Ebay Sales Down

[Raleigh504]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

Yes. Generic storage really helped me get cards listed faster.

I give the boxes a name and add the signifier to the listing. That not only helps with organization, it helps with the algorithm. The algo will pick up the signifier as a keyword. It has happened too many times (including last night) to be a coincidence. I sold a Yordan Alvarez (no surprise) and a Ke'Bryan Hayes from the same neighborhood that had been sitting there for over a year also sold (surprise!).

As cards are coming in they will go in 2024 Box 1 (call it 4A), then 2 (4B)...etc. As I make sales and each box clears what I've paid, they will eventually make their way to the profit box where they get a different signifier. At this point I try and clean up duplicate listings unless they are #'d. This year I did it all at once in September. It was a huge project, but I was able to do it at a time when sales were super slow.

The live box is a two row graded card box for everything. The Profit Box is two row graded card boxes along with 4 row super shoe boxes for the raw. In the live box, cards are listed alphabetically. Listed cards face forward, backups face backward, with a homemade cardboard divider and some toploaders dividing them and taking up the extra space so they don't slide around. In the Profit Box they are split into packs of 10-12 cards in a penny sleeve and team set bag. Graded is still alphabetical.

Started the generic storage, but will do a blend of it. For baseball cards 1979 and prior, I plan to keep it by year and in order while everything else will slowly get shifted to the generic storage. Keeping it as is and hopefully through the rest of the year and early next year I will get that inventory low enough where it makes sense to add that to the generic storage.

The reasoning I am keeping 1979 and prior for baseball (my main seller), is to quickly (visually) be able to see what inventory year(s) I need or don't need to purchase. I have recently passed on nice lots for inventory due to already having abundance of those years listed. Plus, it will allow me to pull out duplicates and create starter lots to help move the inventory in a bulk manner.

Baseball is my main knowledge and sales (I have been adding football and basketball but the buyers for those sports only care about specific players vs baseball has team/set/year builders which helps on my sales.

[zdawgs]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

I'm laughing at one of the guys who banned me from buying their cards. They probably missed out on $2,000 in bids this week.

I'm sure there is a reason why you were banned. It probably was worth $2,000 to him not having to deal with whatever you did to upset him/her.

[fungi2510]

Originally Posted by zdawgs

I'm sure there is a reason why you were banned. It probably was worth $2,000 to him not having to deal with whatever you did to upset him/her.

Gotta love this comment. Have you read any of this thread or know what you are talking about? Or are you just looking for a reaction. Congrats. You got it.

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by zdawgs

I'm sure there is a reason why you were banned. It probably was worth $2,000 to him not having to deal with whatever you did to upset him/her.

If your business is running auctions starting at 99¢, you can decide what level of annoyance is worth shrinking your buyer pool. If that level is someone who returned a paper parallel that was listed as a refractor, then you are probably bad at business.

That $2,000 in missed bids is just this week alone. Now imagine that week after week after week. It won't be that high every week, but this seller is definitely taking a financial hit by not having me bid on their cards. They are taking that hit for no reason at all. They aren't saving any time. They aren't saving any hassle. They are just passing on free money.

Quite frankly, I'm probably one of, if not the best buyer out there. I spend a ton and it is all on auctions. I'm one of the 95% of people who actually pay for their wins. I have a wide range of players, cards, and price levels that I target. I don't babysit tracking. I have a very loose standard for condition (basically NM or better on modern raw stuff...if I even catch it!). If this were a casino I'm the kind of buyer that would be getting big time comps. If there were more than one eBay they'd be competing for my business. But this seller is like, "Nah, I don't need that". That is why it is laughable.

[rwperu34]

I ran 9 auctions at 1¢ with free shipping last week, 6 of which were the same player;

-4 went for for under $1 costing me a total of $1.37. One of these was a two card order, so that helped. The one that went for 12¢ by itself really hurt.

-2 went for more more than I had them listed for. Both went out in the same package, which really helped.

-3 went for $1.25, netting me 47¢ total.

I scooped $6.47 on cards that were originally listed for $15 + S&H. If sold individually I'd expect to scoop about $12-$13 on those. At the end of the day, this particular run amounted to a BOGO sale.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

I ran 9 auctions at 1¢ with free shipping last week, 6 of which were the same player;

-4 went for for under $1 costing me a total of $1.37. One of these was a two card order, so that helped. The one that went for 12¢ by itself really hurt.

