How do you encourage multiple sales to the same person?

I sell plants and they might be even too cheap - I basically charge the same than I do on markets. What do I do to encourage people to buy various plants at once - say 10 at the time or at least five? Until now I only sell one or two at the time? I cannot reduce my prices for multiple sales (or I would have to increase them first).

I offered 3 alpine strawberries for one postage, this did not work so far. I might do 6 herbs of your choice or similar.

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Re: How do you encourage multiple sales to the same person?

Increase your prices. If you want to add an incentive,  you could say "buy 5 herbs and a some parsley free!" Or even buy 5 get the 6th item free. Have a disclaimer saying the free item would be the cheapest item. People like freebies. 

 

I've made a typo above and my phone won't let me go back and fix it. I meant to say buy 5 herbs and get some parsley free.

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Re: How do you encourage multiple sales to the same person?

I rely on multiple purchases - have a look at any of my listings to see how I encourage combined postage

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Re: How do you encourage multiple sales to the same person?

The best way to get buyers to buy more than one item is to have a wider range available so they're more likely to find more than one thing they want.

 

I notice some of your plants are listed under health & beauty.  Anyone searching for those plants is not going to search that category for them but will look under plants, so they won't find them.  You could possibly be reported and get a violation for listing in the wrong category too.

 

You've got in one listing "combine postage and safe".  The first thing I'd do is correct your spelling and put save instead of safe, but I'd also give them an idea of the savings they'd make by buying more than one.  For example, if you can fit three plants in a parcel under 500g, say so.  Sometimes you may be able to fit four in but not always, so you could perhaps say "three will post for the same postage price as one, sometimes more, but please contact me for more details".  I'd also say something about waiting for an invoice if they want to save on combined postage - they may not bother reading it but at least you've covered yourself.

 

I think you said once before your plants are different sizes and weights, but for ebay you might have to pick the plants that are similar sizes so that it's easier for you to work out postage and so you can make a definite statement about postage costs for multiple items.  Once you get a bit of practice it'll be easier.

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Re: How do you encourage multiple sales to the same person?


@*tippy*toes* wrote:

Increase your prices. If you want to add an incentive,  you could say "buy 5 herbs and a some parsley free!" Or even buy 5 get the 6th item free. Have a disclaimer saying the free item would be the cheapest item. People like freebies. 

 

I've made a typo above and my phone won't let me go back and fix it. I meant to say buy 5 herbs and get some parsley free.


Check that you are set to HTML.

 

My phone started not letting me fix typos here two days ago. It will look odd but then you can change it.

The default is Rich Text, click on HTML next to it at the top of the text box if you need to amend your post.

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Buttercup: You mock my pain! Man in Black: Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
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Re: How do you encourage multiple sales to the same person?

If someone buys two instead of one you've saved yourself 74c in selling fees on postage, and if they buy three instead of two you've saved yourself $1.47 in fees on postage. My point is that if they buy a lot at once you've saved enough in fees to be able to afford to give them a freebie without having to raise your prices first. You just need to work out how many they need to buy at once to not be out of pocket if you give them a free one.

You've got plenty of spare listings so try a few combination listings, eg. put seven specific plants in a listing together so that the total price is only the same as six plants bought separately (the numbers are just an example). If they buy it and pay straight away they'll only have paid one lot of postage so you won't have to worry about refunds.

You could try combinations of two plants and have the total slightly less than what they'd pay for the plants separately (your savings on postage fees would allow you to make the discount).

You can't do a listing for six herbs of your choice because you're not allowed to do choice listings, though plenty seem to do it and their listings never get removed when they're reported. I once did a choice listing and it was removed really fast and I got a slap on the wrist.

You might just have to be patient until you've built up your feedback. I recently bought something on another site and they gave me a voucher for a discount on my next purchase, but I only got the voucher once I left feedback. I'm not sure about the practicality of that on ebay.

Make sure that if you do a "buy X, get 1 free" offer that you tell them not to buy the last item but to just email you and tell you which one they want free, otherwise they'll buy it and you'll end up paying fees on it and then have to refund them and be out of pocket.
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Re: How do you encourage multiple sales to the same person?


@amber-eyed-girl wrote:

@*tippy*toes* wrote:

Increase your prices. If you want to add an incentive,  you could say "buy 5 herbs and a some parsley free!" Or even buy 5 get the 6th item free. Have a disclaimer saying the free item would be the cheapest item. People like freebies. 

 

I've made a typo above and my phone won't let me go back and fix it. I meant to say buy 5 herbs and get some parsley free.


Check that you are set to HTML.

 

My phone started not letting me fix typos here two days ago. It will look odd but then you can change it.

The default is Rich Text, click on HTML next to it at the top of the text box if you need to amend your post.

Thanks, I'll try that next time. It just wouldn't let me tap the cursor back up the message. I'd written everything before I realised and didn't want to backspace everything just to fix it! I've never had issues before, but this is eBay we're talking about! ๐Ÿ˜„

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Re: How do you encourage multiple sales to the same person?

That's it exactly. The no-I'm-not-going-back-in-there cursor.

 

Only here.


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Buttercup: You mock my pain! Man in Black: Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
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Re: How do you encourage multiple sales to the same person?

Range is the best selling tool for multiple purchases.

 

33 items is a good start, but you need more, the more you have listed, the more multiple purchases you will get..

 

 

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Re: How do you encourage multiple sales to the same person?

If you want to sell multiples the word FREE helps alot, buy 5 get 1 FREE

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