Need some EBay selling advice?

[LegoBro]

58 minutes ago, carini26 said:

Nice.  Did the TRS tag come after you hit 100 sales in 12 months threshold? (assuming other metrics were positive)

 

As soon as you hit 100 sales and 1k within the 12 months you're gold. At least that's how I remember it. Thank you dimension packs! TRS is great, but ebay just really lacks in bringing in enough traffic to sell in volume.


 

 

Edited November 29, 2017 by LegoBro

[SageFly]

7 hours ago, carini26 said:

Nice.  Did the TRS tag come after you hit 100 sales in 12 months threshold? (assuming other metrics were positive)

I actually hit the sales requirement back in February, but had 5 orders that I had to cancel last Black Friday. Those 5 orders shield my metrics back all year until the 12 month period went by and they fell off. I know not to do that again.

[Migration]

7 hours ago, LegoBro said:

 

As soon as you hit 100 sales and 1k within the 12 months you're gold. At least that's how I remember it. Thank you dimension packs! TRS is great, but ebay just really lacks in bringing in enough traffic to sell in volume.


 

 

eBay has plenty of traffic and you can do substantial volume, the issue is in the self fulfillment aspect. It's just such a pain in the...neck and hands and elbows and shoulders and feet and back and..

[Darth_Raichu]

33 minutes ago, Migration said:

eBay has plenty of traffic and you can do substantial volume, the issue is in the self fulfillment aspect. It's just such a pain in the...neck and hands and elbows and shoulders and feet and back and..

Not to mention the lack of sleep

 

[edgecrusher]

I feel your pain. I finally hit TRS status in October, got an erroneous late shipping defect (fraudulent sale...that was definitely shipped AND received on time by the fraudster) that put me over the late shipping threshold. Of the 5 (and then 6) defects, 4 were erroneous due to my mail carrier not scanning in the packages at pickup. I called twice before the November evaluation; “Yes sir, the defects have been removed.” They weren’t. TRS gone for the holidays. So pissed. They say they can’t retroactively add back the badge, but that I’ll still get the 10% off FVF due to the grace period. I’d trade the 10% for the badge, honestly. 

[Deanfjr]

Dear Abby:

Bump in the road here: i sold some dill weed 4 speed champions series 1, i shipped he received, about 2 weeks later he wants to return for "Doesn't seem authentic...Does not look authentic...these are replicas." he opens a case, never replies within the time frame and of couse ebay auto sides with him,

these were new in sealed box c'mon so i guess i just eat it?

--unfair treatment--

Edited November 29, 2017 by Deanfjr

[LegoEdison]

11 minutes ago, Deanfjr said:

Dear Abby:

Bump in the road here: i sold some dill weed 4 speed champions series 1, i shipped he received, about 2 weeks later he wants to return for "Doesn't seem authentic...Does not look authentic...these are replicas." he opens a case, never replies within the time frame and of couse ebay auto sides with him,

these were new in sealed box c'mon so i guess i just eat it?

--unfair treatment--

accept the return and hope he never return. If he did return, then you take the hit. most likely scammer never reply and you keep the money. 

[Forsaker]

Hi guys, I have a problem. I have a buyer who filed a claim for non-reception of item, for which is chose surface delivery from Canada to Australia. Delivery standards are 2-3 months but it’s only been two months. How can I reimburse the client if we aren’t even at the three months limit?? Ever have a case like this? Thanks for your insight!

[Sandwraith]

1 hour ago, Forsaker said:

Hi guys, I have a problem. I have a buyer who filed a claim for non-reception of item, for which is chose surface delivery from Canada to Australia. Delivery standards are 2-3 months but it’s only been two months. How can I reimburse the client if we aren’t even at the three months limit?? Ever have a case like this? Thanks for your insight!

Yes and learned my lesson, never ship with that 2-3 month "surface" option Canada Post offers  I believe that 2-3 months is a generous estimate by Canada post, I've heard of packages taking 4 months with that option.

You can contact the seller and ask them to wait the extra month, but really nothing you can do... they can just ask ebay to step in and you're toast. Funny my only instance of this was to Australia as well, and after that i stopped shipping outside Canada/USA altogether.

So sweet talk the buyer, be as kind and reassuring as you can be, and buy yourself some time. Of course if they intended to scam you from the get go then that's all moot. Pretty sure that was the intention of my buyer from Australia, but i still tried.