-2 went for more more than I had them listed for. Both went out in the same package, which really helped.

-3 went for $1.25, netting me 47¢ total.

I scooped $6.47 on cards that were originally listed for $15 + S&H. If sold individually I'd expect to scoop about $12-$13 on those. At the end of the day, this particular run amounted to a BOGO sale.

I did one run of 15 ended up making about 4 or 5.00 actually dud better listing basically sane cards with 50 cent shipping ended up pocketing about 15.00 on that. So yeah not a big thing but got my numbers back up

[thenightman]

My business is basically running at early 2022 levels the last few months. Anything over $30 has just been sitting, but I've been selling a grip of cards under $10.

I chalk it up to the current state of the economy, my stubbornness on my pricing on my higher priced cards, and my risk taking on higher priced ultra-modern cards of younger, on the cusp, players. I've gone big on NBA this year hoping that'll turn things around.

[rwperu34]

Folks, items have been bid on, won, paid for, shipped, delivered, opened, photographed, and listed. My inventory is officially growing again. I haven't had a month over month gain in inventory since last March. I expect I will grow every month between now and next March.

[Raleigh504]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

Folks, items have been bid on, won, paid for, shipped, delivered, opened, photographed, and listed. My inventory is officially growing again. I haven't had a month over month gain in inventory since last March. I expect I will grow every month between now and next March.

Oh wow, I have been the opposite just building up my inventory at a steady rate. Now I am at the point of getting my inventory setup to be more efficient after sales (THANKS EVERYONE FOR THIS PART!!!!).

It is funny, people always talk about trash players or cards and the reason why they have slow sales. Outside of (semi) vintage cards (Pre 80s for baseball and pre 90s for NBA/NFL) sales, most of the cards sold this week have been no names or random players that you wouldn't imagine selling.

For instance (most were rookies or rookie cups)
- Daniel Mengden
- Jorge Alfaro
- Roman Quinn
- Bart Giamatti
- Chance Adams
- Dustin Fowler

[byronscott4ever]

Originally Posted by Raleigh504

Oh wow, I have been the opposite just building up my inventory at a steady rate. Now I am at the point of getting my inventory setup to be more efficient after sales (THANKS EVERYONE FOR THIS PART!!!!).

It is funny, people always talk about trash players or cards and the reason why they have slow sales. Outside of (semi) vintage cards (Pre 80s for baseball and pre 90s for NBA/NFL) sales, most of the cards sold this week have been no names or random players that you wouldn't imagine selling.

For instance (most were rookies or rookie cups)
- Daniel Mengden
- Jorge Alfaro
- Roman Quinn
- Bart Giamatti
- Chance Adams
- Dustin Fowler

I sell players that amaze me…but sometimes the little known sets or players get listed infrequently which helps

[mogwai316]

I've gotten in the habit of doing what some people on here recommended, each day going to my listings ending today page, ending them all, relisting them all with 'sell similar', then deleting the ended entries. Adjusting some of the prices lower. Takes just a minute or two each day. The bump from getting them relisted as new listings is definitely real. I get sales of random cards that first day, which nobody had even viewed for the last month. Like yesterday, a random auto card from 2003 of a guy that pitched 100 innings in his career, sold almost instantly after the relisting. Thanks to all who suggested doing this!

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by Raleigh504

Oh wow, I have been the opposite just building up my inventory at a steady rate. Now I am at the point of getting my inventory setup to be more efficient after sales (THANKS EVERYONE FOR THIS PART!!!!).

It is funny, people always talk about trash players or cards and the reason why they have slow sales. Outside of (semi) vintage cards (Pre 80s for baseball and pre 90s for NBA/NFL) sales, most of the cards sold this week have been no names or random players that you wouldn't imagine selling.

For instance (most were rookies or rookie cups)
- Daniel Mengden
- Jorge Alfaro
- Roman Quinn
- Bart Giamatti
- Chance Adams
- Dustin Fowler

41 Sales in last 7 days only 3 were for $10 or more. I have been keeping up with adding more inventory BB, FB and Hockey of about 100 new listings. Most are Autos and Vintage 50s and 60s. Economy and world events may be playing a big part.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by jamcas997

41 Sales in last 7 days only 3 were for $10 or more. I have been keeping up with adding more inventory BB, FB and Hockey of about 100 new listings. Most are Autos and Vintage 50s and 60s. Economy and world events may be playing a big part.

