Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Store review update. Had the same guy, he was great.
Looking at my numbers, he mentioned that the items I had on flat rate shipping under a pound had started moving better. We discussed going in and changing more stale things under a pound to that shipping policy. I’m a bit nervous about using a flat rate 2 pound – if it’s high enough to cover me, then I feel like I might lose West Coast buyers.
He suggested not putting vintage 70s until the end of the title. He was stronger on that today than at the last meeting. That will be an easy way to refresh old listings as I often put it at the front. Again, the 6-7 photos thing – I didn’t spend much time going back over old listings.
He liked that I tried the coupon, though I had not done the newsletter. They recommend doing the newsletter every 30-45 days and a coupon every 30-60 days. He suggested freshening my store displays every 30 days – traffic page shows I had over 300 visits to the store in the last 90 days. I will likely keep that seasonal though. Over on the social media page, he showed me you can create Instagram posts there. My Pinterest link had also broken. He reports that after 8-10 social media posts sellers see results.
I didn’t use his clearance category suggestion. Even though some old stuff had sold on other platforms (which really may have helped my velocity, though he didn’t confirm that), he still wants me to try refreshing a few old items and putting them in a clearance category. I would then change the view from Ebay categories to my homemade store categories. I tried to get him to reveal something about stale items dragging down your store, but he didn’t really latch onto that.
I also talked with him about the new promoted attribution rules. He said he wished they would have done a more gradual rollout of that. He said I was smart to keep promoting. I told him I would consider on some older used items using the 6-7% but I wasn’t sure that would really give me much more exposure. Without directly confirming this, he basically said keep as is.
I also told him that I was going to set the software to refresh listings every 90 days once the oldest ones are caught up. He stuck with the party line and said Ebay doesn’t want you to do that, and the party line is that 90 days is the “sweet spot” for selling a listing. The Vegas rep was much more direct though.
PS tomorrow I have part 2 of my Ebay store review. Hopefully I will get the same guy. He was pretty candid and didn’t really push the advertising. I’m wondering if he will say anything about promoted listings.
Listed 18 items and I have some ready to go except photos. I forgot that I listed about 6 pillows, which have been hanging around and taking up a lot of space. It felt so good to finally get those listed.
Adding some things:
I had business policies including the flat rate packaging. I’m working to eliminate those since I offer smartpost and Fed Ex on my default. I don’t think the pricing is good any longer for priority.
I made another appointment with for listings review with Ebay. I need to consider going back and adding photos or repeating photos on some listings. I am skipping a clearance category since some old stuff is selling off on Poshmark and Mercari and I have just about all of my store cross posted now.
I will try the Nifty AI listing from a photo and see how that goes. They don’t have an app, but have mobile function on their website.
Yes, I’m going to follow your advice and tackle my death piles! The last few times I popped into the thrift store, the pickins were slim and also overpriced, so not too tempting. I plan to stick to the flea market, which is some Thursdays. I don’t know if I have any categories where for parts applies but I’ll take a look.
22 listings. Not bad since we were on vacation. My son went back to college and I’m feeling quite determined to make a number of changes. I still have my sleep challenges but I plan to push myself a bit harder anyway. Here’s to 2026 improvement!
I do think running a sale really helps. It was mentioned in my store review. Speaking of that, I need to schedule part 2. I really liked the person I had last time, though looking back he did have an agenda of things to discuss that wasn’t particular to me per se. I implemented some of his stuff. Trying the coupon was most effective. I never went back and added 6-7 photos but started fluffing new listings. I also did not create a sale category but Poshmark and their 6.49 shipping is helping me to get rid of some very old stuff.
@mycottage do let us know how it goes with promoted off. I’m getting Ebay yelling at me everywhere to up my percentage. I’m going to make a point to check monthly to see what happens to my promoted % of clicks. If it’s down from last year at the low percentage I may remove the campaign. Ebay obviously will test everyone to see what they do. I’m hoping a lot of Americans decide to reduce or end promoted. We are feistier on this side of the pond. At the same time, I’d like to keep in front of those who decide not to. I’m not sure Ebay will reward a 2.6% rate at all though.
AI will be really interesting to watch. People seem keen to adopt it. Ebay isn’t blocking Open AI and they want to look like they are catching up tech-wise. Going forward I’m going to be much more flexible on price and VERY careful picking stuff up. I just got my TRS back too and I hope that helps with ChatGPT hits.
Also have continued to post all my listings on Pinterest but shifted to fewer, less specific boards.
And I introduced Ebay flat rate shipping business policies for 1, 2 pounds. I think this works best for the one pound rate, which I set at 6.50 (coastal).
