topic Re: Help - not selling in Selling

Help - not selling

miladyssewingbasket — Thu, 06 Oct 2016 05:30:41 GMT

Up to now have successfully sold items on ebay. Not a lot, but regularly. I usually sell on a 10 day Buy it Now Cycle. In about April I changed to a "Good Until Sold" format so I didnt have to keep renewing items. Since then I have sold not a skidoo. I have since changed my listings back to the 7 or 10 day format with no change. Did I do a naughty? Im just looking for reasons.

Re: Help - not selling

shiver_me_shrimp — Thu, 06 Oct 2016 05:47:53 GMT

I think fresh listings just show up better in a search, rather than one that's been up for weeks. Setting the time to be shorter will use up more of your free listings, but as you say you don't put much up anyway, it shouldn't worry you.
Many people on eBay have noticed a decline in sales these last few months, so you're definitely not alone.

Re: Help - not selling

pacotrading — Thu, 06 Oct 2016 09:52:18 GMT

Yep things are a bit quiet at the moment we were doing a roaring trade a week or so ago now the lights have gone out and dead as a dodo, but thats selling for you, buy the way that Ferrari model is sweet.

Re: Help - not selling

miladyssewingbasket — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 00:13:43 GMT

Thanks ....Im talking about 6 months worth of nada.....I realise the market goes up and down.....I love the Ferrari too. The Buragos are beautifully detailed models.

Re: Help - not selling

bottomoftheharbour — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 00:46:24 GMT

Yep, dead in the water the last week for me as well. Over here in Perth we have had an unseasonal cold winter and spring but the east coast has had so much wild weather and floods, maybe that is part of the quiet sales time for us. Maybe some comments from people caught in this bad weather can offer some thoughts.

Re: Help - not selling

heihachi_73 — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 01:06:54 GMT

The Ferrari might not be showing up under the model name, I had a few of those 1:43 cars as a kid, the models were by Bburago (yes, two B's!)

As for the PS2 game, that won't move in a million years with $7.45 postage (which is $7.60 today) - put it in a large envelope/bubble mailer with $2 or $3 worth of stamps on it ($3 if it weighs more than 125g, which it most likely will depending on how heavy the manual is) and you might set a sale. That's assuming you are sending it in a DVD cover (or even a CD/single cover); it would be suicidal to send it as is in that paper sleeve, the way Australia Post treats items.

Re: Help - not selling

miladyssewingbasket — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 03:47:43 GMT

Thankyou I'll do that now

Re: Help - not selling

beakychew — Sun, 09 Oct 2016 04:12:37 GMT

Ebay sends notifications to people who have your item on their watch list:

--when the item is about to finish (even if it will auto-renew)

--whent the quantity is getting low (for Quantity >1)

This puts your item back in their minds and nudges them to buy.

I find I get a rush of sales in both situations.

Re: Help - not selling

chameleon54 — Sun, 09 Oct 2016 08:35:24 GMT

I,m one of the people caught up in the wild weather. What it has meant for me is its too cold, wet and miserable to go outside, so I have been staying indoors on ebay a lot more. I,m a seller much more than buyer though. Like many others my sales have been woeful this week.

I,m wondering if ebay has changed its search criteria recently to place a lot more emphasis on fresh new listings, because that is the only thing I,m selling. Luckily with the wild weather I have done a heap of new listings recently, but the older listings seem to have gone AWOL big time.

Re: Help - not selling

x3n0m — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 03:37:39 GMT

I am seriously having difficulty comprehending the woeful figures and projections coming from my ebay income time in motion spreadsheet .. it is like sales have fallen off a cliff and died .. 5 of my last 7 sales have been plagued by non payment and change of mind and that is over 12 days .. I have never seen tragic figures like this before ever and doubt it is an abberation as is now obviously a trend(going from bad to worse) and in all probability the new normal .. at this rate I am seriously wondering what will happen next as expect sales etc to get worse from here .. and from what I have seen of the world there is no end to how far we can fall .. prepare ..

Re: Help - not selling

beakychew — Thu, 13 Oct 2016 05:14:34 GMT

Do you have Seller Hub?

It has some extra statistics that weren't avaiabe before.

You can see how many impressions your items are getting (per day), how many of those convert to page views, and how many of those convert to sales. You can also compare daily figures across a 3 month period.

This might help you to see where the problems are.

For my main account, this is what I see (and my interpretation):

--my impressions have halved (fewer visitors to Ebay or is Ebay favouring me less?)

--page views form outside Ebay stopped about 6 weeks ago (change to Google algorithm, or people's use of search engines e.g. turned off ads?)