Yeah been slow on all fronts. I am about to move to part time ebay I think. My other projects are now making me more money and ebay is actually hindering that progress

[Budler]

This post is near being a year old. It has been very interesting reading it.

In the big picture and my many years of collecting. I have seen many ups and downs over the years. What you thought worked last month may not appear to work today. So many reasons for the ups and downs it would be hard to list them all.

One thing I have seen is that the ones that are in it for the long haul and make it. They have learned to adjust quickly and learn from their mistakes like any other business.

If you are doing it as a side job or just a hobby, then that is really no reason to worry about the ups and downs.

Personally, I have always thought Luck played a lot to do in it. Have the right card at the right price when the right guy is looking for it. I have 5 cards setting in COMC for 10 months not sold yet. My luck is that no one wants them right now or for the last 10 months.

[Bosoxfan5990]

I had a period of 13 days (10/4-10/16) where I had 0 sales on 10 of the 13 days.

With my low $ inventory, I typically see at least 2-3 sales per day, minimum.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to exactly pinpoint the reason for the 0 sale days, but I have my hunch.

The reason for this is because I changed 2 things:
1) I updated my shipping charges for ESE from free shipping with price baked into the card to a $0.99 shipping charge + a minor charge for each additional purchase (while dropping price of each card). I also updated my Business Policy for ESE to offer the option of USPS Ground Advantage with my associated GA fee for any buyers interested in BMWT shipping. I did this art the beginning of the month (see page 63 of this thread).
2) I was away from 10/7-10/15, but didn't pause my sales.

I lean toward #1 being the reason for the 0 sales days as opposed to #2, because I've been away for a week before without pausing sales and didn't see a dip, nevermind a dip this significant.

I had never seen a sales dip like this before, so I decided to change my ESE shipping back to free shipping on 10/18 (but left the Business Policy with the USPS GA option with my GA fee) and immediately saw 3 sales on 10/18 and 2 sales on 10/19.

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by Budler

This post is near being a year old. It has been very interesting reading it.

In the big picture and my many years of collecting. I have seen many ups and downs over the years. What you thought worked last month may not appear to work today. So many reasons for the ups and downs it would be hard to list them all.

One thing I have seen is that the ones that are in it for the long haul and make it. They have learned to adjust quickly and learn from their mistakes like any other business.

If you are doing it as a side job or just a hobby, then that is really no reason to worry about the ups and downs.

Personally, I have always thought Luck played a lot to do in it. Have the right card at the right price when the right guy is looking for it. I have 5 cards setting in COMC for 10 months not sold yet. My luck is that no one wants them right now or for the last 10 months.

Absolutely. I call it variance, but I spend a lot of time and effort trying to figure out what is random and what is sustainable. Signal and noise, if you prefer. This is true for both performance of the players and sales in general.

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by Bosoxfan5990

I had a period of 13 days (10/4-10/16) where I had 0 sales on 10 of the 13 days.

With my low $ inventory, I typically see at least 2-3 sales per day, minimum.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to exactly pinpoint the reason for the 0 sale days, but I have my hunch.

The reason for this is because I changed 2 things:
1) I updated my shipping charges for ESE from free shipping with price baked into the card to a $0.99 shipping charge + a minor charge for each additional purchase (while dropping price of each card). I also updated my Business Policy for ESE to offer the option of USPS Ground Advantage with my associated GA fee for any buyers interested in BMWT shipping. I did this art the beginning of the month (see page 63 of this thread).
2) I was away from 10/7-10/15, but didn't pause my sales.

I lean toward #1 being the reason for the 0 sales days as opposed to #2, because I've been away for a week before without pausing sales and didn't see a dip, nevermind a dip this significant.

I had never seen a sales dip like this before, so I decided to change my ESE shipping back to free shipping on 10/18 (but left the Business Policy with the USPS GA option with my GA fee) and immediately saw 3 sales on 10/18 and 2 sales on 10/19.

My sales have been excruciatingly slow in general, but it's been worse on the low $ stuff for me. The mid range and higher end stuff has held up much better. For me a lot of it is behavior, but the market for baseball is just really slow right now.

I had a couple of zero sale days in that date range too. The other way I can tell is I haven't sent out a single seller initiated offer in six days because I've been a little under the weather. They have stockpiled to the point that I now have a quarter of what I'd send out daily during the March-July peak.

