Ebay Sales Down

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by paparoke

I have no doubt, Ebay is masking a bunch of my items, even though I promote @ 2%. I feel this to be true, because I list my cards in batches that are identified by batch. It seems like when I sell, they typically come from the same batch of listings, which tells me that they might be sporadically putting my listings out there in batches. Would anyone(hopefully people who have 1K+ listings) like to conduct an experiment in listing visibility? I think if we get a group of us(maybe 10 or more) to randomly check and annotate our listing count for each other over a 30 day period, we might be able to see if this is true. It would be a concerted effort, but I'd be interested in seeing the results. It would probably be good to have several from different regions of the US too.

I have noticed similar. I have a signifier to let me know where to find the card when it sells. I have noticed that I get multiple sales from one signifier on random stuff that has been sitting there for quite some time. It's happened too often to be a coincidence. The only difference I think is mindset. I think of it as when I hit the one sale it boosts the visibility for the other cards in that neighborhood. It's why I spend so much effort trying to "game" the search algorithm.

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by shrevecity

Seriously wondering why? Look around there is less disposable income. The dollar is crashing. There is alot of economic uncertainty so people just are not spending.
And yes some members here would rather complain and gripe instead of making adjustments. Hence they are stuck

I am listing 75 to 150 items a day on top of a ft JOB to only hit 8 items a day. If it was not for ESE I would maybe be at 2 to 3 items a day. Lets go back to that clown who was banned about 2 months ago who found some great model for selling and was supposedly raking it in without sharing any so called knowledge what are your suggestions to adapt? Surely you have some wealth of expertise to add rather than ridicule others here.

[jamcas997]

This is me the last 16 months after fees and expenses. I have had 2 great months since last August and I think people getting tax returns contributed quite a bit. I was on track to do over $50 k last year and September flopped.


Jan $4,715.23
Feb $4,269.06
Mar $3,747.16
Apr $5,548.21
May $4,075.73
Jun $3,353.10
Jul $5,072.83
Aug $4,159.12
Sep $2,252.60
Oct $2,135.52
Nov $2,483.31
Dec $2,055.33
$43,867.20


Jan $2,644.68
Feb $1,879.04
Mar $7,700.75
Apr $4,201.74

[BigRedMachine80]

I've never been a big seller and I only sell from Spring Training until about June and again during the post season. But I've listed more items this year than years past and my gross sales are way down compared to 2022. Of course, 2022 numbers were stellar as I was able to unload most of my Corbin Carroll shares.

[beauspencer]

The formula is pretty simple. If the 75 to 150 items per day listed are not resulting in sales, pivot to something else.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by jamcas997

I am listing 75 to 150 items a day on top of a ft JOB to only hit 8 items a day. If it was not for ESE I would maybe be at 2 to 3 items a day. Lets go back to that clown who was banned about 2 months ago who found some great model for selling and was supposedly raking it in without sharing any so called knowledge what are your suggestions to adapt? Surely you have some wealth of expertise to add rather than ridicule others here.

You have to find what works for you, suggestions are made almost daily here. If its not working then move to something else. My issue is just sitting around complaining about the same thing over and over. Thats insanity. Like shipping prices there is no need complaining about them (bet you have not even noticed many went down in recent weeks.) Costs are going up everywhere, its not just you, its not just shipping cost its everything. So you need to make adjustments to your sales. Buyers will adjust.

You often complain about buyers wanting instant gratification. Well the days of waiting 6 to 8 weeks to get items you ordered through the mail are long gone(1980s) so are the days of waiting 30 days for internet items to arrive. If an item has not arrived a week after payment then you should expect a claim to be opened its just the way it is no need to gripe about it or anything. Thats an adjustment all sellers should make.

Your STR is low but not horribly low. You say you are selling 8 to 10 items a day on 3200 listings so you are about 5 to 10 items short of where it should be. That could be simple fix as an algorithm adjustment you need to make to some of your listings or something with your listings as they sit.