[Forsaker]

Thanks for your help. Unfortunately he escalated to Paypal two hours (during my sleep time) after messenging me is complaint on Ebay. Hence, all is lost. I will also stop shipping international surface from now on. Lesson learned here too....

[gregpj]

3 hours ago, Forsaker said:

Thanks for your help. Unfortunately he escalated to Paypal two hours (during my sleep time) after messenging me is complaint on Ebay. Hence, all is lost. I will also stop shipping international surface from now on. Lesson learned here too....

The only things I will ship overseas to Australia and even Europe are items that fall within the Tracked Packet size/weight limits. Generally speaking it's about the size of an Exo Suit box. Those still take 10 business days (I don't believe  business days) but at least it's possible to track them. I won't do the Small Packet service since it doesn't come with tracking.

I would suggest replying to PayPal and quoting Canada Post's delivery standards:

https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/en/business/shipping/international/compare/international-parcel.page#!navtabd2189e11

Noting that the shipping window as stated in your listing (I hope your listing mentions the shipping window for International Surface) has not yet closed. Also, check if their delivery address is in a major urban center and if not, also highlight to paypal that the delivery estimates by Canada Post are between major urban centers and delivery to smaller communities does take longer.

At least see if you can get PayPal to delay ruling on the case to give your item time to be delivered.

[Forsaker]

Great, I will do just that. Thanks for your insight and experience, it’s quite helpfull. But no more international surface parcel shipping for me.

[FM]

WHY AM I LOSING EBAY SALES?

I'm perplexed in a way that threatens to destroy a business.  This year in December I sold about 30% less volume than last year despite doubling my listings.  Then I look at some items and see that buyers are buying my competitors' items over mine despite the fact that I'm the lowest price.

Here's a sample... https://www.ebay.com/itm/LEGO-41126-FRIENDS-HEARTLAKE-RIDING-CLUB-NEW-GOOD-CONDITION-IN-SEALED-BOX/222746622181?epid=2254438892&hash=item33dcbbb8e5:g:dxcAAOSwIVhaKORP

41126 Friends Heartlake Riding Club.  Trending at $79, I had it listed at $59.95 + sh and $64.95 + sh.  I sold zero units, while in the last 10 days 16 of these were sold:

79.99+17 sh, 89.94, 119, 61.50+20 sh, 79, 58+17 sh, 71.95+18 sh,  88, 78.49, 65.05+12.75 sh, 69.99, 79.95, 74.99+16.50 sh, 75+14sh, 69.99+25 sh, 71.99+14.99 sh.  Those sales are mixed between very new and very experienced sellers.

That's 16 sales, 15 or 16 of which are at a higher price than mine. 5 of 16 are TRS and I do have TRS standing. I have 389 feedback, 99.6% positive.

If I search "lego 41126" I'm the 8th listing; "lego friends 41126" I'm the 8th listing,  "lego friends heartlake riding club" I'm the 5th listing.  I had 66 views in the last 20 days and zero sales.

What am I missing?  Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Edited December 25, 2017 by FM

[AirborneAFOL]

Your item description has active content. That’s an eBay no-no for about the past 6 months (maybe longer, don’t recall).

Your Country of Manufacture is “Unknown”. Try “Denmark” or null.

Use the Analyze Listing feature and compare your listing title schema against other sellers. Ditto for item specifics, return policy, shipping options, and Guaranteed Delivery.

The market as a whole is down year over year, you could be losing some to that trend.

Your sales conversion rate could be below market.

Your listing quantities and/or total listings could be below market.

The list goes on and on. If you’re serious about “saving your business”, you’ve gotta do the homework to hunt down every avenue that plays into search results, analyze your metrics, and make proactive tweaks.

[Pseudoty]

6 hours ago, FM said:

WHY AM I LOSING EBAY SALES?

One word FREE Shipping!  Well that is two words and @AirborneAFOL also has some good points. Earlier in the year I tried using calculated shipping on some of my listings and lowering the item price and I did not sell one set. In this day of Amazon people not only want but they expect free shipping. I tried promoted listings and raised my prices to offset the additional fee to eBay and I killed it (for me I am a STP) this holiday season. Also on sets I have multiples of I will start off low in order to get Best Match and then raise my prices after every 5 units. The default search is Best Match not lowest price and IMO that is what gets you sales. 

There is a current FP thread on SD now for candles and even though they are 70% off and there is a coupon code for $10 off $30 many people are not buying or are complaining because they are being charged $5.99 shipping even though with the coupon you could look at it as free shipping and an additional $4 off. 

