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I watch Daily Refinement when I have time, and he’s a great believer in having a system. For a while, I think he was selling only shoes (mostly new from retail arbitrage) but I think now he’s selling only used clothing (and maybe only mens?)….but his main emphasis is on having time saving systems in place. There are multiple advantages to selling in a niche like this: you can develop deeper knowledge about what to source (since you are concentrating on just one area), you can develop a process to photo and inventory and list , you don’t need a huge diversity of shipping supplies on hand, and so forth. My impression is, a lot of what he sells is bread and butter stuff, most of it isn’t high end or real vintage, but he knows which brands to buy and how much well, how little) to pay, and….he has ready access to sources for this kind of stuff.
Better half and I, like most scavengers, source yard sales, etc, and there’s no real consistency in what we find, so we are opportunists….if we can resell it for a decent profit, we are likely to buy it. But like NC, I do see the attraction in what Chris is doing….by simplifying his sourcing, he’s simplifying his process and that makes it possible to list and sell in quantity.
Yeah, not sure why he mentioned the 25 years worth of data, except that it might be useful to indicate long term trends (ten years ago, so and so was a hot seller, today, it isn’t…etc….
But the price guide thing he’s actually talking about is exclusive to trading cards, and I’m pretty sure is using very up to date pricing based on actual sales. I don’t sell trading cards, I don’t know how good the info is, I’ve seen one guy say its terrible and another guy say it’s very , very good IF you take the time to drill down. I can’t comment because I haven’t looked at it and don’t sell in that category anyway.
For most of what I sell, ebay solds, Terapeak and/or Worthpoint, plus occasionally a few other sites, do an adequate job. That and my gut feeling. But trading cards , at least some, have become more like buying and selling stocks, short term price fluctuations can be very important.
I sold books on Amazon years ago, and I believe that basic rule was around then as well. If you don’t go pro, your shipping options are limited. I finally stopped selling on Amazon—I didn’t hate it or anything, but I realized I just preferred ebay as a selling platform.
So Cal Joe,
referencing your question, one thing that can come up with ebay (especially with books). You can provide Media Mail as an option for your buyer, BUT if you listed your book in any other category (such as “sports>Golf” for books on golf) and the buyer chooses Media Mail, you will not be able to ship via Media Mail with ebay labels. As far as ebay labels is concerned, it isn’t a book if it isn’t in the Book category, and so it can’t go Media Mail. When that happens, savvy sellers use PayPal labels, Pirate Ship or some other label printer. Less savvy sellers end up using ebay labels and paying more for Parcel Select or whatever.
I guess ebay does this to discourage abuse of Media Mail, but for those of us who don’t abuse Media Mail and just want the convenience of ebay labels , it is an annoyance.
Antique Frog,
OMG, I am going to have to try that!!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Yeah, Chris is one of the few YouTube “Gurus” I can watch without feeling like I’m wasting time….
I agree with the basic principle when it comes to long tail one offs. However, one thing I suspect has been happening, especially with promoted listings, is buyers who are NOT actively looking for my item end up buying it as more of an impulse buy. And this is really similar to early day ebay, when the amount of stuff on the site was low enough that buyers could just stumble across something they might never have heard of, and suddenly decide they want it. Basically, it’s what I think of as the difference between “search” and “discovery”.
In any event, I’ve never really done anything effective with social media, but just yesterday I was put into a beta test ebay is running…I’ll skip the details, but essentially if I direct a buyer to one of my items through social media (limited to certain sites and how I create the link), and the buyer buys the item within 30 days (or other items of mine that can be traced back to my social media link), I’ll get an FVF credit and a credit of the 30 cent transaction fee as well. So, especially with the Summer Slow Down still going on, it seems like a good time for me to try to develop my social media efforts.
I know there will be a learning curve, but once past that, if I can limit the amount of time I need to spend on social media work (which shouldn’t be hard), I will be happy to try to both increase my sales velocity and reduce my fees. Right now sales have been slow enough that it’s a good time to focus on this stuff.
Still, I do see what you guys are saying….keep it simple, list, and list some more. Nothing wrong with that. And I might eventually decide that that is still the best approach for me. But for now, for me, I’ll give this a try.
Maybe “brand” is not the best choice of words?
ebay is not talking about the “branding” that some Amazon sellers do , basically slapping a brand name of their own on some unbranded AliBaba stuff…and this isn’t about having a brand the way “Coke” is a brand. It’s more about giving your store a recognizable name, logo, and so forth, maybe a backstory. But this is just basic business stuff. For example, if I have a “billboard” on my store, probably a good idea to use the same design on my Facebook business page….for “brand consistency”.
