Most stuff on eBay doesn't sell

[kustomizer99]

When I look through completed auctions in various categories (both on the USA and Australian sites), it appears that only about 5% of all listings ever sell. This means that 95% of the time, people are wasting their time and effort lisiting their items.

Any categories people know of where sales are healthier than what I've been seeing?

[craycrayshoelady]

That doesn't sounds right. My sales are certainly nothing like those figures. 

Have you looked up the successful sellers rather than completed listings? 

[kustomizer99]

Hi - -no, I was just looking at completed categories, such as comics and books.

[imastawka]

Up until October your sales were very healthy.  Certainly more than 5%   Perhaps you started your auctions

for your comics a little too high?

[*crikey*mate*]

could those statistics be a combination of the categories that you are searching and the abundance of free listing offers?

i.e. those two categories would have a lot of lower grade items that some sellers would not usually list if they had to pay or use their allotted 40 for, but with the multitude of free listings they just list everything "just in case".

Because once you have done the initial listing (and lets be honest, a listing for this sort of thing doesn't take that long to start with) if it doesn't sell the first time, it only takes a few seconds to relist every month/free promotion.

For example, someone might have thousands of comic books or second hand books or kids clothes in varying conditions, if they thought they may only get one or two dollars for them (the ones not in very good condition), they may not want to pay or use their alloted 40/80 whatever (save those for the things they are confident will get a return) but if it's free and given out like candy at holloween (as they are atm)- what's there to lose?

[thecatspjs]

I sell womens clothing - new and preowned - it is a fairly competitive category to sell in, however overtime (not withstanding a sales slump over the past two months) out of every 1000 items for sale, my experience is that at least 95% of those items will sell within a year, with around half (though variable within a shorter timeframe) selling within 3 months.

I may have to relist items several times, change price - up & down, refresh listing details and photos, but generally if there is demand for the goods, the item is well described and has clear photos, and the price is right  =  sales.  

[kustomizer99]

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@imastawka wrote:

Up until October your sales were very healthy.  Certainly more than 5%   Perhaps you started your auctions

for your comics a little too high?

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Hi, that could be. But I've had some bad experiences listing items at a low starting bid.... hard to strike a balance.

[kustomizer99]

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@crikey*mate wrote:

could those statistics be a combination of the categories that you are searching and the abundance of free listing offers?

i.e. those two categories would have a lot of lower grade items that some sellers would not usually list if they had to pay or use their allotted 40 for, but with the multitude of free listings they just list everything "just in case".

Because once you have done the initial listing (and lets be honest, a listing for this sort of thing doesn't take that long to start with) if it doesn't sell the first time, it only takes a few seconds to relist every month/free promotion.

For example, someone might have thousands of comic books or second hand books or kids clothes in varying conditions, if they thought they may only get one or two dollars for them (the ones not in very good condition), they may not want to pay or use their alloted 40/80 whatever (save those for the things they are confident will get a return) but if it's free and given out like candy at holloween (as they are atm)- what's there to lose?

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I see what you're saying, but even with the free listings I take each one seriously and hope it works for me. In fact, I pretty much only use the 40 free listings these days -- when those are used up I wait unti lthe next month and start again. I'm certainly not selling on eBay for a living (thankfully!) but just trying to make a few bucks here and there without taking a loss on anything.

[kustomizer99]

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@thecatspjs wrote:

I sell womens clothing - new and preowned - it is a fairly competitive category to sell in, however overtime (not withstanding a sales slump over the past two months) out of every 1000 items for sale, my experience is that at least 95% of those items will sell within a year, with around half (though variable within a shorter timeframe) selling within 3 months.

I may have to relist items several times, change price - up & down, refresh listing details and photos, but generally if there is demand for the goods, the item is well described and has clear photos, and the price is right  =  sales.  

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I think you're onto the right thing there, in terms of category. We have a garage full of old clothes, but I wouldn't have a clue how to deal in such items.

[digital*ghost]

It is difficult to gauge the relative success or health of sales / categories with so many that are listed as GTC BINs. I know you have stated previously that no experienced comics seller will list silver age comics as BINs, but when you said that I went and had a look - of around 2600 listings for silver age comics that came up on a standard search, under 250 were auctions.

I didn't look very closely at the remaining 2300-odd, but I'm sure they weren't all GTC, so some of those would end with/without sales, but the majority (if not all) of them would be single quantity listings, so they probably wouldn't show in completed listings until sold.

I say probably because some listings have started to appear in completed when previously they wouldn't. For example, a multiple quantity GTC listing will now appear in completed listings if only one sells but the listing remains active.

But I would say the general statement "most stuff on eBay doesn't sell..." is generally true to a point, particularly if your time-frame is only over the two weeks shown in completed. (That is, most stuff on eBay doesn't sell within any two week period).