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@VT sorry i mussed you. My market was a but South in Ventura County. Glad you had a good time.
14 new listings. Hope this week is much better now that my big market is over.
@Zach I did once early on when they sent a basically a free trial. Definitely not worthwhile. Ebay selected the items they applied it to – which was not what I would have picked and kinda random. I made sure to set it to turn off before I ran out of credit.
When they send me an offer I activate it but never run it. I hope I get some kind of boost from that but probably I just get more ads in my workspace. 🙁
@mycottage please let us know how it goes. I agree that new listings should be the focus. I’ve only got one market at the end of November and will focus on Ebay. I have been able to up the number of days per week I do at least 3 listings but I still am not consistent.
I just finished a pop up vintage market and sold about half of what I did in the Spring even though the event was very well attended. A ton of smalls, which thank goodness I brought. No large art work sold, and I had some great pieces.
Ebay normally is very good for me this time of year but it is quite slow despite my weekend permasales and offers. There is evidence my favorite RA retailers are not doing well enough with their Halloween lines. I watch a few news segments on Youtube and it is showing up there. People are looking for discounts. Still looking for special vintage maybe but at a low price point. My suspicion is people are definitely getting tight with their money. The cost of living here is out of hand, especially rents since Covid, so the pop up markets are definitely slower I think due to this.
After my Ebay online review session – highly recommended – I ran a coupon to my last 90 days of buyers. I accidentally made it public and I did think the coupon helped my sales. Hard to know which it pushed over the edge but you get a nice big banner. I will continue to run regular sales and coupons and offers this holiday season. I’m offering prices below market comps and discounts bigger than the ones I did last year. I also will move more items over to my flat rate shipping business policies to show up on Google Shopping.
I have promoted at 3%, with 9% on my few clothing items. I don’t intend to raise it and my advisor did not recommend it, though it did show up on my suggestion report for some categories, giving the average % as 6-7% for the category. I think that is maybe people like me, and other people at trending (of those promoting).
After Ebay Open, the videos coming out of that, and my store review, I’ve discovered (1) the flat rate shipping advantage for Google, (2) that I need 7 pictures per listing (arbitrary but Cassini likes it), and (3) sell similar every 90 days. I’m due now to sell similar. They don’t distinguish long tail unique vintage items so have to play the game and relist or revise once they decide it’s a dog.
I also got frustrated with Ebay’s algorithm so I subscribed to Nifty. I started my free trial with 85 Anthropologie RA items. None have sold yet. I need to get back to Nifty and cross post more items. It’s great software but because of Ebay’s items specific format, some details don’t come over so used items will take longer to bring to Posh and I’m missing measurements. At some point I started putting condition notes in my description but my old listings don’t have that. But new eyes are looking at least at some of my items.
Conclusion: It’s getting harder to make money reselling and I have too many piles! I still love it but will need to have 1-2 yard sales, minimize or stop shopping except at the flea, go down to Los Angeles for markets, and put some larger items on Facebook Marketplace.
@mycottage I heard a suggestion on a podcast this week that you put a pretty much permanent coupon in all of your feedback for buyers, which is public. Every once in a while you would need to refresh the campaign using the same unique code.
@mycottage thanks. So far much less response to the private coupon. I’d be ok w the few shares I would get.
I decided to run another coupon and noticed there is a box to unclick if you don’t want your coupon to be public. This week I’m trying a “private coupon” which I assume means just the buyer group you choose to target.
Only 13 listings for me. Big sale this week then I will be more focused again on Ebay.
@Lacey I’m also finding some nice treasures in my piles. It’s fun to put the selection together for the Fall show. I hope to get rid of some more glass and larger items. I’m selling some vintage linens this week. After the new year I need to focus on textiles. I have a ton of vintage fabric and bedding waiting in the wings.
I’ve been pretty good about shopping.
@seamstore that’s an awesome story. It’s funny how Ebay can seem so random and huge but we’re all just people on here.
@mycottage I have messaged my reviewer with the question about photos. It occurred to me that you could just put in your logo or something multiple times to fill in the missing photos. Seems kind of cheesy, but if it gets you more impressions, that would be cool.
I also asked him if I could get the listing report for my vintage listings, which are not my highest selling categories. You get three of these reviews and they have an agenda for each, but you have to wait a couple months to schedule the next one.
