Sales down dramatically

[roseblack]

Hi is anyone else experienceing a dramatic decrease in sales? I changed my listing to "free postage" by incorporating the shipping into the price and that is the only thing I have done differently.

[roseblack]

I wish I new what to do about SEO too. I recently had a cold (phone) call from a SEO company and the guy spent about an hour the phone with me discussing ways to improve my website (actually showing me the areas on my website that needed improvement) and I was so tempted to go with them but for a couple of things (I didn't even consider it for eBay as I thought eBay took care of that side of things as part of our fees) - he was ringing from India and after the Microsoft con I am very wary of cold calls and I am sorry to say Indians (not a racist comment but as a result of the Microsoft con - these people were from India) and also he wanted to charged me $1500 a quarter. I have no idea if this is a reasonable or exorbitant price and how measureable the results should be - he said I would not see an improvement in sales/traffic for at least 90 days.  I also get many emails with people offfering SEO services. Basically I don't know who to trust but I do recognise that it would be a good idea. Anyone else have any experience with SEO's?

[digital*ghost]

As a general rule, people who call you trying to sell you something aren't doing it to help the person they're calling. Anyone who sells on eBay already has some SEO skills, they may just not know it yet (it is generally about effective, click-worthy content, so your experience with writing titles and descriptions gives you a headstart).

I would start with some general research - there is a lot of information about SEO, but you can start with the basics so that if you decide to go with a consultant etc, you'll know what you're need from them rather than have them tell you what you need (and how much it'll cost!) - here's a decent overview with some tips: http://blog.kissmetrics.com/simple-guide-to-seo/

[davewil1964]

I suspect that $1500 a month might not be ballpark.

As said - cold callers are looking to their pockets, not yours. Generally.

The ideal scenario is for the SEO optimiser to be paid a commission on sales over your baseline average. But I doubt too many cold callers would agree to that. And for $1500 per month I would be wanting them to generate a minimum of $25,000 per month. Upfront.

[kyirrie]

Same here 😞 For the past week and a half haven't sold anything, (really unusual) only in the last couple of days have things started to pick up again.

[haolove13]

Historical low months are nothing new and 10 to 20 percent can be common. But My Ebay sales went down by 80 % and page views went down by a similar amount. I would regularly get 100 or so page views on new items. Before I finished here it was down to 5 or six page views.
That is not seasonal variation it is systematic failure.

[haolove13]

A cold call from India asking for $ 1500 a month.
To justify that at 10% would require sales of $15 ,000 per month. Do you have room to put that in your margins?

Any cold call from overseas is a very risky situation

[haolove13]

I wonder if the Ebay system has imploded.
People are going through periods of complete lack of sales.
Then they inexplicably improve slightly.

Is it the free listings creating a cycle?
Nobody towards the end of the month. so no reason to look at Ebay.
Then at the start of the month everyone lists their freebies and the market comes alive. (plus maybe the sellers take a look around as well. ) Then as the month progresses , no freebies left, so why bother checking my sales, so no interest to look around as well.

now that I have moved to the dark side I need to go there every day to check on enquiries and sales.

[*crikey*mate*]

i think it matters what you are selling.

I utilized the last 150 free listings to sell a product that is pretty new for me - dabbled a bit previously to get a feel, but this was the firat time my intent was serious.

sold 95 of the 120 listed (6 more finishing today) had one non payer though but that has been relisted and will finish today with several bids. Items had starting prices between $15, mainly round the $50ish mark, and up to the $200 mark

sold the odd thing from my regular stuff, but nothing to get excited about, enough to keep things ticking over iykwim

One thing I did sell, I have had listed for a while and no one was even watching it, - maan, it is ugly, but figured it will be exactly what someone will be looking for eventually

For some reason, in the 150 lot of auctions, it got some interest and ended up with 8 bidders making 26 bids - went from $15 to $56 plus post!

No idea why - just a fluke

but now, seeing as that line appears to go so well, will have to try and source more LOL

[knewdoors]

again our sales are AWFUL we havent sold an item since June 22..what the hell is going on going ebay???..this never used to happen..you always change the goalposts..it's got nothing to do with what you are selling or price....something smells really bad about how ebay is handling the SEO's..cant remember a worse sales time..

[meekamag2]

And then when you do make a sale, the monthly bills are now exorbitant with the FVF on p&h.