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Some neat stuff, and I agree with Nancy….I think the prices are definitely helped by the YouTube videos. I’ve often thought that Video would be a good way to drive auction traffic…I’m impressed!
Nancy, thanks again for bring this to our attention!Thanks Nancy! Interesting….looks like she lives only a few hours away from me….I’ll have to watch some of the videos and see if I recognize any of her thrifting spots LOL
Nancy, Interesting. Would you be OK sharing the YouTuber’s ID….I’d like to see how she does it.
Badly truncated descriptions in Mobile have been around for some years now. If I recall, they provided html to use so you could select the portion of your description you wanted to show ( I think that had a character count limit). And initially, I think they said to front load the important stuff in your description, because they were pulling from there for the truncated mobile description, but pretty sure they dropped that and now an algo or AI selects what is shown, often with misleading results.
This is why I never get upset when buyers ask me questions that are clearly answered in the description….I figure the odds are good the buyer is on mobile and didn’t click “read more”.
I’ve pretty much given up trying to write for Mobile. I write for the PC reader and just hope for the best when it comes to mobile buyers. But even for the PC reader, I usually try to write short descriptions. I really have only one non-description phrase in there, something about “see my other items” and I might take that out because too often ebay uses it for part of the truncated description, when it’s really superfluous. But I long ago removed anything to do with returns, etc…any kind of TOS.
Jay,
As I can attest, the “ebay will be gone by the end of this year, mark my words!” sort of thing has been going on for far longer….it’s a constant refrain on the ebay Boards and on the Comments section of ecommercebytes. Of course, some day, they’ll be right, since nothing lasts forever. Even Jeff Bezos has said Amazon won’t be around forever. (Although I’m not sure he really believes that LOL)almasty, “The “eggs in one basket” is not about the sites continuing to exist, but about policy changes and competition that might build up on them.” And that’s my point about ebay….20 years, and not only is ebay still there, but neither the policies nor the competition has rendered it unprofitable for me. Of course, every sellers different. Policies I can live with, others can’t. Sellers in some categories might feel the competition has become too much…etc. But for me, as long as it is working, I don’t feel a strong need to look elsewhere. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to sell multi channel, just that it isn’t always necessary, and there is some risk in it. Just as there is some risk in sticking to primarily one channel. We each have to weigh the pros and cons, and make our choices based on our individual businesses.
Jay, Very good point. Multiple streams of income don’t all have to be from the same type of work. I understand multi channel selling IF a seller can make it really work, but I agree—there’s a real risk of becoming stretched too thin, and of losing focus on what matters.
I tend to think the “eggs in one basket” argument is overblown. I’ve been on ebay 20 years : ebay still exists, it’s still profitable, and , while not everything ebay does makes me happy, ebay has never done anything that made me even come close to saying: That’s it! I’m out of here!
And as the Facebook example shows, if ebay (or my ebay business) collapses, there are other ways to make selling online work. Probably always will be.
Jay, Yeah, I think people will always find ways to do this….I sometimes worry about too many people doing this, too much competition, but I remind myself it’s like anything else with a low entry requirement, eventually a lot of the competition fades away. This sort of thing isn’t for everyone.
almasty, I’m basically ebay, but I agree….no harm in selling multi channel IF it doesn’t cut into your time too much.
Congratulations! I think there’s a heartwarming Hallmark Christmas special in here somewhere—The Christmas Thrifting Miracle
Jay, Here’s one. These guys converted an old building into an indoor flea market of sorts, with some stuff from vendors, and some stuff they get at auctions, wholesale lots or what have you. So, they have a B&M location for pick ups and of course people can just come in a and shop. They also shoot the auctions in the location. Not sure just when they go live but you can go to the Facebook page and scroll down, the old auctions can be replayed to give you a sense of how they do this. People “bid” via the chat. I think as long as they are selling stuff they own, they don’t need an auctioneer’s license.
They seem to be having fun, but it’s definitely a lot of work. I don’t plan on trying it, I just find it interesting to see the many ways in which people use the Interwebs to make money. And maybe ebay should be watching, because if this becomes a trend, that’s a lot of stuff that won’t be sold on ebay. Well, except for the stuff people are buying from these guys in order to resell it on ebay LOLJay, What’s interesting to me about the Facebook “auctions” is that , it appears once you have a decent following, you can sell a lot of stuff in a few hours. Now, whether these guys are really making much is hard to say, and how long does it take to build an audience is also a question. The ones I’m familiar with are all pretty localized. But I admit I’m sometimes amazed at how much stuff they unload…
I do know quite a few people use Instagram to promote their ebay listings. And I know some are using Instagram (and Facebook) to make sales directly. Instagram definitely requires building up a following, and I would guess it really helps to stay within a niche (in order to develop the following).
On a related note, is anyone else noticing the rise of what I’m calling Facebook Auctions? Or is this just a local thing? In my local area we have at least two guys who buy stuff for resale and then auction it off on Facebook , similar to a live auction. Again, I’m pretty sure you’ve got to develop a following for this to work, but I’m curious whether anyone else has seen it? I’m guessing their inspiration was not so much ebay as the vendors of stuff like Paparazzi jewelry, who do something similar with the stuff they get through their supplier.
06/01/2019 at 8:32 pm in reply to: Apparel retail earnings haven’t been this bad since the Great Recession #62799I wonder whether this could become a trend beyond the higher-end fashion industry? Will we see , say, Home Depot getting into used power tools? Vintage hardware? And so forth….
As an ebay seller, I do hope ebay is paying attention. Be kind of funny (and sad) if they were to be pushing new stuff just when there’s a boom in pre-owned.
06/01/2019 at 2:58 pm in reply to: Apparel retail earnings haven’t been this bad since the Great Recession #62783And then there’s this, which suggests those of us selling pre-owned clothing might not be in a abd position, assuming we have the desired brands:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/01/business/neiman-marcus-hm-used-clothes/index.html
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