Question
In light of my own results, I'm wondering how everyone else's Ebay holiday sales are going...if you are willing to share. I'm sure I'd be doing much much better if I were selling the hot new playstation or Wii, but I'm frankly a little disappointed. A modest uptick in sales, but nothing to write home about, unfortunately.
I've tried to take advantage of Ebay's 10 and 20 cent listing promotions to create more listings with a variety of start and end times, in multiple categories, new categories I've never tried before, but that's only led to a modest increase in sales. I've made sure I'm listing unique items (not available from other sellers), or in cases where other sellers are selling the same item, according to my Ebay Marketplace research over the past three months, my listings are the only ones that have sold, not theirs (which I suppose should make me feel better about how I'm writing my descriptions or the categories I have selected). So I'm not losing sales to Ebay competition.
Of course, the bad side of that is, either sales on Ebay are generally disappointing, or I've pretty much missed the mark as to what Ebay Christmas shoppers are looking for, maybe I've specialized too much for the Ebay shoppers. Or possibly both. So I'm wondering how things are going generally for others...
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Originally Posted by colorscape_quilts
I'm sure I'd be doing much much better if I were selling the hot new playstation or Wii...
Think again....eBay is making everyone jump through so many hoops to sell them and then Paypal is doing the same thing before you can collect the money, it's pretty much been a headache. I camped out for 4 days to get my hands on a few of the systems and have only sold a Wii and not a Playstation system yet, and on top of that the sales are not what everyone expected them to be....there was a shortage on how many PS3s were supposed to be released but even that didn't make a difference, the cost of what they are selling for is far below what was expected. Hopefully things will turn around as Christmas gets closer, otherwise I'll be giving PS3s out as gifts.
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I think I am doing about the same as before. I am doing ok with the best items, the second best items are often not moving at all, or taking too long to move and the fees cut in deeply to any potential profit.
It's better than this past summer, but the glow is off. I can tell people don't want to spend.
I thank ebay for waking me up to raising my shipping costs. I now make $15.00 shipping profit on 10 items sold. So I no longer feel I am standing in line there for Meg. I used to make nothing on shipping, but just that little raise I gave myself a couple of months ago takes some of the sting off of the flat sales I'm having.
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Originally Posted by Renaissance
Think again....eBay is making everyone jump through so many hoops to sell them and then Paypal is doing the same thing before you can collect the money, it's pretty much been a headache. I camped out for 4 days to get my hands on a few of the systems and have only sold a Wii and not a Playstation system yet, and on top of that the sales are not what everyone expected them to be....there was a shortage on how many PS3s were supposed to be released but even that didn't make a difference, the cost of what they are selling for is far below what was expected. Hopefully things will turn around as Christmas gets closer, otherwise I'll be giving PS3s out as gifts.
I stand corrected (my condolences).
I'm sure the manufacturers have done everything they could to hype things up as much as possible, create an illusion of even greater sense of demand than there really was, not to mention produce a shortage, to drive up per item sales prices and whip up the buying public and speculators into a purchasing frenzy. And I did glance at the emails from ebay regarding PS3 and Wii selling rules, so I got that they were clamping down in advance on those, or at least attempting to.
Sort of reminds me of a couple of years ago, here in Los Angeles, there was some big cultural event phenomena going on, can't remember what it was, a Rolling Stones concert, something like that, that was touted as THE event to go to, the event that anyone who had any cache or cultural savvy would have tickets to, and sure enough, it sold out quick, but turned out that most of the people who got tickets were scalpers or scalper-wannabees and there were tons of scalpers advertising to get ridiculous sums of money for the tickets. There were lots of tickets out there, and it not only drove the price of the tickets down, but as all the amateur scalpers got a little pannicky that they were going to be stuck with unsold tickets and reduced prices drastically, it created a snowball effect, and people who actually wanted to attend waited until the last minute because they knew time was on their side.
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My sales have never been particularly good before Christmas, but have always picked up during the winter months after Christmas. I think quilters tend to buy for themselves AFTER getting Christmas over with.
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Originally Posted by goodworks1
My sales have never been particularly good before Christmas, but have always picked up during the winter months after Christmas. I think quilters tend to buy for themselves AFTER getting Christmas over with.
That had occurred to me as well, perhaps that quilting items would be more of a self-gift item, rather than a Christmas gift from a spouse or child. And a number of quilters will have more time to think about quilting and that next project AFTER all the shopping, cooking, spending, relatives visiting, hustle and bustle of the holidays...
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Originally Posted by goodworks1
My sales have never been particularly good before Christmas, but have always picked up during the winter months after Christmas. I think quilters tend to buy for themselves AFTER getting Christmas over with.
Ditto, it depends on what you sell. Sales, as voted, have been marginal but if the wave continues as the years in the past, they should pick up during Jan and early Feb.
A lot of folks just give $$ nowadays to people who are difficult to buy for. That way they can go out and buy the item THEY choose instead of some handcrafted sweater by Aunt Betty or whoever.
I'm letting my ebay "listed items" end within the week and will relist after Jan when shoppers with $ might come back to online auctions and hopefully purchase what THEY want.
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My last batch of auctions before Xmas just ended. I have to say that our sales have always been consistently good, since we started in '99, though we've refined what we choose to sell over the years and generally only put up what we believe will sell and/or do well. There's been a lot of posts lately about sluggish sales, many from folks here that I respect and have to believe are very diligent in their methods. So, I'm always wondering why their success is waning. So on this last batch (only about 30 items) I deliberately put up a very eclectic variety of items (about 3/4 of which I would not generally be inclined to list on ebay) just to see what would happen. Items ranged from glassware to ephemera to advertising, sports mem, costume jewelry, pottery, even an item I found digging in the woods! I also put up a few items I knew should do well just to keep from going bust if the other crap tanked.
In the end 23 of 29 items sold (79%), with 111 bids. There was bidding activity the entire 5 days. A few things sold (the good items) but brought lower than expected prices, A few of the good items brought great prices. Many of the things I expected not to sell, not only sold but did well (for those kind of items), and a few things I expected to at least get a bid, never did. Shows you what I know. Oh, and the artifact I dug up did over $125! As far as I can tell all seemed about normal as far as buyer interest and bidding on ebay. I wish I had learned some insight to offer help to anyone having a tough time.
BTW I don't accept paypal, the items were not particularly intended to be gift or holiday fare - just regular stuff, no featured, no reserves, no cutesy templates or flashy crap to distract from the item, no profits from shipping, no gimmicks and no grumpy terms.
Just dead honest, no BS, super detailed descriptions and as many clear photos as it takes to show them exactly what they're buying. I did make extensive use of dual categories and ALL items had gallery pics, no matter how lowly they were esteemed.
Good luck to all hope sales stay good or pick up! I think I'll be heading head back out in the woods and do some more pokin' around!
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I want to know what it was you found in the woods last time?
Thanks for that interesting explanation/discussion.
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Thanks for your experiment and giving the results. I gave up a couple of years ago trying to make any sense of what sells and doesn't sell, does good vs bad on eBay. There just doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason sometimes. I'm talking older, collectible stuff here not new high-volume items.