--click through rates are about the same (it's not that a new competitor is attracting buyers away from me)

--sales conversion rate is much more variable (probably an artifact of fewer impressions and hence page views--when these are hgher the data are smoother)

There are lots of other ways to use the data--e.g. you could do A/B testing across titles, categories etc. with the per item view.

Just some thoughts that might help with diagnosis

Re: Help - not selling

*tippy*toes* — Thu, 13 Oct 2016 11:13:58 GMT

OK Beaky, I have to ask because it's been bugging me. What do you mean by "impressions" that you keep mentioning? I know that I'll probably slap my head when you tell me, but at the moment it's got me stumped.

Re: Help - not selling

beakychew — Thu, 13 Oct 2016 11:55:18 GMT

lol.

In the Seller Hub, under Performance>Tracking there are graphs and data about your selling account.

Impressions is how many times your items have been listed in a search or browse (for each day)

Page Views is the number of times people have viewed your item pages (each day) and whether that traffic came from inside or outside of Ebay.

And Sales --the obvious one. Total including postage.

Then:

Click Through Rate--what % of of impressions lead to a page view--shows how well your listings (title etc.) are attracting potential customers

Sales Conversion Rate--what % of your page views lead to a sale--shows how effective your listing is at getting people to buy

There is also a table that shows the same data per item.

You can compare these things across time, or across items.

It'd be interesting to know how your own numbers compare to other sellers with similar products (or any products!) but I don't know where to find those data!

Re: Help - not selling

*tippy*toes* — Fri, 14 Oct 2016 00:49:14 GMT

I don't know where to find the seller hub. I just have a normal selling page or selling manager (not pro) if I flick over to that. I don't have a store, is it a store thing? I'm not slapping my head, I never would have picked that in a million years! Thanks for explaining.

Re: Help - not selling

beakychew — Fri, 14 Oct 2016 01:23:19 GMT

I've had emails with an invitation to try it and I assumed it was for eveyone.

But I just checked and only my main account has had an invitiation, not my seconary account. So Ebay must be trialling it randomly I guess.

This link takes you to the Overview page: https://www.ebay.com.au/sh/ovw

My secondary selling account gets a page saying it's Coming Soon.

No wonder I'm making you confused!

Re: Help - not selling

ford12ford — Fri, 14 Oct 2016 01:59:04 GMT

Think it is just a bad time of the year, but people are spending up big on the Goodguys with that 20% off promo -me included lol. They have sold 100s of item last few days, maybe up to 1000s by now, so everyone still has money to buy. Altho maybe not after buying up now from the Goodguys sale. The stores themselves told me they can not do it for the price, it is a deal they do with ebay

Re: Help - not selling

x3n0m — Fri, 14 Oct 2016 06:50:55 GMT

Do you have Seller Hub?

No havn't got that yet .. am thinking that the stats side of seller hub would paint a clear but mosy likely rather bleak picture .. am thinking the market is in a general decline (due to a contracting economy, casualisation, under employment etc etc) and a lot of the old rules of sales success are out the window .. eg like things that used to sell individually more often than not need to be sold in a bundle with a cross referenced sweetener item to add value & garner interest .. it is all starting to feel like a last ditch effort mentality to move product for no profit or small loss is now emerging or you simply don't sell .. not easy to sell these days .. anyway good luck folks but am really not very optimistic that things will improve .. a more painless way of listing as promised in the seller hub (am hoping it is spreadsheet/pic folder ftp etc driven) would be welcome ..

Re: Help - not selling

imastawka — Fri, 14 Oct 2016 07:50:19 GMT

Tippy, from the seller centre

We've started to roll out Seller Hub. You'll be notified when you can access it. Keep checking your account to experience it.

http://sellercentre.ebay.com.au/ebay-for-business/manage-listings-store

Re: Help - not selling

davewil1964 — Fri, 14 Oct 2016 08:52:03 GMT

I have the offer one one of my IDs. i waiting for it on this one, as this is the one that can handle damage.

Re: Help - not selling

digital*ghost — Fri, 14 Oct 2016 10:04:26 GMT

@davewil1964 wrote:
i waiting for it on this one, as this is the one that can handle damage.

I actually opted out on my store ID, and opted in on this one. Some of the known glitches may be ironed out by now, but they're still basically testing it and I'd rather explore on an ID that won't affect my selling.

Some of the glitches that have been blamed on the seller hub include 'Notes to seller' notifications not showing on sold items (irrelevant for me, though, since I don't allow that option); stock revisions on multi-variation listings defaulting back to full quantity when revised (it doesn't happen until the changes are submitted, so going back in and editing again won't necessarily help); and other seller's PayPal email addresses appearing as the payment address in listings (that's a huge glitch, so if anyone is using the new listing tool via the seller hub, I'd keep an eye on that).