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100%. Look at this whole new generation appreciating vintage and Ebay has hardly grown its buyer base during that time. For sure missed a lot of opportunities for growth during a time when it should have been so easy to go after those people online.
OTOH, I know a lot of those other platforms people are giving up and returning to Ebay just because it’s huge. Sites like District and Mercari work so much better but the buyer base is much smaller. I quit listing on District and heard it was having trouble keeping afloat. It was designed by resellers and had a lot of great features.
LOL I’m not good at splitting my attention but yeah, did not get me excited. I hope they do put a lot of advertising out and it’s not all for motors and sports cards. Etsy has been going after that present market for years. At least they are not trying to be Amazon any longer. That was frustrating to see the buy a new large BBQ on Ebay (but pay shipping) ad during football.
Going to Open was so representative of Ebay. Some good, smart people working there – nice, real people who appreciate sellers and took notes of their feedback to improve Ebay. Some embarrassing crappy dumb high level executive presentations. Some unrelatable seller presenters, while very relatable “fix this or confirm this” questions and complaints from the audience. Terrible store review rep at Ebay and technical problems but a stellar inside scoop and custom report on Zoom. In short, some great talent at Ebay but I don’t think they get the best of Silicon Valley. They have the biggest used market but also hide your listings. They innovate but don’t fix basic things. It’s such a total mixed bag.
@mycottage did you listen? I played the replay for a while but didn’t find it too interesting and I kind of lost track of what they were pushing besides noticing suggested ad campaigns. I did hear that they are sticking with the “Things People Love” campaign and emphasizing stories of finding unique items. It’s often the car parts that they are using but oh well.
Thanks @mycottage. I might be able to catch part of it. Ebay loves to talk about AI but I’m not finding their stuff very helpful. I wouldn’t think they would be one of the first to open up to ChatGPT but we’ll see. I heard this week that Etsy and Walmart did but Amazon is blocking.
I listed 17 items last week. Not what I was hoping for but I was not feeling well. Starting to work on Christmas.
I can’t really sort by original listing date any longer, but I know some vintage kitchen stuff has been sitting a while. Also I have trouble with pottery sometimes in person and online. Other times, pottery sells well. I used to pick up more china, but I’m pretty selective now. Unfortunately I have a lot of flatware to list and I hear it’s very long tail.
@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.
