How are people doing with their ebay sales?

[Deleted User]

My sales are woeful at the moment and really not sure if it's just because of the market I sell in on ebay or if things are just not in demand like they used to be. Or couldit be just a complete slowdown for many of us...When I check competition and recent sales, the items I sell still seem to be in massive demand.


Previously I had been a seller of personalised craft items ranging from special occasion to wedding gifts ie clocks, picture frames, printed gift bags etc and did very well, but worked on very small margins. I did this for about 6 years but the amount of effort put in was not worth what I was getting out of the business. Added to that the ebay and paypal fees killed much of my profit. I closed my shop on ebay last year losing all my sales history which for some items was in excess of 20,000. I had a complete break, got a part time job and in the mean time wondered what else I could sell that had relatively decent margins with the intention fo startingback up on ebay and doing this alongside my part time job.



As of now, I've literally tried so many different items across the board in these last 4 months and nothing seems to work. I have a very niche item which sells well when it wants to but I can't for the life of me work out how and why it sells when it does. I can go 2 weeks with no sales of this item, then in 1 day I can sell 3 then it goes quite again. I literally sell about 1 or 2 items a week now across all products compared to say 20-30 a day previously. I still offer personalised craft items but they just don't shift at all and the views on these items are minimal.


I'm literally scratching my head as to how people are making a living on ebay these days...is it me and are we all doing badly or are some of you doing better than ever? I'd love to know as I'm reaching the point of just forgetting about online selling. I thought I could make something of it but I'm loosing too much money investing in stock and time and not getting any returns.


I've recently started selling some personalised items on etsy but having no joy there yet but it's only been 4 days.

hollydays

What is your competition?

soolin

Mine are up and down, I'll do really well and start panicking that I don't have time to pack everything and make the post office, then next day I might only sell a handful of items and panic that I can't afford more holidays. There is absolutely no pattern to my sales, no days are regularly better than others and I sell throughout the day, not just the evening as was traditional.

Generally though it's not too bad, it isn't as good as it was say 10 years ago, buyers are more savvy now and there is an awful lot more competition, but it isn't all doom and gloom.

I change my stock lines though as soon as I see a market get saturated, I try not to keep listing in categories when I see the sales drop and move to something else. I also list random odd things, as listing something completely different to the normal stock always seems to kick start my sales generally.

I keep my business policies simple and clear, no daft terms and conditions - in fact I don't have any silly 'warnings' like some businesses do in their descriptions about losses, paying quickly etc. I keep it very very simple.

General_Applause

I don't know how accurate the page view counter is but I would get many more views of my stuff if I went back to the market stall. And eBay reckons they reach a global audience? They must mean Mars, rather than Earth.


Meanwhile, on Amazon, the same stuff, priced higher, is just flying off the shelves, especially in the run-up to Christmas. I can't keep up.

forgotmyname

Amazon seem to have a lot of items that i would normally buy direct from China.For an extra 20p - 50p i can get it tomorrow rather than wait 2 weeks.
(hand tools).

Electronics though then ebay/china is still the best. And one recent order arrived on the 8th day.

[Deleted User]

soolin wrote: »

I change my stock lines though as soon as I see a market get saturated, I try not to keep listing in categories when I see the sales drop and move to something else. I also list random odd things, as listing something completely different to the normal stock always seems to kick start my sales generally.

I keep my business policies simple and clear, no daft terms and conditions - in fact I don't have any silly 'warnings' like some businesses do in their descriptions about losses, paying quickly etc. I keep it very very simple.

