@bulktradediscounters3 wrote:
My listings are NOT split in product groupings and that might have a bearing, but most of my customers inform me that they know what they are looking for and just type it into the ebay search engine anyway ... I do have multiple item sales so that seems to not be too much of an issue and it would take days to spilt everything into separate product categories.
Have you considered that could be because they have to? As in, you haven't provided the alternative option, and that you still have no idea how many people aren't buying because they can't easily narrow down what they're looking for?
I'm not trying to be argumentative, in case it comes across that way, I'm just trying to get you to see this from the perspective of people who are choosing not to buy from you, and right now that's what you need to try and address.
The two things I mentioned before - store categories and asking buyers to contact for postage discounts - are still an issue, and I know setting up your store to address these issues takes time and work, but sellers do all of that kind of work so that buyers don't need to work to browse, buy and/or pay. Everything that makes it easier for customers to do those things, increases the liklihood that they will purchase, so I hope you reconsider categorising your items, as well as perhaps look at setting up some automatic postage discounts, or using the promotions manager.
The latter can be a deal breaker, for sure - if a buyer is looking at two items from different sellers, and on one it says "contact me to see if you can get a discount" and the other one says "buy one, get one at 10% off - discount automatically applied in the cart", which one do you think they will buy? You don't need to be exact down to the cent, you just need to tell people upfront (so they don't have to message and ask, or buy without knowing the final total). If you can't give the same kind of postage discount to everyone, work out a modest average or median discount and apply that.
For whatever it's worth, since I don't post with my store account here, I sell craft supplies. My store is (almost) fully categorised, with sub categories as well (I say almost, because the more my stock expands, the more I find sub-categories become useful, but some I've not implemented yet). I'm not currently using any promotions but I have use something of a flat rate postage system - buyers can see as soon as they look at one of my listings, or add items to the cart, that no matter how many items they buy, postage will not increase after the first (highest) P&H charge, and it applies across all services offered (standard, registered, express). I do well enough here not to complain (yet), even when it's slow, I don't know about average items purchased in an order, but because the flat rate postage made it much more cost-effective and worthwhile to buy more than one item, people like to look at what else I've got, hence why store categories can play a major role in assisting sales.