This is my take on where ebay is trying to go with this. Under Donahoe and even more so Wenig, ebay was all about the LISTING andf the ebay CATALOG, not the individual store or the seller. Sellers (as on Amazon, to a great extent) existed merely as inventory suppliers, with little ability to actively market their own business. Now, under new management, we can at least try to impact our own sales: seller initiated offers, coded coupons, etc. In short, we can function more as independent retailers rather than shelf stockers. And that’s what I think the Stores Team is aiming for: increase our ability to develop our own customer base by distinguishing ourselves from other sellers. (This might also help stop some of the “race to the bottom” on prices).
I realize that this is easier for a store that serves a definite niche. If I sold only nineteenth century photos, for example, I could “brand” myself a little easier than “I sell whatever I can find to flip” But, I don’t think it’s impossible to do this, and I think ebay is trying to give us more tools so we can try to do this (if we want to).
So ebay is revamping store newsletters, is working to change store design so we can do more to attract buyers , and making it easier to use social media.
The foundation of any scavenger type business will always be: List, list, list. That’s just the nature of selling primarily long tail one-offs, rather than multi quantity popular items. And I think an ebay seller can be successful with: keep listing. But I think what ebay is trying to do is provide us with the tools to increase our sales velocity even with long tail one offs.
Hope this makes sense.
Jay, Agreed. I’m hoping they can have that live before Q4….it would make the Holiday Season a lot smoother.
Do you have any suggestions about store design/functionality for me to forward to the Stores Team? I know they are looking at a few things right now….making it easier to work with social media, adding video to listings and the store’s “about me” section (without the need to first load to YouTube), adding optional banners to the store home page to announce if you are running a sale, or just want to highlight a particular category (right now I have a public coded coupon promotion going, but you’d never know it looking at my store home page). There’s other stuff too.
I think the basic idea is to give store sellers more ability to “brand” themselves…
One nice thing if you use the custom label … we use the new packing slip, and have it set to print out with the custom label info on the packing slip. Since I handle shipping for both accounts (mine, the better half’s), I can pull stuff just by looking at the packing slips. Also, I believe it carries over into the order info in Seller Hub, so there are a couple places you can find it.
(some people use the CL field for multiple data points, we don’t….but I know I’m not the only one who has asked ebay to provide us with more than one Custom Label field for each listing….)
Carol, One place you can do it…Seller Hub>Active Listings>there is a column for Custom Label….you can just add it there. (I’m not sure, the column might not be there by default, but you can customize the Active Listings page grid). Since we don’t put our stuff away until after it is listed, this works best for us. very quick and easy.
I didn’t get to attend all the sessions, will watch videos as time permits. A few things to note:
ebay is working on a way to add immediate payment to best offers, might have that launched within the next few months. And expect immediate payment to be added to auctions sometime in 2022. No details on just how this will work.
ebay is working to add more payout flexibility to Managed Payments, and also to make it a “wallet”, so we can not only use it to pay for ebay shipping labels but also to buy stuff on ebay (and maybe more). Not sure of a timeline here.
A number of design changes coming to stores, some very soon, some probably within the next few months.
No timeline for this one, but they are actively working on it: if a store owner provides a link to his ebay item on social media, and a buyer buys the item due to that link, the FVF will be a flat 2.56% (plus the 30 cent transaction fee). Again, no details, and my guess is the devil, as he so often is, will be in the details.
As some of you know, I had a Zoom meeting a while ago with an ebay employee working on the packing Slip Coded Coupon changes, and many of the things we discussed were incorporated in those tools (no, I’m not taking credit, just saying the discussion was worth having.
I’ve been invited to Zoom with a Stores Team member about store changes…not sure if and when that will actually happen. BUT….would love input from you guys. What would you like to see changed when it comes to ebay store design and functionality? (This isn’t about store subscription levels, it’s about store design and functionality.)
For those who might be interested:
Here’s a link to all the video replays currently available from ebay Open 2021. I don’t know if they’ll be making more available later.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHVEVK6whrNbg_vbVUhwFsproCtkCYEoU
The coupon and Seller Initiated Offer. At the time you send the offer, you can designate whether to send a coupon or not. The coupon is NOT applied to the same transaction and can’t be used for the item you offered the buyer. The buyer ONLY sees the coupon IF he accepts the offer OR if it times out…if he actually declines, he doesn’t see the offer at all.
So, I would probably not send a message about the coupon with the offer itself. I think it’s intended more as 1. Thanks for accepting my offer OR 2. So my offer didn’t appeal, but here’s a coupon for some other stuff you might like….