After my live pop up on the 11th, I’m going to work on ending and sell similar. I guess I will start with their photo recommendations. Regarding the % promotion, they just give the average and want you to match that. But I am wondering if some people are not promoting and other people are promoting at trending, that would make the average probably in between at the rate they’re asking me for. So I’m not sure I’m going to get results from giving eBay a higher percentage (6-7%) and then I worry about taking that percentage down having heard anecdotal reports of eBay stifling sales afterwards.
Thanks for getting into the weeds with me everyone. It would be nice to get some of these existing items moving. I’m definitely considering a shift to flat rate shipping in the future on most items. I think I have a pretty good handle on what things cost to ship most of my items fit within a cubic foot. I told the guy I go to Google shopping. I never start on eBay.
Interesting this is in the breakdown for the listing performance:
Daily impressions per listing
Click-through rate
Sales conversion rate
Recommended item specifics filled
Recommended item specifics to add
Brand
MPN
UPC
Number of photos
Number of keywords in title
Free shipping
Estimated handling time
14 Days Returns
30 Days Returns
60 Days Returns
Accepts returns
Seller paid returns
Promoted listings
Promoted listings ad rate
Order discount Multi-buy
Sale event + markdown
Best Offer
ISBN
Item Id
Price
Significantly not as described (90 Days)
Item not received (90 Days)
Negative feedback (90 Days)
Quantity available
Shipping fee
Item age in days (this is since last refresh)
Sales count in last 31 days
Custom label
Number of watchers
Google Shopping rejections
Actual handling time
Actual shipping time
Item condition
eBay trending price
Hm…is this the priority weight of Cassini? Unfortunately the trending price is blank. It looks like Google has not rejected my listings, though I don’t think they are showing them due to calculated shipping. If this was in order of importance, that is a bummer since I don’t want to add photos. Some items don’t need 8 photos.
Also interesting that I have a lot of this:
Click through: Your listings’ quality meets the top benchmark;
Sales Conversion: Your listings’ quality meets the top benchmarkso the additional pictures recommended are to get me more impressions. I was surprised he was happy with my conversion rate, it’s only 1.3% overall last 30 days.
I definitely have a hard time just working at the desk and not getting out. I need to join the gym too so maybe that will help with the no picking.
Yes, my helper did confirm they can see exactly when you originally listed the item. He did not say you get any kind of penalty for that though. They both said revising after 90 days. I often don’t have a second photo I want to move to the primary photo and I like how I do my titles (which conformed to what he suggested – brand, item, type; say what it is in 54 characters). So I don’t really like to mess with that either on my old listings. So if they were overpriced as I suspect and I am offering a lower price, then Ebay should set the formula to take that into account I would think but I’m not sure they do.
I have now looked at my top 10 categories and besides suggesting upping promotions to 6-7 (the average percent for those promoting) in some categories, what they wanted was a bunch more photos. They want 6-8 photos per listing. I have a lot of listings in these categories with new items and I have like 3-4 stock photos only. I’m not going to go back and take more pictures. IMHO my prices are probably why they haven’t sold.
In my top 10 categories, Ebay is giving me a rank “Your rank by sales (GMV) value: 534 out of 135,732 sellers in this category and condition” that is excellent in all categories. I’m not sure what that means.
Today I did try to send a coupon of an extra 5% plus I have my store on sale until Sunday. We’ll see. I set the coupon to go out to buyers from the last 3 months I think.
In the Selling on Ebay podcast this week, they argued that the item and price the buyer is looking for should rank so much heavier than how long it has been on the site or the seller’s activity level, etc. I agree with this. It seems like Ebay assumes it’s a dog and 90 days is definitely not a lot of time in vintage flatware – just as one example – for the buyer to come along.
@mycottage definitely let me know what happens. I am speculating that Ebay treats 90 day + listings as “once a dog, always a dog” unless you revise at least the title and maybe photos. I have tried clearance pricing before on long tail low dollar and it has not worked for me. OTOH I have sold old listings after ending and selling similar more often.
Some podcasters have reported that if you later scale back on your promotion rate, Ebay tanks your sales. So I’ve never gone over 3% except for clothes 9%.