ETA: And traffic. My raw store only has 400,000 impressions over the last 7 days. I had one Sunday with 900,000 in March. Even in early August I was averaging 400,000 a day.

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by shrevecity

Yeah been slow on all fronts. I am about to move to part time ebay I think. My other projects are now making me more money and ebay is actually hindering that progress

I would say I am between FT/PT with ebay. I mean I have a FT job retirement and VA from the military so I can say i don't struggle as bad as some do. I am as I said doing the continue to list to increase the inventory and take advantage of the slow down.

[nam812]

June - 289 sales
July - 296 sales
August - 205 sales (store on pause 5 days for vacation)
September - 214 sales
October - 154 sale pace

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by nam812

June - 289 sales
July - 296 sales
August - 205 sales (store on pause 5 days for vacation)
September - 214 sales
October - 154 sale pace

My sales

JUN 911
JUL 659
AUG 377
SEP 271
OCT 143

[mogwai316]

Thick cards / graded cards that are worth less than $15 are so frustrating. I won't send thick cards with ESE. But eating $4+ to ship them with bubble mailer really takes a chunk out of the profits. If I can sell them for $15+ (with free or included shipping) then fine, it's worth it, but less than that I don't like listing them. What do people do with these.. just list them anyway and get what little you can for them? Let them accumulate and then sell a bunch of them together in a box? Send them to COMC where they will sit for years while you pay rent on them?

[discodanman45]

Originally Posted by mogwai316

Thick cards / graded cards that are worth less than $15 are so frustrating. I won't send thick cards with ESE. But eating $4+ to ship them with bubble mailer really takes a chunk out of the profits. If I can sell them for $15+ (with free or included shipping) then fine, it's worth it, but less than that I don't like listing them. What do people do with these.. just list them anyway and get what little you can for them? Let them accumulate and then sell a bunch of them together in a box? Send them to COMC where they will sit for years while you pay rent on them?

Best way is to just list them on eBay and put a blurb that you will combine shipping. You might get someone that will buy 5 of them if the shipping is included. It may be best to not give free shipping on items like this since you can set up eBay to combine shipping making the buyer think they are getting a better deal.

[thenightman]

Originally Posted by mogwai316

Thick cards / graded cards that are worth less than $15 are so frustrating. I won't send thick cards with ESE. But eating $4+ to ship them with bubble mailer really takes a chunk out of the profits. If I can sell them for $15+ (with free or included shipping) then fine, it's worth it, but less than that I don't like listing them. What do people do with these.. just list them anyway and get what little you can for them? Let them accumulate and then sell a bunch of them together in a box? Send them to COMC where they will sit for years while you pay rent on them?

Honestly, I just ship them in a top-loader and roll the dice. I've had far more get delivered with no issues than have them sent back or upcharged.

[stlcardinals70]

Originally Posted by thenightman

Honestly, I just ship them in a top-loader and roll the dice. I've had far more get delivered with no issues than have them sent back or upcharged.

Same here. I've shipped all sizes of top loaders ESE and had very few problems. And the few times out of hundreds that the buyer has to pay postage to get the card, I just refund them the difference. I've also had very few damaged, but when I do, I just refund the buyer and put in a damage claim with Ebay.

Also, to add to the other ongoing discussions about sales slowing down AND taking offers, I've also noticed that with individual low-end cards. I've just been VERY lucky with a couple of buyers who've bought big lots. One of them has bought over $300 in low-end cards, but all of them on offers. I probably had the cards listed in the $450-$500 range individually, but most of them had been listed for more than a year with no interest. I'm happy to unload them all at once for $300 rather than waiting and hoping they sell one at a time.
I had another buyer just buy over $100 worth of low-end cards at asking price this morning, so I'm hoping my luck continues!

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by mogwai316

Thick cards / graded cards that are worth less than $15 are so frustrating. I won't send thick cards with ESE. But eating $4+ to ship them with bubble mailer really takes a chunk out of the profits. If I can sell them for $15+ (with free or included shipping) then fine, it's worth it, but less than that I don't like listing them. What do people do with these.. just list them anyway and get what little you can for them? Let them accumulate and then sell a bunch of them together in a box? Send them to COMC where they will sit for years while you pay rent on them?

I roll the dice with ESE, but have quit buying them. This includes the thicker brick type cards like Triple Threads and Inception as well. It sucks because Triple Threads is a great way to get #'d cards of HOF for cheap, but risk of issues is just too much, IMO.