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Well, someone was here in ’23 🙂 I agree with everything you have written Craig and I think it still applies today. A small time investment for some positive account activity and movement and hopefully a temporary sales/viewers/watchers bump. I think a quarterly (or maybe monthly, as long as it doesn’t cut into your listing time?) delist/relist is the right move for a bulk edit. I still like to sit down and look at my “listings ending today” and anything with zero or only 1 view I will end and then try to look over and then sell similar and relist after fixing whatever I can. It is nice to see something that has had zero views for months start to get views! Often there is a small mistake in the listing or a category or keyword change that needed adjustment and that makes all the difference. Even when no changes are made, though, you can tell when something that was a complete dud gets some traction – it’s not mere chance, it’s because of the sell similar and “touching” the listing. This helps to improve your listing quality over time. One thing you mentioned was setting the high auto-decline. Are you still doing this? I generally never use auto-decline because I am prone to running steep sales once in a while and the auto-decline might be set higher than the sale price, so no offers are even able to go through! I also have tried to bulk edit/add “auto-decline” with an automatic % off feature (like 80% of full price) from nothing existing prior, and the bulk editor doesn’t work like that (nothing gets populated) so I just keep giving up on that…. is there an easier way you know of if you don’t initially fill in a value? No way I’m going to sit down and hand type out 80% of all my listings for auto-decline, so I’ve really never tried it. (Other than sorting by ranges ie: $20-$25 and then bulk editing an auto-decline price of $5 off… that _does_ work… but wish eBay could just calculate and plug in a percentage off.) For now I just turned if off, but I do need to deal with a lot of 50% off offers, which sometimes gets old. Have a good day! 🙂
Hi Craig, Thanks for taking the time to talk in detail about your strategies and link to your older posts. I am going to go back now and check out your data from a few years ago over a glass of wine. I really appreciate you sharing your promoted listed strategy… and like you, I found turning it on was giving me much better results, so I have just left it on. The few times I have turned it off, well, the sales halted. I am still running dynamic, but I do like your idea of a tiered and timed plan where you start smaller and build up the % over time. I will have to switch back to standard and come up with a consistent game plan to try out over time. I also think the ability to keep new “hot” listings unpromoted at least for 48 hours or perhaps a week or two to see if there are people ‘searching’ can allow the items a chance to sell on their own first. Looking forward to going back in time to check out some more of your past experiments. Cheers!
Jay, have a good trip and let us know how your delist/relists go! I also had the same pair of vintage jeans returned for the second time for fit issues (even with detailed measurements) which is a little frustrating, so this time I didn’t even want ’em back.
3 Returns and a slow sales week… but nevertheless here are the numbers:
My Store Week October 8-14, 2023
Total Items in Store: 831
Items Sold: 26
Gross Sales: $573.79 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $228.10 (minus eBay fees, shipping, taxes, returns)
Cost of Items Sold: $37.08
Highest Price Sold: $35.95 (NWT Women’s Jeans from the .99 rack)
Average Price Sold: $22.07 (inc. shipping)
Returns: 3
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: ~30
Number of items listed this week: 35$ Amount Listed this week: $579.85
Hope the sales are good for all this week!
@craig-rex I love this! It is such a different landscape than 5 or 10 years ago… when I turn off promoted listings, my sales slow down. I am constantly playing with the numbers to find the “optimal range”. Of course, nobody wants to throw money away, but a smaller percentage of something is better than… nothing! I am curious what you think about promoted listing standard vs. dynamic? It seems as if eBay really wants you to choose “dynamic” and then they auto-set the price for you. It can feel like a money grab, and every new listing you post automatically then gets promoted without the ability to choose not to unless you end the campaign. That feels like another money grab. Certain rare and popular items shouldn’t need promotion at all and will sell if someone is looking for them. However, for clothes, I think promoting is necessary. Currently I keep experimenting between the “standard” and the “dynamic”. What has been working for you and have you developed any good strategies? How often do you think is good to end and sell similar on old listings? Thanks!
well, nevermind, it just worked… it didn’t seem to on previous tries…Â not sure what I was doing differently when typing it in?
