Question
For those of you that have ebay stores that are turning a profit.
How much time do you spend with your store?
Do you have a set schedule for using your time?
X amount of hours each day? Each week?
How do you determine your fixed price? (I aways think, if I auction it, maybe I will get more.)
What do you do to make your store successful?
Answer
How much time do you spend with your store?
Not a lot.
Do you have a set schedule for using your time? X amount of hours each day? Each week?
Once a month, I list stuff that didn't sell in my auctions.
How do you determine your fixed price? (I aways think, if I auction it, maybe I will get more.)
Somewhat higher than the opening bid but lower than the Buy It Now price I used when I listed the item as an auction. It still amazes me how many things sell, the first week or so they've been in my store, when they're priced higher than they were listed for previously as auctions.
What do you do to make your store successful?
See above.
Answer
Originally Posted by doobeedog
For those of you that have ebay stores that are turning a profit.
How much time do you spend with your store?
Not as much as I should, but probably 20+ hrs a month, between listing, adjusting pricing etc
Do you have a set schedule for using your time? No, not really, usually in the evening/night time
X amount of hours each day? Each week? 4-6 hrs per week, DEPENDING on what I have to list, new items etc
How do you determine your fixed price? (I aways think, if I auction it, maybe I will get more.) Same as I do for anything I list. I set a price I would be happy /can live with. Yeah, I MIGHT get more for some things on auction, but I figure if I MAKE money I'm doing okay. & I can make MORE money with less fees in the store.
What do you do to make your store successful?
Advertise in sig lines, on business cards, when I have my google ad running that links to my MSMO store there is a link to my ebay store also. I include pens with purchases with my ebay ID, I use store newsletters
Answer
Originally Posted by doobeedog
For those of you that have ebay stores that are turning a profit.
How much time do you spend with your store?
Do you have a set schedule for using your time?
X amount of hours each day? Each week?
How do you determine your fixed price? (I aways think, if I auction it, maybe I will get more.)
What do you do to make your store successful?
I'm about to shut mine down for the season (I only keep it open for the fall through spring season), but when I do have it open . . .
I spend very little time with it. Set up, and stocking takes the longest. After that I set everything on auto-relist and let them ride.
I don't have a set amount of time set aside each week - I use auction style listings to draw searches, so I just relist the auction items when needed. I probably end up spending an hour a week on store maintenance.
I have a formula for cost / retail price (handmade items) and I add $2.00 to cover store costs. I also charge shipping, whereas at my website, shipping is free.
To make my store successful, I keep about 5 auction items running at all times. I pick things with popular keywords in the title to hopefully draw the searches. Then I have a "Want to see more of my Egg Art? Visit my ebay store" blurb with a link embedded in my auction template.
I just recently used the markdown manager for the first time, reducing everything before I shut the store down. You can cut all prices by a percentage and the listing will show the old price, slashed, and the sale price.
For some, this works well. I have not seen an increase in sales using this method. But it's worth a try
Answer
Originally Posted by doobeedog
For those of you that have ebay stores that are turning a profit.
Its a profit, not enough to quit my day job on, but its definitely in the profit column.
How much time do you spend with your store?
I actually spend quite a bit of time, but this is partially because I am ramping up my store, and adding a number of new items, and I personally spend a lot of time writing up the listings.
This is also partially because of the items I sell a lot of, namely cookbooks, where I have found its easier to sell the cookbooks if you actually list all the recipes that are included. (I don't do this for Joy of Cooking or books with more than a couple hundred recipes, mind you.) Admittedly, people can't see all the wonderful pictures, but I do believe the descriptions help, because of the mouth watering descriptions. Also, many times people see Giada preparing x y or z on TV, and run a search on the name of the recipe on Google -- if its in my listing description, I'm gonna get a hit, maybe they'll look at the listing and decide to buy the cookbook.
Do you have a set schedule for using your time?
X amount of hours each day? Each week?
Every available minute of the day I'm doing something related to the store. Looking for new vendors, packing up boxes, writing new listings, etc. I work during my lunch hour at work, I work evenings and weekends. Not much of a life, but heh, I'm working towards a goal of building a business.
How do you determine your fixed price? (I aways think, if I auction it, maybe I will get more.)
On auctions, sometimes you will get more, sometimes less. I sell a collection of cookbooks that always does well (very popular author). I'm not the only one on Ebay who sells these books, there are several others. They sell theirs via auction, I list them fixed price. Sometimes they get bidders who bid the collection up way beyond a reasonable price, sometimes they take a bath, and I know they actually lost money on the sale. Me, I sell them fixed price. I don't know if I make as much as they do in the end, but I like the security of knowing that I will make at least x dollars per sale, that I've gotten a reasonable ROI and the buyer got a good deal, too. Plus, since I require immediate payment, I get the money right away in my paypal account, no waiting for them to pay, waiting for the check to clear, no having to file a unpaid item claim, and no having to nag them about payment.