Another thing I am not sure of is how you grade your sets, Good, Fair, Very Good, etc in the listing title. I understand why you would do this and see how it works for collectors but it may be confusing or a turn off for the impulse holiday shoppers you are after. This may be reflected in your conversion rate in your seller analytics page. 

Edited December 25, 2017 by Pseudoty

[iahawks550]

Like others have said....

When I see $17.50 shipping, I'm going somewhere else. People will pay more if free shipping is involved.

You mention box quality quite a bit. Take pictures of actual box, and you don't need to do that.

I don't like your username for some reason. (by far the most petty thing, but being honest) I don't know why I look at that before buying, but I do.

 

[Pseudoty]

29 minutes ago, iahawks550 said:

Like others have said....

When I see $17.50 shipping, I'm going somewhere else. People will pay more if free shipping is involved.

You mention box quality quite a bit. Take pictures of actual box, and you don't need to do that.

I don't like your username for some reason. (by far the most petty thing, but being honest) I don't know why I look at that before buying, but I do.

 

I didn't want to say anything about the username but since you did perhaps try a change. I thought about changing mine to be more buyer friendly. We all can't have hundreds of followers that just buy anything we list so we have to try harder, Avis. 

I got rid of all my own pictures, they were low quality anyway, unless it was for a damaged set or a collectors item and went with stock photos. It seems eBay in an attempt to be more Amazon like is trending towards stock photos. They pushed back the removal of all watermarks to March 2018 and will not be enforcing listing removals but if you want your item to be featured in their deals or google shopping results it seems like stock photos are the way to go. 

I had not sold an Ewok Village all year long then the same exact listing got featured and they all sold within 3 hours and my price was around $30 - 50 more then the lowest BIN for NISB to help offset my free shipping. 

[iahawks550]

I almost always use stock photos, too. I guess my point was, if you are going to go in depth about box quality, show pictures. If you aren't, go with stock photos.

I don't send out beat up boxes anyways, and most people don't care about box quality on Ebay. I don't spend much time on it unless the box is really poor.

[LegoBro]

Also on sets I have multiples of I will start off low in order to get Best Match and then raise my prices after every 5 units. The default search is Best Match not lowest price and IMO that is what gets you sales. 

A lot of this for me on multiples. I start low and sacrifice some profit at first and raise my price moderately above most listing after the 2nd to 3rd sale and gradually move up from there. My listings will appear top 2 or 3 for the remainder of my units 90 percent of the time. It seems shoppers want to buy from where others have bought before and trust the multiple sales history. I personaly don't use stock photos and have had very good success on multiples. I take one really good photo showcasing my product and I'll make sure i have a lot of units that are close to the same condition OR I write in the description all sets show some shelfware and imperfections. That seems to do it for me.

[AirborneAFOL]

A lot of this for me on multiples. I start low and sacrifice some profit at first and raise my price moderately above most listing after the 2nd to 3rd sale and gradually move up from there. My listings will appear top 2 or 3 for the remainder of my units 90 percent of the time. It seems shoppers want to buy from where others have bought before and trust the multiple sales history. I personaly don't use stock photos and have had very good success on multiples. I take one really good photo showcasing my product and I'll make sure i have a lot of units that are close to the same condition OR I write in the description all sets show some shelfware and imperfections. That seems to do it for me.

What you’re really doing here is establishing a strong sales conversion rate right out of the gate. And that’s the single-most critical metric for driving “best match” results.

[FM]

9 hours ago, AirborneAFOL said:

Your item description has active content. That’s an eBay no-no for about the past 6 months (maybe longer, don’t recall).

- I ran eBay's scan earliuer this year snd again today and it shows no active content.  Is there another way to find it?

Your Country of Manufacture is “Unknown”. Try “Denmark” or null.

- Done.  I only had about half of my listings set to Denmark.

Use the Analyze Listing feature and compare your listing title schema against other sellers. Ditto for item specifics, return policy, shipping options, and Guaranteed Delivery.

- Is this the TeraPeak $144/year feature?

The market as a whole is down year over year, you could be losing some to that trend.

Your sales conversion rate could be below market.

- I'm a tiny bit below market.

Your listing quantities and/or total listings could be below market.

- Good point.  I've changed my strategy as I've grown this year to ba able to buy in larger quantities.The list goes on and on. If you’re serious about “saving your business”, you’ve gotta do the homework to hunt down every avenue that plays into search results, analyze your metrics, and make proactive tweaks.

