MOD NOTE: This post was originally @lake 's post that I moved here from another topic. I am reassigning it to @meredithbead as when I moved, it usurped her original OP, now found here. My sincere apologies to @lake@meredithbead and all readers for any confusion! -papy
Jewelry sellers on Ebay have been bemoaning poor sales with posts on their forums for quite some time.
There is an overabundance of merchandise. The costs of promoting jewelry on Ebay have grown to the point that it is obvious that the category is saturated.
My wife had been a vintage and antique jewelry seller at antique shows. Only a very small percentage of the merchandise would sell at any show. It was possibly even worse than antiquarian books and ephemera in turn rate. She stopped and has gradually given away some of her inventory to friends who continue to sell jewelry.
This is totally separate from her collection of studio made jewelry.
Before listing a piece on eBay, I used both Google image search and word search within eBay to find similar items, and price mine slightly lower. Of course, without advertising, the odds are pretty low that my piece will even be seen — and for a one-off super-inexpensive item, advertising would bring my “profit” down to zip.
There’s a FB group called Buy Nothing, which has hundreds of local chapters throughout the US. If a $5 item doesn’t sell within a few months, it will be listed on Buy Nothing. Plus, I have a big birthday coming up, and I’ll probably run another FB party where I give away the presents
I don’t need the money, but I need to be productive. As long as things are moving, I’m happy.
I also don’t value vintage costume jewelry very highly, and as such, will sell it for whatever-$ and not even blink.
I certainly understand this. But I refuse to sell anything for $5. Too much hassle when things go wrong, and some sales, particularly low dollar ones, go wrong.
I have a long list of items I have sold in the past which I would never sell online again. Which is part of why I own so much STUFF.
Of course, I also have a lot of stuff which the USPS fees for length of over 22" applies, and stuff which is now surcharged if mailed in a tube.
I’m an eBay re-newbie after 30+ years absence. I quit because
I hate hate hate auctions. Hate buying via auction, and hate selling via auction. Back then, the only option for a new seller was auction. Too much drama for my druthers.
eBay seemed like the wrong platform for my product.
Flash forward 30 years: I recently read that eBay now offers 250 free listings per month (it was 30 in the 1990s) and Buy It Now is available to everyone. I figured I’d try again, but this time with vintage (mostly costume) jewelry and de-stash supplies.
Like any platform, there’s a learning curve. I was on the phone with tech support 5 different times, getting help which was not in the FAQs.
My observations:
I was impressed with the people in tech support. They were friendly, patient and knowledgeable. No cut-and-paste irrelevant non-answers (like another platform we all know and love.)
Their AI is so awful, it almost makes Amazon’s AI look good. Note the word “almost”.
I spent 3 weeks getting pictures for 250 items, researching prices, and writing descriptions for my files. After that, I was so eager to finally list things, I forgot to look at FVFs.
Oops. I had set up my findings with variations of $1 lots and $5 lots. When Ms. Math Geek finally looked at the numbers, I realized that my $1 packs would net ~15 cents. Bad math, bad math. So I went into all my variations and edited. Then I edited all non-variation items under $3, which I set as the new minimum.
I’m thinking that may be my next little project. Figure out which of my $3 items can justify a $5 price tag, which $3 findings have enough quantity make a $5 lot — and then give away the rest.
This happened to us today. A item we shipped has a cost for us of $1.05, it is sunk, as we paid for it years ago. We charge $9.95 with free shipping.
Ok, just trying to empty our bins that have these items we have been stuck with for years. After shipping and fees, I can pocket $3.00 no problem.
Though today we get a AZ request, INR, yet it went to the wrong address, a village in the town that has the same Zip Code. I get it. The USPS is sending it back.
The customer wants a new product, I know I will get this back, so, forced to send them a new one.
So… what was $3.00 for lunch or a cup of coffee is now $?.?? coming out of our pocket.
Shipped it today. Customer is very happy.
Me not so much, hope to make it up in the morning.
I started selling on eBay back in the '90s when it was auction only and the website was only 23 pages. Back then I sold electronics and stuff like that. I hated the auction style but it was the only option at the time. Seller support was always good and could be reached by telephone.
In 2014 the website was hacked and a lot of sellers including myself lost all of their historical sales history and had to start over like a newbie.
Since then I go on eBay in spurts like right now where I am overhauling all listings and bundling many items into lots at greatly reduced or clearance prices. I am also adding shipping costs to all listings since absorbing the shipping cost made no difference in sales and always ended up costing me more money when people would buy more than one listing.
Also the shoppers on eBay are bargain hunters and when shipping is added in with the selling price it can make your item look like it is way overpriced compared with your competitors.
The listing format has been greatly simplified and creating variations is easy to do, unlike Amazon. I am modifying my listings into having two variations (Lot 1 and Lot 2) with each variation being its own lot of destash craft supplies. I am not taking any new pictures but rather editing current pictures in Canva.
For your inexpensive $3 items, try bundling them into a lot of $10 or $15 + shipping using Canva to edit your pictures to reflect your new grouping of items for sale.
Good luck and I am happy to answer any of your questions.
As those who have been here from the beginning know, I left Amazon and returned to Ebay because I was wasting a lot of time on IP issues in the Collectibles Categories on Amazon and unlike when I came to Amazon, Amazon was not generating a price premium for collectibles and media any more.
Ebay is far more welcoming, and as long as I do not list items which are politcally incorrect my listings do not get taken down. Ebay bots are no better than Amazon bots at censoring.