I determine my fixed price based on various things, firstly, what I paid for the book, then what the Ebay and Paypal fees will be (all shipping related costs, packaging, etc. are incorporated into the shipping expense). Then I check and see if anyone else is selling the same thing on Ebay, and take a look at their prices. If I can be competitive, even if it means shaving a dollar off the profit margin, then fine, better than not making the sale. Fast quarters are better than slow dollars. If I can't be competitive, and sometimes I wonder if the seller truly is taking into account the big chunk Ebay and Paypal fees will take out of it, I consider several different options: (1) combining the item with several other related items so while I may not make as much on a single item as I would like, on the whole box I'll make more, (2) seeing if there is some extra service I can provide that sets me apart and makes it worth the extra buck or two I need, such as gift wrapping, sending presents directly to recipients, or shipping via priority flat rate mail (many vendors do not take advantage of this, especially for overseas sales, where it can really help for heavy items); (3) listing in a different category that will work better. I sell a DVD that does reasonably well. I'm not the only one who sells this DVD, but others let the listing languish in their store, or put it in the DVD category. They give a lowball price, but charge way, way too much for shipping to hide their profit in the shipping. But they don't sell very many. I put my DVD in a totally different category, where interested folks will actually see it, and list it as a BIN format auction, so it gets more attention. I also spend a lot more time working on my listing keywords, and checking sellathon to see what people who look at the item are searching for, where they came from, how they found the listing.
What do you do to make your store successful?
That's too long to answer, but I would say the most important thing to do is research. Consider investing in Marketplace Research so you can get 3 months of sales data. Research what you are going to sell on Ebay, how well and how many sell on Ebay (not how many are listed or the asking price, but what SOLD and for HOW MUCH), and do all that before you buy anything for sale. I know its tempting if you see something that's a really good deal and you think it should sell, unless you've been doing retail in the area for a good long time, you could be wrong. I made this mistake with some of the quilting related stuff I bought for resale, I bought what I would buy, and guess what, very few buyers on Ebay are like me, they don't go for the highbrow quiltart stuff, they go for the basics. I misguessed my market.
Also, don't buy too much of anything, unless you absolutely know you can sell it down the road. One of those highbrow quilting books I bought sold out pretty quickly, thought great, this one's a winner, bought some more to relist. Slow as molasses. I had exhausted my market, the book was hot when it had just been released, but the pent up demand had been met after a month, and I had way too much inventory for the sated demand. I've since read somewhere that many items are hot when they're first released, and when they reach the point where the market has been satured and the prices go down considerably and you start meeting the aftermarket demand. I think this is probably true of many things. Now, if its an untried item, if no one has tried selling it on Ebay, I might invest in 5 copies, but I'm not going to bet the farm on something with unproven potential.
Be sure and check what the competition is doing, and for a multitude of reasons. Are they doing something wrong you can take advantage of (in a sense) such as charging $8 - 10 for shipping a cookbook and not mentioning how they are going to ship it? Odds are, they will ship it media mail, and pocket the difference. I mention that in my listings (not the specific vendor), but say I'm shipping it priority mail, others may charge you the same amount, say nothing about shipping method, and you'll be waiting 2 - 3 weeks for your book. One vendor put it outright in their listing that items would be shipped media mail, if it hasn't arrived, don't bother contacting me until its been three weeks. To me that's not good customer service, and if you've charged them $8 or $10 to ship an item, perhaps don't say you're shipping it media mail, and the customer ends up waiting 2 - 3 weeks for it, while you might have pocketed a tidy profit in the short run, will that customer be back next time? Especially if they think you've jacked them for a couple of dollars on the shipping costs? Maybe not. Think long haul.
Or I made a ton of sales that last week before Christmas, when all the sellers who ship media mail were being passed over because the packages probably wouldn't arrive in time, whereas mine WOULD. Is there something you can do or offer that sets you apart, makes your listings look more attractive? Be friendly, be enthusiastic, ship your sales out as soon as you can, give others the customer service that you would like to be on the receiving end of when you make purchases. When you ship an item, be very prompt in notifying the buyer that the item has shipped, and giving them the tracking number, if any (these are wonderful things, both for buyer and seller). If something goes wrong, and an item gets lost, send the customer frequent updates on the progress of recovering or replacing the item. Let them know you are working on it, and want them to be happy with the purchase.