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Ryanne: I agree that we never have any “control” over sales. If we did, this business would be a WHOLE lot easier.
But (back to the fishing analogy)… we can change the bait. If anything, we are all fishing out there. Putting bait out there to see if it will land a fish. Sometimes the bait is right, but the fish that will want that bait only comes around every 5 years. Bait is good, just have to wait.
Sometimes, the bait is old and just needs to be switched out.
Or I’m fishing for the wrong fish.
All case by case basis…
Does it make a sale happen? No. Can it improve your chances? Possibly.
Ryanne: I can see you in your sun hat cranking out on the laptop! š
Jay: “So you revisit old items to check photos, titles, price. We dont have a schedule, but we do this every so often.”
That was my only point. You agree with me that at some point, some old listings need to be reviewed to see if they need updating, need repricing, and if the market is still there for them. So if large inventory sellers like you guys (6,000+ items) can do this type of review, then we should all make that kind of review.
As to any kind of evidence you would need that doing certain work yields better results…you will never see it. Unless someone has two complete stores, with EXACTLY the same items (I mean double listing), and they A/B test every item that has been discussed (GTC vs 30 Day, Free Shipping vs Charged Shipping, Free Returns vs Charged Returns, Updating Old Listings vs Never See It Again)…you will NEVER have the evidence you need to convince you that one method is better than another.
So just like when you are sourcing…you have to go with your gut.
And I don’t think that there will ever be a “gamechanger” that you will ever adopt. Because a tectonic shift in this business doesn’t occur. But small changes add up. If you sell a little faster here, for a little more money there, saving some money on this item…you can move the needle. If you see the market drying up on this item, but opening up on this other item, you can make a big change over time. Like us with shoes. It has become a very nice “pipeline” (I always liked your term!) for us. We didn’t have it last year. We have it this year. It took time to learn and grow the inventory (and we are still growing).
I find that many people underestimate the small advantages (and disadvantages) in life. Habits matter. Process matters. Many people search for that “One Big Thing” that will change their life. Want to change your life? Make your bed. Eat a good meal. Take a walk. Are you amazingly better today than yesterday? No. Are you on the path to being a completely different person? Yes.
So I never look for or wait for a gamechanger to change what I’m doing or how I see the world. I look at small moves, test them out, see if they work, and implement if they work. If you move your aim just a fraction of an inch, your trajectory is vastly different over three miles. Life is a long road, so small changes change your destiny. Constant growth and change…
And I disagree somewhat with why our inventory is growing. Yes, our long tail items are growing. There is no denying that. But we are now listing 150+ items a week. Since March, our number of new weekly listings created is up 80% over last year. When you list 80% more each week than what you did last year…that is going to grow your inventory… š
Mike: we will do this regularly. Stuff we want to move will be added to a Clearance Sale category, then we run a sale on that category.
Inglewood: And a good fisherman is ALWAYS learning.
Every true Master I have ever met was always improving their craft.
I figure my deathbed will have an open book Iām still reading…or at least a podcast that is currently playing…
LOL! ššš
That fits perfectly!
Reposting since my edit killed the post (I should know better!)
Jay: OK, lots of ‘splaining…
“How often are you revisiting your listings? What if the photos and titles look good, but its still not selling? How much do you lower the price? How often are you lowering the price?”
All on a case by case basis. We usually have a review each quarter to look at old listings. Now, if we just reviewed and item last quarter and were fine with it, we will probably let it go. Takes 5 seconds. “Nah, already looked. Listing was good, still ok with pricing, just need to wait.” So we don’t always make a change.
Many times we realize the item is just flat out long tail, everything was good, just have to wait. If it is still there say a year later, we may do another market price check to make sure pricing is good. We may change, we may not. Just having the review doesn’t mean you HAVE to make a change. You are just checking in. But if we see that others are selling for much lower prices, yeah, maybe we are too high.
“–You’re lowering prices just to feel you have some control over sales. Revisit & lower price several times and you have a suddenly store of $5 items. It’s much easier to just put on a storewide sale if that makes you feel better. We’ve never seen sales rise with discounts, but I guess it makes us feel like we did something. It’s a bad habit IMHO.”
Totally agree. But I never said we ALWAYS change prices. Always changing prices would be, well, stupid. We can do a check and see what other Solds have been recently, and maybe we change and maybe we don’t. But I never have a blanket rule that we ALWAYS change prices.
“–Lets say you revisit long tail items you listed 3 months ago. The photos, titles, and descriptions looks pretty good. Maybe you adjust some. Then what happens if they dont sell in six months. Do you think you need to keep further refining titles/photos/description?”
