Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Yeah, I agree. People are tightening their belts, plus we have large swaths of the government getting furloughed or fired. I think people are scared economically right now.
I have a lot of stuff listed on FB (and a bunch of supposed-followers of my FB store), but beyond that I don’t really use social media to market my items. Occasionally I’ll post something to enthusiast groups on FB (like posting an old camera to a camera collector group), but it rarely results in sales. I’m just not that into social media in general. @MyCottage, how are you using social media to drive sales?
I guess at least I’m not alone. Yeah, eBay definitely punishes you for turning off promoted listings. I just set the rate at the lowest possible (I think it’s 2% now) and only promote items that are more common and have more competitors. Of course, given my lack of success lately, maybe I’m doing it all wrong.
One time I turned off my promoted listings entirely and it least felt like eBay basically shut off my store for a couple weeks until I relented and turned it back on (at least for some of my listings).
Has anyone tried the offsite promoted listings where it’s pay per click? I’m guessing it would not be worth it for obscure vintage items, but I’m wondering if anyone has gone down that road.
This year has been my worst ever. Basically, my resell business has been in decline the last few years. My profits declined about 60% from 2022 to 2023, stayed about the same in 2024, and then have dropped another 30% from that 2024 level for this year. I’ve had several months this year where I’ve lost money with my business. Luckily, I have a part time job that pays the bills.
I don’t really think I’m doing anything different than I had been before. I guess people just don’t want as much niche vintage stuff as they used to.
Etsy is down. Ebay is down. Facebook Marketplace is something I’ve started using more recently and it has added some sales, thankfully. But of course the cost of rent/living has gone up substantially the last 3 years.
Sorry, I haven’t checked this in a bit. Here’s my sixbit referral link, if you are interested. You can set it up however you want as far as refreshes. I have my items in quantity set up to not renew automatically every 30 days, unlike my other listings. https://www.sixbitsoftware.com/clients/aff.php?aff=369.
There are definitely cheaper alternatives, although at least I know Sixbit is reliable. It’s difficult to switch, but if you have good luck with another cheaper option, please provide an update.
I use Sixbit, which allows me to quickly crosspost items between eBay and Etsy. It lets me schedule listings, ends and relists every 30 days, and acts as an inventory management system (allowing you to print a pick list of all items that have sold), and detects when items sell and ends them if they are listed on the other site. It’s kind of pricy, but the company is very responsive if you have problems. It only works on Windows (not based in the cloud). If you are interested, let me know and I’ll send you my referral code.
I use Sixbit and it has worked well for me. It allows me to cross list pretty quickly between eBay and Etsy. It also allows the creation of templates, which is nice, and it has inventory management built in so I can print a pick list when it’s time to ship items that have sold. It has a lot of features if you are willing to dig in and learn them. It’s a desktop program (not web based), which is good because you have more control over everything, but also stinks because you have to have your PC online at all times so it can detect when something has sold and end the listing on the other platform. Your database of listings and photos is also kept local on your own machine.
If you are interested in giving it a shot, let me know and I’ll post my referral code here.
Yeah, eBay was restricting views on my listings, but they didn’t send me a message or anything telling me about it. Only way I found out was by talking to customer service. They restricted my views because of various VERO strikes over the years in combination with some items that were taken down due to other issues (most notably the emissions policy thing). I guess it was a cumulative penalty. It’s like your account gets a little check mark every time you screw something up. Get too many and they start thinking you are a bad seller.
I looked at the numbers for a month before the “guard rails” were lifted and the month after and sales were up about 20 percent. Not really sure that’s enough to say it had a direct effect, but at least sales improved. Overall, my sales this year have been very slow. Seems like mainly very low dollar items are selling. My store really relies on higher dollar sales to make money, since I don’t do much volume.
eBay for business seems like it is helpful most of the time. However, eBay customer service over the phone has improved dramatically lately. I haven’t talked to a foreign rep for the last 4 or 5 times I’ve called, where before it was only foreign reps (and usually poorly trained ones with terrible call quality to boot).
The VERO strikes could have triggered some kind of restrictions on your account. Best way to tell is to try and list something from a well-known brand and see if you get an error message.
Update: I won an appeal with eBay to remove the restriction on my account! I’m so relieved.
I contacted eBay for Business on Facebook. They explained that these restrictions are generally not something they appeal and the “guard rails” can only be removed manually by a special team at eBay. I carefully laid out my case why I felt this was an unfair restriction on my account and asked if the rep could forward my appeal to the proper department. Finally, after talking to and messaging so many eBay CS reps, this one listened, understood my situation, recognized that I was not the enemy, and actually knew who to contact to remedy the problem. He forwarded it to the proper team and the team responded in less than 2 hours that I had won the appeal (he estimated to hear back in 48-72 hours). Looks like it was an easy decision for them. It just required a human actually looking at it rather than an algorithm.
Actually, eBay is being sued by the feds for $2 billion for selling emissions defeating devices (notably the “rolling coal” modifications).
Anyway, I guess I’ll see how things go. I’m now getting paranoid since I’ve only made 1 sale in the 3 days since that listing was blocked, which is very unusual for me. In July, it will be one year since the initial violation, so I’m hoping it might drop off my account. Fingers crossed.
<p style=”text-align: left;”>I did not start selling on Etsy until after the pandemic started, so I don’t have any numbers to compare, but you probably have a good point. Definitely my eBay numbers are down versus the covid sale frenzy.</p>
I also think the Hollywood strikes are affecting my Etsy sales (and eBay, too). I mainly sell vintage hard goods and many of the high dollar purchases in my store were from prop houses and various productions.You might try joining some vintage rug collector groups on Facebook and see if you can post your item directly to those potential buyers.