Christine – You got to 1000… very exciting!
Sharyn – Don’t worry, things will pick up soon… sales are very tough right now for most. Some things I need to practically give away to get the sale. I agree with you on the Best Offer button… I also offer the lowest 5% on the new just to “get it out”… and today, the button disappeared completely, so maybe something new is being tested or rolled out? Who knows?
Retro – You are living the maxim “It takes money to make money”! You will be back in the black in no time.
Everyone – This is embarrassing to ask… how do you get the hyperlink to someone’s name when you respond to a message? @christiner (in green) I can’t seem to figure out how to make that happen so someone please explain it to me 🙂
Jay, good luck with the renovations! That sounds exciting and also stressful…. it’s always nice to have eBay to fall back on (in the background) and it’s good to have a change of pace on facebook as well… I have been doing the same thing with bulk bin sourcing and then pulling out certain items for eBay and then taking newer pieces in bulk to Plato’s closet for quick (but admittedly a lot less) cash. No shipping, no listing… just cash in hand… which is always a good thing and a change of pace. I am always coming up with more inventory than I can list in a week so I like to keep things moving.
My Store Week October 1-7, 2023
Total Items in Store: 829
Items Sold: 27
Gross Sales: $662.22 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $311.55 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $43.50
Highest Price Sold: $39.95 (Men’s Lucky Brand Jeans)
Average Price Sold: $24.53
Returns: 1 (+1 immediate cancellation)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: ~$35
Number of items listed this week: 35My goals this week is to keep up listing daily and begin building a draft bank. (I always start one and then usually use it up within a day or two 🙂 Have a good week, everyone!
Christine, I love those days when I get a few listings in before the kids get up… it always makes for a great day! Keep it up! I forgot to mention, but came back here to tell you that after our conversation on this thread, I went back and checked and could see that it had been a little over a year since doing a bulk “end and sell similar”… I used to do it so frequently that it stopped losing effectiveness. However, I DID IT that day and holy cow, I had a massive spike in impressions (like almost 100% increase for a day) and my page views doubled. (The number is gradually decreasing now to normal levels.) I did get a bunch of sales on the stale old listings too! So, there is definitely something to it. Thanks for the suggestion.
Sharyn, Ohioan here, and just stopping in to say that Ohio is one of the “lucky states” that has the blurb on the bottom of our 1040 that states: “If your refund is $1.00 or less, no refund will be issued. If you owe $1.00 or less, no payment is necessary.” So perhaps that will help put your mind at ease. 🙂
It really was a quiet week for me also. One “no sales” day and a few very low sales days… made me want to experiment with the new “Promoted Listing Advance” option. (Where you pay in advance for clicks.) What a joke and a waste of money. I put in a budget max of $5 daily. I immediately started getting clicks. Right away. Within less than a minute hit the budget. Not a single sale or offer, which was very disappointing. There is a report you can download to see the keywords searched that led to the clicks and I found everything so broad as to be non-sensical… for instance many of them were “mens shirt” or something similar. But I finally tried it and can now move on.
Total Items in Store: 837
Items Sold: 24
Gross Sales: $506.24 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $233.04 (minus all eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $39.03
Highest Price Sold: $32.95 (a pair of jeans with bandana patches which sold immediately)
Average Price Sold: $21.09
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: ~$115
Number of items listed this week: 32To fill the void left by the irreplaceable Scavenger Life podcast winding down, I started listening to daily refinement (not quite the same at all but it was what I found out there) however, listening to Tech, it always makes me get off my butt and start listing… How can I complain or find it hard to list 5 items a day when this guy has an entire warehouse he handmade out of boxes and tubing and lists like he does? He is all action and results. Consistent daily activity results in consistent daily sales… I decided to try that for myself and it is working well for me except it’s on a much smaller scale 🙂 I don’t want to pay for monthly coaching, I am way too cheap… however I like to listen to the free portion of the podcasts and I think having access to the knowledge base and the rest of the podcasts would be great!