Nope. See above. Plus, I don’t revisit items I listed 3 months ago. Our average range is 120 days from listing to sold. I said we look at OLD items. Since we use a next number SKU, I can sort our listings in SixBit and review the oldest items (lowest SKU) only. Last time I think the list was like 50-75 items.
–Depending on how often you revisit listings, you waste a lot of time when you could be listing new items. As I and Almasty have broken down the math, there’s no extra carrying costs for an inventory under 10k once you pay for the Anchor subscription. So any worry is more just a self-created sense of “something must be wrong”. When long tail items dont sell for a while, I dont feel there’s anything wrong.
Our review is probably about 2 hours long total, spread out over 30 days. We set the item to no longer automatically relist, and when we see that the item isn’t listed, we do a check. We have caught errors in listings. We have realized we were on crack when we priced it. Or…the sucker just is a bad buy. Been there forever, no views, no bites, no solds. At some point, it is just a bad buy. We can either slash to move or just get rid of it.
“–If your goal is to increase profits and move items quickly, then it totally makes sense to “list and revisit”. But if you’re goal is to create a steady state income stream, “List and forget” works. ”
Yes, list it and forget it works. However, I think we have a pretty steady state income stream right now as well. Our weekly numbers are solid and we are happy with them. There are lots of ways to make steady income in this business.
“Tsatt, since you seem to be more in charge of scavenging and selling contemporary clothes in your store (and your wife doing the long tail items), I have a sense that your personality isn’t suited to long tail scavenging. You are great at finding items with high demand, and then equally great pricing super competitively to great velocity. Would you say this is true? ”
Nope. I purposely went into clothing so that we had a different style of income. When we would visit the stores when it was all hard goods, I noticed that we only hit the outside of the store. We never checked the clothing. After doing research, I could see that the profit was there, was a faster velocity, but lower margins. Hard goods only can work, but requires a much larger inventory to have consistent sales. So we added a new stream with faster velocity at lower margin. This can feed cash into the business and provide an offset to slow hard good sales.
After that, we started to include shoes and Veronica is loving them. It gives her a stream that we can source year round, but at great ASP and STR. We are expanding that area now, and gives us three different styles of income.
I have no issue with long tail items as long as the money is there. We have a $2k print that we are still sitting on. We consigned on the Dicken’s Village for 18 months (a saga that is still ongoing for final payment). We have had lots of items that sold years after it was listed. If the money is there, we sit and wait. I have no issue with that at all.
I’m just saying that from a business perspective, a review of non-selling items is a worthwhile task. You catch errors, you change your thinking, you review the market for the item to see if pricing still makes sense…you see if your thought on that item from 5 years ago is still valid today. Obsolescence is a risk…ask anyone that still has their Hummels…
There are two big risks in this business that I see: Selling for too little margin (and burning out) and obsolescence. Both are a risk, and I work to minimize both.
I think it is always worth challenging your thoughts (in many areas of life). You either reaffirm that your thinking was right…or you learn something new.
Jay: Thanks for the compliment on the metaphor. As a fisherman and hunter, I have that perspective.
Question: Which fisherman are you?
Top Rated Sellers get the shipping discount. Outside of that…can’t think of anything. Maybe a boost in search, but who knows with Cassini…
Does your spritz help with just ticks? or other bugs as well?
We are lucky with very few ticks around here (I only worry during deer and elk hunting season when dealing with the hides).
We were hit or miss at SA. When we had gone a few years ago, too overpriced. Then this one was doing well, and having 50% off days during the week (loved that). Then the discount days disappeared, the prices went up…and they closed.
07/10/2018 at 1:29 pm in reply to: New shipping label page on eBay is costing me more than classic shipping page! #45027Ouch. Looks like you aren’t getting the Top Rated Seller discount on that page.
I would call eBay, have them see the issue (you can send them screen shots if you have to). They need to get that fixed an give you a reimbursement.
I’m going to keep an eye on our prices in ShipRush. Should be different and OK, but better to make sure.
Went to the Salvation Army in Thornton on Saturday. 75% off sale, only a few good items.
They said that the one in Parker and Colorado Springs were staying open. I guess they weren’t pulling the revenue they needed and wanted to focus on Rehab programs.
They did say that they may open new ones in about a year.
Very good sounding recipe!
Interesting on how they roast the Spaghetti Squash. We usually cut in half to start with, then roast them at 400 for 25 minutes face down.
Love Spaghetti Squash!
Theresa: I did a check on our listings. We have either Top Rated Seller+ badges (99%) or no badge at all (on the items we didn’t provide Free Returns.
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