Sales when you first started

[tackledfishing]

Hello fellow ebayers... Just out of curiosity how many sales did you average  (if any) in the first month you started selling on ebay ? ( if you can remember that far back , as you are all doing so so well).

Thanks guys! 🙂

[trulyspecialgoodies]

Can't remember how many I averaged in the first month but I know that ANY SALE AT ALL was greeted with much jubilation and celebration - it wouldn't have been more than 2 or 3 a month in the beginning 🙂

It's only a couple of years since I started but seems SUCH a long time ago and I've learned so much during that time - mostly from the Discussion Centre here and from the Q & A.

I still try to treat each buyer as if he/she is the only one I deal with and make them feel special and looked after.

[shypansy]

For me it will be coming up to 12 years,  I do remember pretty much everything I listed sold.  only about 5% of buyers were from Aus, most were from the US,  I confidently listed stuff at $9.99 US knowing fair well it would get multiple bids.  and last minute bidding wars were common events,

I was a simple hobby seller, listed household bits and pieces and some collectables, not unusual to make a grand a week,  in the first month I recall taking in about $1500, a lot back then,  it just got better from there.

Payment was at times an issue but we got around it,  I even had buyers send me US cash which I exchanged at the local travel agents.

Were able to communicate with buyers and sellers, just to chat and make friends, the O/S buyers loved to ask about we Aussies,  many are still in touch.  But things were simpler then, and buyers and sellers worked more on friendly and courteous service,   there was the odd buyer who wasn`t the best,  but very few and far between, that just made it interesting and more determined to succeed.

Sorry, what was the question?  got a bit carried away with the reminiscing 😄

[kopenhagen5]

Them's were the days. It was good being able to communicate with any member and ID's weren't disguised.

I even had fun bidding wars with a couple of regulars where we were bidding the smallest amounts in races near the end of auctions. Then having a laugh about it later.

You could message bidders notifying them the item is a replica when obviously they didn't realise.

Helping in so many ways was possible and saved ebay a lot of time by not receiving the problems as reports or questions. I guess it was used and abused by some turning bidders off auctions they themselves wanted to win.

Sales - As a hobby seller I was excited with a few.

[cathy1971]

I started my shop around 3 years ago.  Of course sales were slow at until I doubled my listings. I always got very excited when I had a sale.  They were all important to me.  I enjoy selling and hope to make nay business bigger and bigger.

[davewil1964]

When I started selling, my first month's sales were quite good. Volume wise about what they are now.

The only issue was that they were all 99c auctions for $15-20 books and most sold for 99c. I was only trying to make room for acquisitions by getting rid of books I was never going to read again, so the money really wasn't an issue. The space was.

This gave me the bug for book selling. I'm much happier now with my business strategy, even though it means I have far more books than I have ever had before and the space issue wasn't resolved.

Although I still get affronted when I get offered 23% of what I have a book listed for.

[a_beautiful_room]

Oh shypansy those were the days. Paying $30 for something at an auction and watching it sell for over $300. Crazy days! Many Sunday nights (which were the nights my auctions finished) I took over $10,000. I'd be up at 5.30am packing, packing, trying to get everything done before my baby woke up, and then up till 11 every night still working like mad.

LOL, common sense prevails now .. I don't work quite so hard, but the money is just enough. I guess I could charge less and do higher volume but I don't want to work such long hours now.

The best sale I ever had was $11,000 for a bedroom suite which I paid $2500 for. Just the dressing table went for over $7000. My husband couldn't believe it.

[i-once-was-bump]

I used to sell my items in an Art Gallery and a few of my items made it overseas so when I started on ebay, way back when, I sold everything I listed and was limited by my ability to produce the items.

It was good then because buyers paid you by bank deposit and overseas sellers paid by Paypal (which was all in US dollars) and no one seemed to rip off those using bank deposit.

At first it took at least 6 to 12 months before the copies appeared on ebay but after about 3 years my items were copied by chinese fraudster and on ebay within 2 months and the same was for everyone else but now they only need 2 or 3 days to have a copy on ebay.

It isn't worth the time or trouble of creating ones own designs and then making  and knitting and/or felting hats these days.

[shypansy]

LOL yes ABR, sleep deprivation was an accepted condition back then,  I even admit to a few all nighters.  especially when I was at the time catering more for the US buyers, but Sunday nights were great for antiques and collectables,   I always admired your auctions and the effort you made to show them off so beautifully, (and still do)

Not my highest sale, but had one item that received over 140 bids,  ebay attached a rocket logo to the listing with the words Hot Item. 

I can pretty much guarantee we won`t experience anything quite like it again.

[thesoulyearns]

Most people probably start similar to you, tackled. A few sales here and there to spur things on until you get repeat customers and build a nice little brand for yourself.

I'm just a casual seller and have the odd sale here and there. Looking back at my feedback beings back some good memories, even if the sales were sporadic and not the highest price in the world. Funnily enough, arguably my best sale was when I really didn't even care about making any more than a few dollars from it. Didn't check to see its value, just listed it, took some nice pics, added a fun description and off it went!

Lately I've not been selling as much but it's alright; mostly just getting rid of stuff which is the same for alot of casual sellers.