Ebay Sales Down

[jamcas997]

Agree with Beau Spence some.

First ten days 28 items sold last ten 74 items. It has been a up and down month so far, but hoping the good trend continues.

[paulcarlcards]

Beau's 100% right.

I ran offsite PPC ads through eBay too and got a nice extra bump from that. Tons of women buying cards as gifts that don't come to eBay to do those searches so the offsite ads are particularly potent during November/December.

[Crosby 87]

Originally Posted by paulcarlcards

I ran offsite PPC ads through eBay too and got a nice extra bump from that. Tons of women buying cards as gifts that don't come to eBay to do those searches so the offsite ads are particularly potent during November/December.

Wow, truly an amazing post.

[beauspencer]

I ran offsite PPC ads through eBay too and got a nice extra bump from that. Tons of women buying cards as gifts that don't come to eBay to do those searches so the offsite ads are particularly potent during November/December.

And for those not utilizing it, eBay often offers discounts for running these ads. Check your seller hub.

[CaptConman]

This is my first post so I'm sorry if this post is in the wrong thread. For those who sell on eBay, do you use auction or buy it now? If you do auction what is your starting price? Most of the cards I have listed are only $1 - $2 as buy it now. But after reading some of your posts, it seems I may want to change it up and go auction. Also, for cards that are only selling for less than $5 are you shipping standard envelope, or are you using USPS Ground Advantage? I had luck shipping cards in a penny sleeve & top loader using standard envelope, but lately I've had 2 cards not make it to it's destination. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thank You!

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by CaptConman

This is my first post so I'm sorry if this post is in the wrong thread. For those who sell on eBay, do you use auction or buy it now? If you do auction what is your starting price? Most of the cards I have listed are only $1 - $2 as buy it now. But after reading some of your posts, it seems I may want to change it up and go auction. Also, for cards that are only selling for less than $5 are you shipping standard envelope, or are you using USPS Ground Advantage? I had luck shipping cards in a penny sleeve & top loader using standard envelope, but lately I've had 2 cards not make it to it's destination. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thank You!

For shipping ESE use Card Saver 1s , you will run into less issues. BIN vs Auctions , well IMO AUCTIONS SUCK and are money losers. I have been BIN for well over 10 years and have ran an occasional auction, but not many.

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by CaptConman

This is my first post so I'm sorry if this post is in the wrong thread. For those who sell on eBay, do you use auction or buy it now? If you do auction what is your starting price? Most of the cards I have listed are only $1 - $2 as buy it now. But after reading some of your posts, it seems I may want to change it up and go auction. Also, for cards that are only selling for less than $5 are you shipping standard envelope, or are you using USPS Ground Advantage? I had luck shipping cards in a penny sleeve & top loader using standard envelope, but lately I've had 2 cards not make it to it's destination. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thank You!

BIN. I only use auctons starting at my BIN price to refresh my listings and an occasional loss leader at 1¢/free shipping. The only time I would consider running a 99¢ auction to maximize price is a one day on a new release.

Definitely ship ESE on cards under $20. There is no reason to eat that extra shipping cost. Either list it with free or $1 shipping.

For cards that don't make it file a PIP claim and recover the price of the item. It is a fantastic program and this is actually a point in favor of sending ESE, even though a higher % won't get there. As noted above, Card Savers tend to do a little better than toploaders.

[frenchquarter]

Originally Posted by beauspencer

This month has been an absolute roller coaster. The first two weeks of December started out like it would be one of my worst months of the year. This past week has been much better and I'm now pacing for a good month. Guess what? Two main factors for the poor start....and both were changed by ME. It's not a bad market, it's not the algorithm. It was me.

1) Adjusting new inventory. I was adding inventory...but it was good inventory. I was adding a lot of $2 listings. I realized what I was doing, and not doing. Started mixing in some better inventory...and boom.

2) Promoted listings. At the end of November, I noticed a couple things. First, I have 4.6K followers to my store which is a good amount. I have a lot of buyers from my social media channels. I don't want to spend 10% promoted fee when I have regular customers buying. Second, since I started running more auctions it was nice to see the bottom line with no promoted fee. Maybe, if I decrease my promoted percentage, I'll still get my regular buyers and only pay half of the fee if I decrease to 5% instead of running 10%.

BUT...that wasn't the case. As I mentioned, the first two weeks of December started awful. I checked my numbers. My sales were down 24% compared to the same time period in November. Promoted sales were down 27%. I stopped my experiment and reverted back to 10%.

From 12/15 to 12/20, my sales were up 105% from the same time period a month prior, and promoted sales were up 99% from the same time period in November.

Small sample sizes, a lot of different variables in play...I understand that. But these are my numbers, and my business, so it's important for me to maximize my bottom line, and 10% promoted listings does just that.