I understand what you mean in changing your lines when the market becomes saturated, and that is a main reason as to why I make or print my own designs and items from scatch so competition is always thatmuch more limited. Don't you find that when you list a new item at good till cancelled that it can take an awfully long time to get noticed before people actually start committing to buy. When I was a t-shirt printer i used to make all my own designs from scratch...all original. I could list an item at good till cancelled and on the day i listed it I might sell 3 t-shirts and I would have healthy sales for the rest of the month before it relisted. I'm not a t-shirt printer anymore but do like to make my own items and especially personalised items. I currently sell household items such as wall clocks and personalised frames whereby I make up alot of the design from scratch. Recently I listed 10 items at auction as a tester for a new line and I got about 5 views across the board with no sales in a 7 day listing. As soon as i listed at BUY IT NOW on a good till cancelled basis I got 2 watchers on the very first day of listing. What normally tends to happen is I might not sell any for 2 weeks but then start getting the odd sale here an there when there are like 14 days left of the item before it relists. I'm assuming because as it gets closer to relist time more people see it, however I just can't fathom ebay out anymore. I used to understand how it worked and could list accordingly and sell products that I knew were in good demand but now even items that are in demand either don't get many views or just don't sell. I know my products are good in that half the people I show them to want to buy one or have purchased but when it comes to ebay it's just a disaster.


I might have to look into amazon but not sure how well crafted items sell on there.

[Deleted User]

General_Applause wrote: »

I don't know how accurate the page view counter is but I would get many more views of my stuff if I went back to the market stall. And eBay reckons they reach a global audience? They must mean Mars, rather than Earth.


Meanwhile, on Amazon, the same stuff, priced higher, is just flying off the shelves, especially in the run-up to Christmas. I can't keep up.

do you ship your own items out or does amazon hold your stock & ship on on your behalf? Because I make/craft alot of what i sell Amazon is a bit of a difficult place to sell as I don't hold alot of ready made items so because of it's shipping times I don't think it's something that could work for my requirements unless they have something in place on their platform for people that sell crafted items.

[Deleted User]

hollydays wrote: »

What is your competition?

I sell craft items alot of which is made from scratch so I can make up my own design in clay and cast a mold then it becomes my own item so for something like this there might be sellers that sell clay home decorative pieces, but none will ever be completely identical to mine. From that aspect I like what i do as I've sold ready made things in the past and as soon as you start doing well someone comes on and sells the same at a reduced price and before you know it there are multiple sellers and your left looking for a new range of products to sell because you just can't compete or aren't willing to sell for a low profit margin. I sell things such as bespoke clocks, home decorative pieces, personalised picture frames etc so there is a lot of scope with what can be done especially when making your own items but it's a case of whether or not people are using keywords and brands to find items or they just luckily find your listing.

I used to be a t-shirt printer starting on ebay backin 2002. When I first started I could sell a t-shirt at £12.99-£14.99 and over time with what has become a saturated market, printed t-shirts are now around £8.99 or less. If you have a good design, within no time someone has copied it and selling for cheaper so I just gave up on it all to focus on finding things with a better mark up.

ballisticbrian

Although I'm doing fairly well on eBay, there is to some extent an element of "Lemmings" following one after the other over a cliff on eBay UK.


I've been on eBay 10 years and have seen the price of some things I would consider as "commodities" drop their price by half in that time and yet newbies still come along, and shave a penny off that price as if that were a new idea.


If they could see what people made on a packet of fish food or whatever it is 8 years ago, they would probably laugh at themselves.


Having said that, it's also no longer just a matter of listing your item and see what sells because the way the eBay system is set up to show buyers what is already selling which can favour older sellers or people who wisely time and use promotions.

RFW

This last couple of weeks have seen a bit of a dip. It's not that uncommon this time of the year online. There will be plenty saying their sales are soaring though.

I use it as a time to look what I'm doing right and wrong. Think of introducing new lines and getting rid of some dead lines.

General_Applause

Daveym79 wrote: »

do you ship your own items out or does amazon hold your stock & ship on on your behalf? Because I make/craft alot of what i sell Amazon is a bit of a difficult place to sell as I don't hold alot of ready made items so because of it's shipping times I don't think it's something that could work for my requirements unless they have something in place on their platform for people that sell crafted items.

I ship all my own stuff. I assemble the items as orders come in so Fulfilled By Amazon would not work for me.