Another thing is I find if I list when I am stressing out over things it comes out in my listings and my sales suffer for it. Sometimes its not about listing everyday sometimes stepping away for a day or 2 is more beneficial for YOU.

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by beauspencer

The formula is pretty simple. If the 75 to 150 items per day listed are not resulting in sales, pivot to something else.

It is a mix of numbered , parallels , refractors and autos/gu. Mainly stars , rookies and prospects with a few common players to round it out. Mainly Baseball , football , and a few basketball with hockey below a trickle. There is nowhere to PIVOT to except base, commons or junk era commons. On top of garbage economy and people not spending as much due to vaca time coming it is also the ebay algorithm and throttling which we can never prove.

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by beauspencer

The formula is pretty simple. If the 75 to 150 items per day listed are not resulting in sales, pivot to something else.

I mean I guess I could list my Jeter , Griffey Jr , Ichiro , Betts , and Trout numbered stuff and autos for $1.50 free shipping and watch my sales increase at a complete loss it that is what you mean by pivot.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by beauspencer

The formula is pretty simple. If the 75 to 150 items per day listed are not resulting in sales, pivot to something else.

Pretty straight forward.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by jamcas997

It is a mix of numbered , parallels , refractors and autos/gu. Mainly stars , rookies and prospects with a few common players to round it out. Mainly Baseball , football , and a few basketball with hockey below a trickle. There is nowhere to PIVOT to except base, commons or junk era commons. On top of garbage economy and people not spending as much due to vaca time coming it is also the ebay algorithm and throttling which we can never prove.

Yes you can prove the brownouts happen. Been in there for at least 20 years now.

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/m...ment?id=4259#6

6. Listing Conditions
When listing an item for sale on our Services, you agree to comply with eBay's Listing policies and Selling practices policy and also agree that:

You assume full responsibility for the item offered and the accuracy and content of the listing,
Your listing may not be immediately searchable by keyword or category for several hours (or up to 24 hours in some circumstances). eBay can't guarantee exact listing duration,
Your fixed-price listings may renew automatically every calendar month, based on the listing terms at the time, until all quantities sell or the listing is ended by you or eBay, in its sole discretion,
The content you provide complies with all of our listing policies, including the Images, videos and text policy,
Content that violates any of eBay's policies may be modified, obfuscated, or deleted at eBay's sole discretion,
We may revise product data associated with listings to supplement, remove, or correct information,

We strive to create a marketplace where buyers find what they are looking for. Therefore, the appearance or placement of listings in search and browse results will depend on a variety of factors, including, but not limited to:
buyer's location, search query, browsing site, and history;
item's location, listing format, price and shipping cost, terms of service, end time, history, and relevance to the user query;
seller's history, including listing practices, Detailed Seller Ratings, eBay policy compliance, feedback, and defect rate; and
number of listings matching the buyer's query,

To drive a positive user experience, a listing may not appear in some search and browse results regardless of the sort order chosen by the buyer,

Some advanced listing upgrades will only be visible on some of our Services,

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by jamcas997

I mean I guess I could list my Jeter , Griffey Jr , Ichiro , Betts , and Trout numbered stuff and autos for $1.50 free shipping and watch my sales increase at a complete loss it that is what you mean by pivot.

Nobody has said that,but your negative outlook could be some of the issue. Believe it or not some sellers create an image that they dont want buyers. Do you run sales? Do you end and relist? Do you take offers? Do you have to profit on everything you sell?

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by shrevecity

Nobody has said that,but your negative outlook could be some of the issue. Believe it or not some sellers create an image that they dont want buyers. Do you run sales? Do you end and relist? Do you take offers? Do you have to profit on everything you sell?