Hi Beau, my early December sales were fine, but the last two weeks sales have been down - a lot. So, I started thinking about your advice. My thought was, would I rather have no sales, or would I rather have some sales with 10% to 20% less profit. So, this morning, I jumped my promoted listings to 10%. In addition, eBay showed that I had 490 items that I could send offers on. So, I sent 12% off offers to all 490 people. In addition, I sent 12% off offers to 400 of the 799 people who are watching my items.

I had 4 sales within a few minutes of the offers, and it will be interesting to see what happens in the short term and the long term.

I appreciate your advice. Don't blame the economy or Xmas or eBay. Try something different and generate some sales.

Rick

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by frenchquarter

Hi Beau, my early December sales were fine, but the last two weeks sales have been down - a lot. So, I started thinking about your advice. My thought was, would I rather have no sales, or would I rather have some sales with 10% to 20% less profit. So, this morning, I jumped my promoted listings to 10%. In addition, eBay showed that I had 490 items that I could send offers on. So, I sent 12% off offers to all 490 people. In addition, I sent 12% off offers to 400 of the 799 people who are watching my items.

I had 4 sales within a few minutes of the offers, and it will be interesting to see what happens in the short term and the long term.

I appreciate your advice. Don't blame the economy or Xmas or eBay. Try something different and generate some sales.

Rick

I don't know who else needs to be told this, but if you have to take 22% less revenue to generate sales that is the sign of a weak market. On top of that, because profit is at the margin the loss of profit is much greather than 22%. For example my case, if I took 22% less revenue over the course of the full year, that would drop my expected profit by over 70%. That is exactly what happened to me from Oct. 1, 2023 to Sept 30., 2024, so I know of what I speak.

As for the late December slowdown, I did not change my behaviour. For week ending Dec. 24, 2024 I am going to be at 67% of volume vs my average for the previous four weeks and about 40% of total revenue...barring a huge day tomorrow. That my friends is what we call a market slump. Anyone who thinks it's not related to the Holidays is out of their mind.

[premium1981]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

Anyone who thinks it's not related to the Holidays is out of their mind.

Its always more than one thing. But when we get to the last week leading up to Christmas a lot of people are definitely broke. And for baseball card collectors, these last few months have been good release after good release. Not talking price here, just in general. With this rookie class and the Skenes mania in particular, there have been lots of dollar bills dropped in a short period of time. Then add in the Christmas shopping that normally happens and it can and does strain a lot of wallets. So the time of year absolutely has a lot to do with it. As the clock rolls over to 2025 things will pick up. Gift cards, and new paychecks will bring new sales. And for all of this good stuff that has been releasing, you will see demand spike as we approach baseball talk and spring training because of the amount of headliner rookies from 2024. Everyone is always excited to talk about them entering the next season and it will ignite more sales.

I've actually taken a different approach than I have ever done before lately. I started experimenting with something in my business off ebay a few months ago and it has been far more successful than I had ever expected. Its done so well that I really haven't cared about my ebay sales for the most part. So I have been taking advantage of the extra success by doing much deeper discounts on my ebay items and trying to dial it back some to regain space and control in my house. I've done massive sales with the intent of moving all of my $5+ inventory as possible. I haven't done sales on the cheap cards because I'm not interested in laboring for nothing. On those cards in the $2-$3 range about 20% is as deep as I ever go. Anyway, to stop rambling, this sales method has also been far more successful than I had expected. I moved a pile of stuff that had been in more store for far too long. It was all profit so I didn't care what I got out of it. The joy I have gotten from clearing out a chunk of my inventory has been immense. I've always wondered what it would be to reset to zero and just start over. I'll never do that, but this has been a blast. I had the goal of clearing as much as possible in preparation for 2025. I've gone from close to 50,000 listings down to about 30,000 and feel much better about space now. And I have a lot of excess money to sink into new products that was sitting in dead inventory. Yippie!

[frenchquarter]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

I don't know who else needs to be told this, but if you have to take 22% less revenue to generate sales that is the sign of a weak market. On top of that, because profit is at the margin the loss of profit is much greather than 22%. For example my case, if I took 22% less revenue over the course of the full year, that would drop my expected profit by over 70%. That is exactly what happened to me from Oct. 1, 2023 to Sept 30., 2024, so I know of what I speak.

As for the late December slowdown, I did not change my behaviour. For week ending Dec. 24, 2024 I am going to be at 67% of volume vs my average for the previous four weeks and about 40% of total revenue...barring a huge day tomorrow. That my friends is what we call a market slump. Anyone who thinks it's not related to the Holidays is out of their mind.

Most of what you said is true, except the fact that your sales are down doesn't mean that the entire market is in a slump.