- Thank you! This is my 2nd full year and my benchmarks are almost zero, so this information is very much appreciated.  I'll work through these suggestions and many below.

Merry Chrstmas!

[supergman]

I'm out of the reselling and so forth, having bought and donated countless sets to a local charity over the years.  Now that my affiliation is done with, I have been trying to sell what I can on Ebay. I just sold a set to a new ebayer, only to now receive a "missing all the minifigures".  I find this so disgustingly hard to believe, that it's now in dispute.  We'll see how this goes, but it's a shame that Ebay/Paypal side with the buyer....disgusting.  To the post above, I do free shipping....adds up a ton with all of the other fees, but it is what it is.  One day I need to finish the list, put it on here, and someone can buy it all.  

[AirborneAFOL]

I'm out of the reselling and so forth, having bought and donated countless sets to a local charity over the years.  Now that my affiliation is done with, I have been trying to sell what I can on Ebay. I just sold a set to a new ebayer, only to now receive a "missing all the minifigures".  I find this so disgustingly hard to believe, that it's now in dispute.  We'll see how this goes, but it's a shame that Ebay/Paypal side with the buyer....disgusting.  To the post above, I do free shipping....adds up a ton with all of the other fees, but it is what it is.  One day I need to finish the list, put it on here, and someone can buy it all.  

Look at it this way:
$40+$10 shipping
OR
$50+FreeShipping

Buyers will take the latter almost every time, and your cost is actually a BIT cheaper (because eBay’s fees are actually higher on shipping charges than for list price).

The trick is just figuring out how much shipping to account for - it can vary a good bit based on where you’re shipping from, and where the buyer is. For me, being in Minnesota, it’s about the same to either coast (and I assume Zone 6 for shipping, which is about the average rate I come across). But if you’re on a coast, you could be facing a bigger variance - but the math is the same (just alot more Zone 2 and Zone 8 type sales in there).

[FM]

7 hours ago, Pseudoty said:

One word FREE Shipping!  Well that is two words and @AirborneAFOL also has some good points. Earlier in the year I tried using calculated shipping on some of my listings and lowering the item price and I did not sell one set. In this day of Amazon people not only want but they expect free shipping. I tried promoted listings and raised my prices to offset the additional fee to eBay and I killed it (for me I am a STP) this holiday season. Also on sets I have multiples of I will start off low in order to get Best Match and then raise my prices after every 5 units. The default search is Best Match not lowest price and IMO that is what gets you sales. 

There is a current FP thread on SD now for candles and even though they are 70% off and there is a coupon code for $10 off $30 many people are not buying or are complaining because they are being charged $5.99 shipping even though with the coupon you could look at it as free shipping and an additional $4 off. 

Another thing I am not sure of is how you grade your sets, Good, Fair, Very Good, etc in the listing title. I understand why you would do this and see how it works for collectors but it may be confusing or a turn off for the impulse holiday shoppers you are after. This may be reflected in your conversion rate in your seller analytics page. 

- I use free shipping on everything under 1 lb.  Since I'm on the West Coast I've used calculated shipping for everything else.

I've tested the waters on free shipping and nearly everything over 1 lb (USPS 1st Class) sells to someone in Florida and instead of $7 shipping its $17, eating profit quickly.  My strategy was to focus selling to West Coast buyers by pricing items such that my price + shipping is a bit under the lowest price for the same item.

i.e. The lowest-priced seller is in FL and has an item listed for $77 FS; so I'll list it at $67 + shipping (estimated $8 calculated shipping to wester 1/3 of the US) or $75.  That way I'm the lowest price for a lot of buyers.

(I just read your post on this AirborneAFOL... spot on)

 

- Good point on grading.  Collectors appreciate it but IDK what % of my buyers are collectors.  Probably few until you get into larger tocket items.

[FM]

5 hours ago, LegoBro said:

 

A lot of this for me on multiples. I start low and sacrifice some profit at first and raise my price moderately above most listing after the 2nd to 3rd sale and gradually move up from there. My listings will appear top 2 or 3 for the remainder of my units 90 percent of the time. It seems shoppers want to buy from where others have bought before and trust the multiple sales history. I personaly don't use stock photos and have had very good success on multiples. I take one really good photo showcasing my product and I'll make sure i have a lot of units that are close to the same condition OR I write in the description all sets show some shelfware and imperfections. That seems to do it for me.

 

I've been doing more of this.  My quantities have gone from 5-10 units to 30+ units to streamline the operatation.