I have run sales and the fact most items that are listed are priced at or lower than most other sellers. Currently I am running 3 different sales promotions with over 150 cards marked down. I also do send offers out on items from 5 to 20% off only to be ignored or I will give you half of that mark down price which falls well below most other sellers of the same item. Most of this is not a profit as you should know a lot of what sells is at a loss. None of my shipping is over $5 , but i am sure that next January I may be there. I tend to take a hit on shipping to make a sale. I am thinking besides a terrible economy and people holding onto their money for other things like bills or a vacations and try to wait sellers out who may break. I wouldn't say its all about profit , but getting a descent price for your product.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by jamcas997

I have run sales and the fact most items that are listed are priced at or lower than most other sellers. Currently I am running 3 different sales promotions with over 150 cards marked down. I also do send offers out on items from 5 to 20% off only to be ignored or I will give you half of that mark down price which falls well below most other sellers of the same item. Most of this is not a profit as you should know a lot of what sells is at a loss. None of my shipping is over $5 , but i am sure that next January I may be there. I tend to take a hit on shipping to make a sale. I am thinking besides a terrible economy and people holding onto their money for other things like bills or a vacations and try to wait sellers out who may break. I wouldn't say its all about profit , but getting a descent price for your product.

Being the lowest price is not always a draw for sales. I think the biggest issue many sellers like yourself is facing is you are a single item. As card sales drop it affects sellers like you more than sellers like me who sell across several categories.

[Raleigh504]

It is definitely a long game. As I saw recently somewhere for eBay listings, quantity vs quality and which is better. It was mainly get the quantity up on eBay (as many listings as you can along with good ones) and then once you get a good amount then can focus on more quality.

I do get a lot repeat buyers and try to cover as many era/sports/types as possible. I basically had exclusively baseball, then moved to getting more modern basketball and football. Listed 90s of each of those and added some late 80s/early 90s hockey along with some 1970s hockey (still need to add more, but not as big of a deal). Started to add some pokemon and really focused on getting vintage cards too (1950s to 1970s with some early 80s stars/HOF).

Another big thing is quality of the pictures too. I used to be around 300 sales for the 90-100 day when I first started and once I did a store it was more like 300 sales. Now since I added more listings, I am at 670 currently. My total $ hasn't jumped significantly since 80% of the items I list are $1-$2 cards, but they do add the incremental increase which is good.

[beauspencer]

It is a mix of numbered , parallels , refractors and autos/gu. Mainly stars , rookies and prospects with a few common players to round it out. Mainly Baseball , football , and a few basketball with hockey below a trickle. There is nowhere to PIVOT to except base, commons or junk era commons. On top of garbage economy and people not spending as much due to vaca time coming it is also the ebay algorithm and throttling which we can never prove.

What's your ebay store link?

[smanzari]

Originally Posted by jamcas997

It is a mix of numbered , parallels , refractors and autos/gu. Mainly stars , rookies and prospects with a few common players to round it out. Mainly Baseball , football , and a few basketball with hockey below a trickle. There is nowhere to PIVOT to except base, commons or junk era commons. On top of garbage economy and people not spending as much due to vaca time coming it is also the ebay algorithm and throttling which we can never prove.

Yea there is - add/increase Promotional Listings (or change how they're done- there's a few ways/types); Run some auctions (they increase visibility); ensure all customer issues use the system (ie have them open up an "item not received case" even if you're going to immediately refund); End/Relist Items; there are many more things you can do without adding additional inventory.

You also need to keep in mind, its a competition out there- guys having success now are more than likely not going to spill all the beans, given the market; so you're going to have to try some stuff out on your own. Sometimes it makes sense to take a low-ball offer or a loss (TVOM!)

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by smanzari

Yea there is - add/increase Promotional Listings (or change how they're done- there's a few ways/types); Run some auctions (they increase visibility); ensure all customer issues use the system (ie have them open up an "item not received case" even if you're going to immediately refund); End/Relist Items; there are many more things you can do without adding additional inventory.

You also need to keep in mind, its a competition out there- guys having success now are more than likely not going to spill all the beans, given the market; so you're going to have to try some stuff out on your own. Sometimes it makes sense to take a low-ball offer or a loss (TVOM!)

I have about ten auctions total running and have been doing promoted listings forever, I also have been ending cleaning up and adjusting some oler listings everyday also.

