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We’ve pulled the specs sheets and the description from the manufacturer catalog. We’ve popped a listing up on eBay, but my guess is that we will have to get a bit more “industry specific” in our sales attempts? That is where we are at right now. It’s different. It’s a new challenge. And it should pay off.
Congratulations! I don’t see any mistakes, just some creative issues. Once they are overcome, you are golden.
I recently bought a lot of 24 items that I have no idea what they are. They are techie power distribution units for large scale computer racks. Our buy in per unit was just under $58 each. They were all new in box and retail between 2k and 2.5k. They are about 30 pounds each and about 8 feet long. When we bid, all I knew was that I wouldn’t go over $80 each and that they would cost about a benjamin a unit to ship UPS.
I have no idea what they are truly worth or how/where I would sell them, but I saw value.
Finger’s crossed for you my friend! The challenge, and recognizing value is what it is all about.
David
We manually leave feedback within 24 hours of shipment because we believe the buyer has fulfilled their obligation with the exception of the ones that simply don’t feel right (weird offer negotiation, weird questions pre purchase, and bigger ticket items going international).
While we can’t leave negative, we can put negative comments that warn potential future sellers– “Negative experience– buyer didn’t pay, seller beware” “Buyer attempted partial refund extortion”
We don’t do it often, but if they are serial problems we are hoping we are helping someone down the line.
And I forgot to add they might be oversized so the storage fees might be elevated. I would investigate that before pulling the trigger.
I would be careful?
Based on size, they will cost a bit to ship in.
The sales rank makes it a long seller so it begs the question whether you ship it all at once and pay a lot in storage fees or ship 10 or so at a time and hold the rest at home?
The reviews are not great. Not always a killer, but they can be. Given the sales rank I would be leery. My guess is that if you drop the price, sales pick up.
If it were me, I would probably pass. If I decided to do it, I would ship 20 in, drop the price to about 16 and see what happens. Ship the next shipment according to that response.
Our eBay sales have gone in the proverbial crapper as well.
It’s interesting because I have been trying to determine a correlation with new listing. We stopped listing as we worked on other things and our sales went down. Last weekend we cranked out 35 new listings. We had a slight bump, but not anything exciting.
I attribute our issues to two things– lack of consistent listing and just the general tbings that are happening– tax time, spring break, etc.
Despite this, my mantra has always been “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.” We have switched what we do with Amazon and things are picking up quickly. Our rental still pays. And eBay will pick up again for us. Of this I am sure. And we will list this weekend to make it happen.
Just the category approval. We have been approved for years and now it is gone. Restricted brands have remained steady and I haven’e seen any new brands restricted in the last month or so.
They have been aggresively blocking brands and categories requiring a fee to then become ungated. They have been pretty random in who they grandfathered in and who had to apply.
When they opened up the category they took away our authorization. I assume that happened across the board. If they now close the category in a month or two everyone will have to reapply. They’ve set it up so no one is grandfathered.
I really hope I am wrong. All that drives my theory is a basic mistrust of Amazon and it’s history of making it harder, not easier, for third party merchants to sell. Making it easier in such a huge category that could really get screwed up with knock off products is counterintuitive to what they have been doing. Something else is coming.
And today they just opened up Health and Personal Care so you no longer need approval to sell.
It’s an interesting development in a time where they are becoming more restrictive rather than less.
I have my theories, but they are simply conspriracy theories and nothing more.
Jay,
It has been difficult to gauge the reaction to the changes on AZ recently. I think the prevailing theory is most just adjusted their prices to pass the fees on to the consumer. There is a small subset that apparently ignored all of the announcements about fee increases and then where shocked that they paid high LTSF’s and were losing money on their low dollar sale items. I think a lot of inefficient small sellers are leaving the platform and several small to medium sellers are being pushed out by the gating.
I think the big sellers are still just plugging along.
The “what happened to sales” threads are typically a joke because everyone puffs their numbers but I have seen several recently where bigger sellers are being seemingly more candid and admitting sales are down.
The folks that were making really thin margins on penny books appear to be gone.
But those are just my observations as a small seller. It is so hard to evaluate anything that happens on Amazon.
David
michael d,
He was referencing a sentence in your earlier post.
I agree with you. We have transitioned to primarily FBM and are doing pretty well, but it requires more effort. In the meantime we are changing our eBay plan and busting it out to make that a bigger percentage of our margins.
Mike at MDC,
I just wanted to thank you for all the insight and research you do for others.
While I don’t sell most of the types of things you research and respond to, I always appreciate the education and insightful things you post.
whiskey