I’ve been afraid to list used clothing on Ebay in case it messes up my feedback but I have a bin or two of our better brand used clothing and true vintage to list. I may do just Posh or I may go ahead and cross post. Good brands have done well on Mercari for me.
I have opted into Mercari’s new automatic offer system. For now, I’m doing manual offers on Poshmark but I may go ahead and switch that up. Currently for Ebay I’m doing the 7 day automated default. I’ll have to think about that one since they have the vacation glitch and you can’t edit the listings while an offer is out.
The Pure Hustle podcast guys reported on this recently. Good to know!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C45n4ZpUYxk&t=1707s He has an interesting discussion regarding the impact of USPS shipping going up again (8% I think for ground). Start at 8:21. Point is widening gap between the $ increase for buyers close to you vs further zones and how this affects your choice of flat, free or calculated shipping on Ebay.
Revenue
Mercari
$75.25
Poshmark
$132.00
eBay
$782.16
Total $989.41I’m getting lazy about checking my COGS when doing my numbers. Probably my margins are down since I have been making and taking a lot of offers, especially on used items. My margins on Posh are smaller since they take higher fees and there is so much negotiation. Hopefully sales will hold up ok through mid-January. I’m probably not going to be able to list some of those days. I’m pretty motivated to sell as much as possible and closer to paying off my business credit card which got a balance in the second half of 2026, while sales were poor (and listing was pretty poor too).
I LOVE efficient app Mercari and it’s 10% fees. I wish they would have a deeper audience. Quoting a youtuber “it’s surprising what sells on Poshmark”. I agree with this. Since I started in October I’ve sold both vintage and new items on Poshmark, mainly non-clothing. People are liking and buying items that have long sat on Ebay with lots of competition and probably burying my Cassini. They do tend to go on offer though about 90% of the time. It feels a little happy to get revenge on Ebay a bit for their burying and for the cancellations they cause showing my buyer post-sale cheaper items. I also feel like maybe these are young people not shopping on Ebay.
I just have some consolidating to do in my listed inventory but about half of my unlisted is still a mess and needs to be sorted. With the higher shipping cost, I may consider a yard sale of $15 items I had kept before to list.
I read somewhere that people are using Chat GPT and it’s now 10% of Ebay’s outside referrals. Right now it’s free but that is likely to soon change. I’m sure Ebay would pass on any cost to the sellers one way or the other. If I had to guess, I’d imagine that a lot of those leads are to “focus categories”. For us non-focus category sellers, it’s hard to know how ads help or not. However, I do get a report about the % which sold through promoted vs organic (in the past about half roughly before the new attribution). So I guess it’s helping? Also we are still competing within Ebay against other non-focus category sellers. I’m hoping a lot of them aren’t paying fees.
On the whole, I figure that it’s going to be about using technology, keeping items fresh, accepting lower prices and paying less for inventory so I can still make a profit. Since I tend to be a spotty lister, I think the software will help my business.
I did an experiment after crossposting to Posh. I was showing up on Google with the same listing from Posh vs. Ebay (calculated shipping). I ran the searches on Chat GPT though and none of my listings showed on there. I asked Chat GPT why a lower priced item wouldn’t be shown and it gave a Cassini style generic factors answer, including seller rep. I just got my top rated back finally after some inventory multi-quantity issue last winter. I hope that may help. It would go to figure that the chat models would not want people to end up with bad sellers and stop using them to shop.
Regarding Etsy I always had a complex about photo quality and branding, but I may hand pick some things to go on there. The listing fee and the free shipping are a little intimidating as well.
I decided to go with 2.6%. Ebay recommended 14% and they had a banner pop up when I started this new campaign that I should go higher to get my ads seen. Also a warning all the time that I have picked a low percentage. Then I think I saw something also that said make it at least 5%. However, I am sticking with this and I’m hoping that my ads are shown. It’s a tough time of year for sales coming up so it will be hard to know.
Let us know how it goes for you. I am always passing on revising old listings in favor of posting new inventory. Though cross posting on another platform has done way better for me than I think revising on Ebay would. Also loving that the software will end and relist on Mercari and Ebay.
I am glad I started selling on Poshmark. I like that Posh has fewer home goods and they don’t show your competitor’s listings to buyers. I had 5-6 cancellations after purchase in December. I really hate that Ebay does that. Posh is already charging 20% so Ebay is still lower than that where I am promoting. Posh shows you the net payout before you make offers. Ebay is wise I think not to do that.
I’m thinking about cross posting a few items on Etsy at some point in 2026. A reseller Youtuber I follow says she only does $50 and up on Etsy. I don’t like the charge to keep a listing on there though some of my stuff I got at very good prices.
