so we HAVE to list there. To me, this is important to get our items to as many of the people possible.
Then, there are the subsets of people who shop on other platforms first: Etsy and Poshmark being the biggest, and I think Mercari is gaining ground. So for us, we are now crossposting to reach a wider audience. So everything goes on eBay, then we start crossposting the items that make sense: Etsy for Vintage, Poshmark for clothing. Everything is starting to go on Mercari now, just to see what works.
The key is how to crosspost efficiently, and how to have a process to easily manage the backend on listings. If your processes work, you can manage this well.
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