Also, my situation is probably much different than yours in regard to discounts. In the past 5 years I have purchased more than 2 million cards. So, as a result, most of the under $10 cards that I have listed on eBay have cost me less than a nickel. If I sell a card for 20% off and pay my eBay fees, I still come out way ahead for very little work.

So, my theory is that I can keep my current prices and the cards that are in my inventory can sit on my shelves, or I can take less profit and generate income that I can roll into more purchases.

As my old friend used to say - "you make your money when you buy". Good luck to you. I hope your sales pick up and you have a profitable new year.

Rick

[paulcarlcards]

Market slump?!? This is already my best month of the year. I’m promoting and advertising aggressively to capitalize on the momentum from the holidays. Sure the margins are a little lower—but the speed of inventory turnover is the most important thing. I’m really out of my mind cuz for me this feels like a market boom.

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by paulcarlcards

Market slump?!? This is already my best month of the year. I’m promoting and advertising aggressively to capitalize on the momentum from the holidays. Sure the margins are a little lower—but the speed of inventory turnover is the most important thing. I’m really out of my mind cuz for me this feels like a market boom.

December as a whole has been really strong. It's been the last week or so that I've slowed down. November was really strong as well.

[longhornjunkie]

Are seller offers broken for everyone else today? I can't seem to send any.

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by longhornjunkie

Are seller offers broken for everyone else today? I can't seem to send any.

No problem here.

[Raleigh504]

I have been having a massive increase in issues with buyers this month. People threatening to leave negative feedback unless I refund the sale, people filing claims after 2 days of cards shipped, canceled winning bids after they pushed the price up, several claiming they got the wrong card and then refusing to send picture of actual card received (have inventory system so easy to check and catch them on their lies... and then demanding refund or negative feedback).

This has been horrible for selling and makes me want to just sell off my 20+k listings and be done with selling online.

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by Raleigh504

I have been having a massive increase in issues with buyers this month. People threatening to leave negative feedback unless I refund the sale, people filing claims after 2 days of cards shipped, canceled winning bids after they pushed the price up, several claiming they got the wrong card and then refusing to send picture of actual card received (have inventory system so easy to check and catch them on their lies... and then demanding refund or negative feedback).

This has been horrible for selling and makes me want to just sell off my 20+k listings and be done with selling online.

Ya that all sucks. I know what the scale says , but most of these clowns out there think VG is still almost MT. I would have given the Bucs Champs a G-VG , Buyer sounds mad that you didnt place written defects in description.

[jamcas997]

Well this month passed last month in $$$ , but still behind in items sold. Still a win!

[jkampis]

Originally Posted by jamcas997

Well this month passed last month in $$$ , but still behind in items sold. Still a win!

A definite win when your average sale is higher…more profit per hour.

[Raleigh504]

Originally Posted by jamcas997

Ya that all sucks. I know what the scale says , but most of these clowns out there think VG is still almost MT. I would have given the Bucs Champs a G-VG , Buyer sounds mad that you didnt place written defects in description.

Sadly most are in the actual listing like “crease” or “mark on back” and yet they still complain about that. Agreed and they don’t look at what eBay constitutes VG and such. Doesn’t matter what you think but how eBay lists it in their condition terminology.

[longhornjunkie]

"Do you have any more [xxxx team] cards?"

Did you search my items?

Grateful for upselling but they're making it hard.

My response is politely teaching them to fish. Complaining here amongst friends...

[Bosoxfan5990]

Originally Posted by longhornjunkie

"Do you have any more [xxxx team] cards?"

Did you search my items?

Grateful for upselling but they're making it hard.

My response is politely teaching them to fish. Complaining here amongst friends...

I've dealt with the same thing and tell potential buyers to search my store.

[byronscott4ever]

Originally Posted by longhornjunkie

"Do you have any more [xxxx team] cards?"

Did you search my items?

Grateful for upselling but they're making it hard.

My response is politely teaching them to fish. Complaining here amongst friends...

As a collector, I appreciate the grind. I don't have everything listed.

Sadly I normally don’t have good news but I get more excited about someone who I can help or who says they are excited about getting their purchase.

[Raleigh504]

Recently on social media I have been seeing a ton of ads for all these “gurus” (think Geoff Wilson wannabes) trying to offer courses in making more than doctors in sports cards. It is so annoying to see and it’s funny reading the comments on the posts.

Have you all seen an uptick in these types of ads recently?

[Bosoxfan5990]

Originally Posted by Raleigh504

Recently on social media I have been seeing a ton of ads for all these “gurus” (think Geoff Wilson wannabes) trying to offer courses in making more than doctors in sports cards. It is so annoying to see and it’s funny reading the comments on the posts.

Have you all seen an uptick in these types of ads recently?

I feel like these would've been more relevant in 2020/2021...