" Cost or Living" Prices up or down?

moonpenny

Just curious! With everything going up but Sales plummeting, wondered which way sellers were going.
Are you putting prices up or are you slashing prices to get more sales and move stock? 
I sell very little but am thinking of lowering prices just to move stuff.

Buster_Danog

I would be inclined to raise them where possible but competition from other sellers always dictates if that is a good choice or not.

soolin

I review my prices periodically and move them up or down depending on what the market sold prices look like and how much I want to sell the items.

forgotmyname

Depends if your a Business or just shifting unused items.  If your a Business is it still a profit?  Is it more cost effective to bulk sell the items
and spend your time/money elsewhere?

Mate was selling items and he had no idea how much each unit cost to buy/process/sell. He just used similar ebay sales and price matched.
Problem is where he may have bought 1000 items shipped to the UK or from a UK seller, the other sellers may have contacts at the factories
and buying 20,000 items at a time and possibly cutting out one or more middlemen.

Are the items selling at a cost effective price?   If not a Business you may think your time if free but is it really?

soolin

forgotmyname said:

Depends if your a Business or just shifting unused items.  If your a Business is it still a profit?  Is it more cost effective to bulk sell the items
and spend your time/money elsewhere?

Mate was selling items and he had no idea how much each unit cost to buy/process/sell. He just used similar ebay sales and price matched.
Problem is where he may have bought 1000 items shipped to the UK or from a UK seller, the other sellers may have contacts at the factories
and buying 20,000 items at a time and possibly cutting out one or more middlemen.

Are the items selling at a cost effective price?   If not a Business you may think your time if free but is it really?

That’s very true. In the past when my business was bigger I often just sold off my stock in bulk at just above cost if the selling price went too low or the item completely stopped selling. There was no point in me holding stock that was taking up room I could use for profitable items.

During lockdown I actually sorted loads of old stock, other dealers were desperate for anything as nothing was open to buy, so I either sold new goods in bulk or for my vintage items I made up fruit boxes full of items and sold them. This all went on social media, once I knew when someone was collecting I put the items outside on my drive, buyer would show me the money, put it in an envelope and leave it on my doorstep and take the goods. Most items till made me a good profit, some items scraped me a profit and some items I ended up giving away. It left me with empty storage which meant after lockdown I could empty one of my external storage units and store that at home and save storage costs. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

moonpenny said:

Just curious! With everything going up but Sales plummeting, wondered which way sellers were going.
Are you putting prices up or are you slashing prices to get more sales and move stock? 
I sell very little but am thinking of lowering prices just to move stuff.

As above depends if you are a business or private seller.

As a private seller it's a question or whether you want the stuff gone, I'm sure people are tightening their spending, cutting prices might help some items sell.

If you are a business do you need the cash flow, the space, are you concerned about stock continuing to fall in value to point you can't get rid of it, does your margin allow you to cut prices without working for a pittance per hour. 

It's a very general question that depends on the specifics

moonpenny

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

moonpenny said:

Just curious! With everything going up but Sales plummeting, wondered which way sellers were going.
Are you putting prices up or are you slashing prices to get more sales and move stock? 
I sell very little but am thinking of lowering prices just to move stuff.

As above depends if you are a business or private seller.

As a private seller it's a question or whether you want the stuff gone, I'm sure people are tightening their spending, cutting prices might help some items sell.

If you are a business do you need the cash flow, the space, are you concerned about stock continuing to fall in value to point you can't get rid of it, does your margin allow you to cut prices without working for a pittance per hour. 

It's a very general question that depends on the specifics

Private seller mainly used house stuff, few clothes etc. Though used most are like new or never used.
Like you said think I will have to reduce to get rid.  What's made it worse is I've  stopped getting the fee offers as well.  

MattMattMattUK

The bits I sell are clear outs, old collectibles, ransom bits, not a business seller. I price them based what I will accept, for collectibles that is market driven and it is pretty consistent, for normal items there seem to be a lot of chancers emailing and asking, or in some cases demanding lower prices, though I have found that if one is prepared to wait a week or two for the sale then a much better price can be had.

There does also seem to be a huge increase in people pleading some sob story as to why they need a £200 non-essential item for <£50 and when declined or ignored one is apparently worse than Hitler for ruining their year/life by not selling to them well below value. That combined with the eBay's increased fees is making me use alternatives where they are a viable option.

RFW

moonpenny said:

Just curious! With everything going up but Sales plummeting, wondered which way sellers were going.
Are you putting prices up or are you slashing prices to get more sales and move stock? 
I sell very little but am thinking of lowering prices just to move stuff.

As a view from someone who manufactures as well as resells I'm doing a bit of both. Clearing out some old stock and changing pack sizes on newer stock.
Buying habits seem to be ever changing so it's hard to keep up. I've been having an overhaul since Christmas with a view to diversifying away from online as a longer term goal.