Retro – I am speechless from your premium hoarding adventures… you are killing it! One never knows exactly what you will do or find next 🙂
Sharyn – You finally completed the auction! Congratulations! And very exciting about the Warhol! That must have been so exciting to watch the end of…
Lukastreasure – Thanks for your words of encouragement!
Hi Christine, Nice to hear from you again! Yes, I have done the “end and sell similar” many times for very old listings.. with some success… but at this point I have developed a morning coffee routine where I look through all the listings that are about to end for the day… and anything with “0” views I manually end, then tweak and relist as I have time throughout the day. Lots of the really old listings have bad titles, too-high pricing, no item specifics, etc. and once I “fix” it the items will start getting views and many times sell after the update. This way I figure I am slowly making improvements to the listings that are out of date or irrelevant in some way. I do know that the algorithm likes activity. It’s interesting that often times I will see a zero-view listing that has a discrepancy (like a return policy that is defunct, or it was a pair of men’s jeans listed in womens, haha – no wonder it was suppressed… I figure if it has gotten zero views in several months, it needs a closer look to fix what is broken!)
Hi Everyone, It has been a few YEARS since I posted here, but I have been following this group since my eBay journey started in 2015/16. You guys inspired me to begin eBay when I quit my full time job to stay at home and raise my kids. It has been life changing for me. I would like to start posting my numbers again more regularly. I stopped posting because I felt that I just wasn’t where I wanted to be in my business. Despite always working and spinning my wheels I was never making it to the next level and could never figure out the ‘magic formula’. Now, I have taken a long hard and humbling look as to WHY NOT, and the truth of the matter is that I was laser focused on getting my store number to above 1000 items (at one point I was almost up to 1300) but the more I loaded my store up with “stuff” it seemed the less my sell through rate became. I was filling my store with a few cool vintage items but also a lot of crappy stuff, sometimes just free stuff I found anywhere and everywhere like junky kids toys or worthless books, that had little or no value and it wasn’t anything that anybody wanted. My store was stale and experiencing no growth. SO… now in 2023 I have changed my course. Now, I am actively paring down and niching into clothes. (Super easy to source with kids – I have a thrift route and I can grab good cheap items extremely fast before the school bus comes, without a lot of time or thought. Listing is very quick and easy and packing is even better… no more glass that takes 45 minutes to construct custom double boxes, just slap the jeans in a poly mailer in 2 seconds, haha!) Also I am really focusing on certain brands and styles. My goal is to consistently list at least 5 items every single day… (wish it was more, but 5 is even a struggle because our schedule is so packed so I don’t always hit my goal.) I have less items in my store than I have had in years, but my numbers are looking the same or better than when I had more items. I am finding that I absolutely must rely on Promoted Listings in order to maintain good sales for clothing. (On a personal note, I found out I was pregnant in 2021 with #6 during Covid… at the young age of 46!!! My son was born with Down Syndrome which has been a journey in itself. Ebay had to take a back seat while coming to terms with the diagnosis and also we have physical and occupational and speech therapy at least 3x a week so this takes away A LOT of my listing time. My son is now 2 and thriving! He is along for the eBay ride everyday, from sourcing to “helping” me pack and especially trips to the post office! This Summer, my husband was also diagnosed with prostate cancer, so we are now adjusting to a “new normal”. Life sure does throw curveballs. But eBay has kept me sane through it all. I know everyone in this group can understand that.)
Anyway, sorry for the novel, but here are the NUMBERS 🙂
Week of 9/17 – 9/23
Total items in Store: 827
Items Sold: 24Gross Sales: $474.40 (including eBay fees, shipping and taxes)
Net Sales: $225.95 (minus all eBay fees and shipping costs)
Cost of Items Sold: $30.50
Highest Price Sold: $28.45 plus shipping (Kids North Face Jacket)
Average Sales Price: $19.76 (including eBay fees, shipping and taxes)
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $32
Number of new items listed: 17
