How can we compete

[littlemiddy]

Hi

How do we compete with a seller who sells at a loss, I purchased a pair of earrings to see how they package/post them, cost $1.99 aud, when the earrings arrived, the postage was $2.20 aud add ebay fees onto that your looking at maybe $2.50 aud so they losing $0.50 per sale, there is no way I can compete, and they have over 10,000 listings on ebay with 195k items sold, i checked their feedback history and most people buying the $1.99 earrings and not the more expensive to even out the so called sales. Ebay stated that they have other accounts with more expensive items to even out the sales......again how is this fair to the rest of us??

They litterly have a monopoly so why should I sell on ebay and is this happening with other items??

How can we compete with this????

[littlemiddy]

yes 2 x$1.20 stamps

[littlemiddy]

actually that adds up too $2.40

[kermit2023]

Selling Antique hinges

and

Vintage necklaces with leather strap. 

hmmmmmmmmmm……. I seriously doubt it! 

[springyzone]

I haven't read through this thread yet (just the first 2 pages).

I'm a buyer, used to sell many years ago, but a buyer now.

I had an entertaining moment reading feedback for that seller, after looking up the item number you supplied. Others have the same thoughts as you, All earrings on the card are either broken or bent beyond repair. However at a cost $1.99 and with postage stamps of $2.40 on the envelope, I'm just not sure what you hope to achieve? Building negative feedback perhaps.

That appears to be another buyer unless it is you under a different account.

Ebay can't monitor every ad and these are listed as free postage Ebay would have no idea of how much the product cost in the first place or what the seller was paying for postage. They don't care. That's not their job. Their job is just to host ads and monitor for scammers & the cheap seller isn't one of those.

Ebay encourages people to start auctions at 99c, put it that way, so they don't care if sellers aren't making a profit. Only that fees are paid.

There are ways you can still sell though.

1. try to have stock that is not identical to those who are listing cheap stuff from China.

2. And this worked on me as a buyer, to pay substantially more than the chinese listings that looked the same. You need to explain the points of difference.  Some years ago, I was after an item and the Australian ad said theirs was much better quality than similar items shown in Chinese ads.  Now we're not talking a big item, it was a diamante product for card making. The seller explained hers were well made, wouldn't lose the diamantes and had a superior sparkle etc

I bought them and they were lovely. 

What you need to do with jewellery is push the quality. Be blunt as in say eg-these won't go black the way the cheaper products do.

Or say cheaper products often have posts that bend and break, whereas yours are stronger.

But only if it is true.

If yours are identical in every way to the cheaper items, then you can't compete, find a better, different range of items.

People will pay for better quality. Not everyone on ebay is after $1.99 earrings.

[springyzone]

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@littlemiddy wrote:

seriously?? your saying I am not smart cause I dont want to sell at a loss, so therefore I must be just bad at business, sounds to me like a bunch of new/fake/various ids justifying what I have pointed out,

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None of the ID's look new to me, most have been around on the boards for years. You're the newbie, but that's fine. 😃

No one here would suggest you sell at a loss, that really would not be smart.

Many people here hate to see ebay awash with cheap Chinese junk too but it isn't going to change.

Just take heart from the fact many buyers aren't after cheap junk. 

[springyzone]

Okay, sorry to bombard the thread, but I just had a look at some of your items.

If the earrings are hand made, have you thought of putting the price up?

For instance, you have some wooden earrings listed as hand made, one of a kind, but then you're asking $7 for them and that includes postage?

If you want to exude quality, the price is actually offputting.

I know this sounds counter productive, but you might have better luck if you asked $20 or more and really pushed the quality, handmade aspect.

Be markedly different to the cheap Chinese stuff. $7 including postage would put me off, make me think these can't be all that good.

[gutterpunkz05]

I wonder how much they pay for a $1.20 stamp.  Considering they would  appear to be using in the vicinity of  20000 stamps per month, purely for this one account.

I believe AP sell pensioner discounted stamps at half price, very limited quantities.  So I  wonder what sort of discount I could get  for a very high volume of stamps per month.

[imastawka]

If they sell high volume, their best bet would be franked mail (postage meter), but it looks like they don't use that service if they attach stamps.

I don't think you can get discounted postage stamps - apart from the Pensioner ones available.   And they are obvious - they don't have an amount printed on them.

[littlemiddy]

thats what I was thinking, the concession stamps are limited to 50 per person per year and those stamps are marked concession and thats not what was on the one I received,  now if you could somehow buy discounted stamps someone would already be selling those on ebay, the lowest i have found is 100 x $1.20 Self Adhesive Australia Post Stamps for $93, that is still not enough of a discount for that to be feasible, and from what I can tell AP does not discount stamps regardless of quantity purchased, they will discount bulk postage lots, but that is printed on the parcel/envelope at the post office 

[domino-710]

Would that be 2,000 stamps per month. ??