I left my Amazon listings on vacation, and am using the pictures from my collectibles listings on AZ (they are mine) and actually having Ebay download them from AZ. With pictures for well over 20k catalog pages on AZ going through my originals on the computer is too chaotic.
I have a long handling time 5 days on my Ebay listings, a No Returns Policy which is unenforceable, and have succeeded in lowering buyer expectation so my stress level is low and I am ranked as a Top Rated Seller.
Do not assume that I am uppity enough to price everything in the stratosphere. My minimum price is $8 plus shipping. Designed so putting up with an order makes me at least $5.
I sell low demand items and have an Ebay store with over 100 followers. Many of them are actually repeat customers. Some of whom I have cordial communications with.
It is not big time by any means, but it is fun some of the time.
You are certainly welcome here. We do have an Ebay section on SAS and sometimes answer specific questions.
I am amazed that you got any correct answers from Ebay Customer Service. They have a worse reputation than Amazon Seller Support. And they earn it.
If you have not discovered it yet, there are no customer related issues they can handle. Every issue which is going to be resolved has an automated path. There are no exceptions and no leaway.
You can message me if you need any help. Or you can go to the Ebay forums and encounter some knowledgeable people and my alter ego.
Of course we don’t do the volume on eBay that we do on Amazon, but we do OK there. A few tips might help you make some $$$.
We use eBay promoted listings, you can set the amount you are willing to pay if the item sells as a percentage up to 15%. We have had success at even 6% and you don’t pay unless it sells. Also, you can search completed listings and see what the items actually sold for, not just what they are listed for. Gives you a feel for what price will move your stuff. We haven’t tried their promote on social media thing yet, but I’m thinking about it. Not exactly sure how that works but they do have a program for that.
Left you some tips in another thread. Also you can do quantity discounts for multiple items and for us it really seems to work. I really like eBay’s platform, just wish they had the traffic that Amazon does.
Since most of my items are very inexpensive, I can’t afford “free” shipping or returns. I put $5 per package shipping, which after eBay’s cut, is my actual average shipping cost.
I don’t have Canva but I’m pretty sure Photoshop can make collages. I’ve already bundled several of my (formerly) $1 items into $3 bundles, but I probably need to make bigger bundles.
We’re here now lol
4 out of 5 customer support responses were fantastic. The 5th one (sequentially the 3rd) solved the problem of that phone call, but messed up something else pretty bad.
Everyone thanks for your help and offers of future assistance
Not being critical and I know this is a bit controversial with sellers, but our items are also inexpensive and we did a 16 month experiment on eBay where we listed all of our items with separate shipping AND with free shipping. The end result was the same exact price for all of the items whether it was “free” or separate, the customer paid the same in the end. In 16 months we did not sell ANY products with separate shipping, and we had sold a fair amount with “free” shipping. Same product, same end user total price, but not one sale in over a year without free shipping. Consumers are funny. No matter what YOU think would be too high a price you have to ignore your own bias and do what works. People buy a single bar of soap for more than $12 (not ours). Let that sink in for a minute. Are they crazy, or do they value the product? Apparently they think it’s worth it.
One of the biggest mistakes I think sellers make is underpricing their merchandise, especially when it’s hand made. It’s quality stuff, price it accordingly.
As a buyer, I’d rather buy with free shipping, because not free shipping means I have to go product by product calculating or looking up the shipping price and calculating the total for everything. I don’t have time for that. I’d rather pay more – just give me the final price. Sort of like when they nickel and dime on the airlines. I’ll pay more just for them to tell me the final price.
Exactly. Consumers are generally lazy and the more work you can do for them, the better chance you have of a sale. And it’s not about what you and I would prefer, it’s about what the general public perceives is easier for THEM. I had to get out of the mindset of what I liked or thought I would buy when I first started selling back in 2001. I realized I needed to cater to THEM, not me, and that my personal preferences mean zero in e-commerce. Do what works,
One of the first rules I learned in retail is that if you want someone’s money, you have to make it easy for them to give it to you. It doesn’t matter how much someone wants the item if purchasing it is hard or inconvenient.
The second rule I learned is “20% of customers will inflict 80% of your stress” but I digress.
I have free shipping on Etsy and I agree with you that it is the best way to go. I will continue experimenting on eBay and right now have a mix of some items with free shipping.
Amazon and MakerPlace, where I sell only handmade, have “free” shipping because that’s what the public seems to prefer, for reasons as stated above. I do not devalue my products, and 93% are priced over $20.
eBay, however, is a whole different animal which begets a different marketing strategy. My raison d’etre is to move stuff, period — destash jewelry supplies (70%), inexpensive vintage (20%), and deep discount handmade (5%) that I want gone. Since I can’t compete with wholesalers, my target market for destash is hobbyists who just want a little of this and a little of that.
I’ve spent the last 2 days raising my minimum from $3 to $5, which is the price for most of my destash. I still have 1 or 2 days to finish. The math is easy — the slog is counting all those tiny little findings to determine if there’s enough quantity to justify $5. Where needed, I’m also combining lots aka more Photoshop.
I’m hoping that low prices will inspire multiple-item sales. The math is simple. If a customer buys three items @$5, with a $5 package fee for the lot, they pay $20. If I add that postage into every item, they pay ($5 + $5) x3 = $30. I think most people would rather pay $20 than $30.
After I finish changing prices, I might try ads at a low percentage for a month or two to see if that helps.
I’ve been selling on eBay for just a few weeks. My only “trend” so far is that vintage items have the bulk of views in my shop, and all 4 of my sales have been vintage. If this continues, I’ll change the product percentages to skew more for vintage.