[paulcarlcards]

My sales have been going up again. I took a hit in March/April after putting on vacation mode and barely listing since my 2nd kid was born.

My problem now is that I’m just about maxed on my 100k listings with my anchor store and eBay recently discontinued the extra free listings for trading card sellers in this position. My only option to keep listing singles would be to spring for an Enterprise store and that isn’t really an option for selling cheap cards in high volume.

So my solution now is to sell lots instead of singles. Luckily a lot of my incoming cards are already sorted by player, so doing player lots doesn’t require any extra time for sorting. I wrote a Python script that automates turning Kronocard exports into lots, edits all the images, and spits out the csv for me to upload to eBay. Turns out it’s actually faster to list player lots than it is to list singles because I don’t have to check the AI’s accuracy.

I’m thinking the listing limitation turned out to be a blessing in disguise because selling lots will speed up my shipping time (faster to pick orders when all the cards are together in a lot than it is to pick 3 singles from multiple locations, etc.) and the AOV will also increase a ton.

Really excited. Anyone else using custom scripts to help with their eBay store or to augment another tool like Kronocard or Card Dealer Pro?

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by Raleigh504

It is definitely a long game. As I saw recently somewhere for eBay listings, quantity vs quality and which is better. It was mainly get the quantity up on eBay (as many listings as you can along with good ones) and then once you get a good amount then can focus on more quality.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. I'm thinking about it in two terms; total inventory and quality inventory. I agree with your thesis. Even if it's crap get it listed, because today's crap is tomorrow's quality inventory. Plus you can always lower the price on a listed item with hardly any work. That can move a card from crap to quality inventory in a hurry.

All the inventory that I track is in total $. I don't break it down between total and quality at all. I do have an idea in my mind of what is selling, what can sell soon, and what is going to sit there for awhile. I do a daily inventory every night before bed, which is just total $ and total items. Then I do a more detailed monthly inventory which sorts it out by box so I can see how well each one is performing. That's coming tonight, BTW.

[paparoke]

Originally Posted by paulcarlcards

My problem now is that I’m just about maxed on my 100k listings with my anchor store and eBay recently discontinued the extra free listings for trading card sellers in this position.

I just checked out your store and wow, 100K listings is a ton. I'm just trying to get to 10K at this point, but slowly getting there. Looks like you're mostly low end, which is cool, considering the volume you must sell. Long story short, I'm impressed with your set up! Can I ask approx how many ESE you send out daily?

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by paparoke

I just checked out your store and wow, 100K listings is a ton. I'm just trying to get to 10K at this point, but slowly getting there. Looks like you're mostly low end, which is cool, considering the volume you must sell. Long story short, I'm impressed with your set up! Can I ask approx how many ESE you send out daily?

Looking at his sold items it is over 270 the last 4 days.

[paparoke]

Originally Posted by jamcas997

Looking at his sold items it is over 270 the last 4 days.

Wow that is a lot of shipping. My wife usually handles my ESE shipments, she'd probably flip out and quit if she had to do that many lol. Looks like he can handle the volume, so more power to him.

[Brian S]

Just curious...what are you guys promoting your items at? Below eBay suggestions - going with their suggestions - or above?

[paulcarlcards]

Originally Posted by paparoke

I just checked out your store and wow, 100K listings is a ton. I'm just trying to get to 10K at this point, but slowly getting there. Looks like you're mostly low end, which is cool, considering the volume you must sell. Long story short, I'm impressed with your set up! Can I ask approx how many ESE you send out daily?

1868 sold listings in the past 31 days. I spend about 1.5-2 hours per day on shipping in the morning before I start working for my main gig. Thermal printer, bulk shipping, sort orders by buyer username, pick all cards in order, print all labels/invoices in same order, then it’s just stuffing envelopes in an assembly line style.

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by Brian S

Just curious...what are you guys promoting your items at? Below eBay suggestions - going with their suggestions - or above?

2.5% here.