Small eBay Biz - How many eBay Gimmicks have worked for you?

ballisticbrian

Small eBay Biz -  How many eBay Gimmicks have worked for you?

There have been a number of drives from eBay on things such as make sure that your item has a white background because the search engines wont accept your item and even at xmas the video event told us  take your item down (yes at the same time as loosing your hundreds of items sold history) and relist to pick up on search engines.

Then we have things that will hit you in the pocket like "promoted listings standard" and "promoted listings advanced". And did you know you can accidently sign up a listing for both of those and loose $$$"? OUCH

Have these actually helped your business or is it just shaving off more money into eBay coffers you don't have?

Then to top it all, when you thought you were getting web exposure for your fee money, you are now told to pay extra to eBay for "google advertising". I haven't tried this, because to be quite frank, I'm sick of paying eBay for the same thing over and over.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Hello OP

All these platforms hosting content whether it be eBay and Amazon or social media like Facebook or Youtube have the same problem, there are a few key players and there are more and more people using their services. 

It's not possible for everyone to be at the top and it's very profitable for them to charge you to be at the top. Most people buy what is put in front of them and I doubt many go past page 1, with social media I assume the scrolling rate is even less so unless you are at the top chances are you aren't going to be seen.  

Breaking it down, promoted listings standard is a very good idea from eBay as there's no up front cost, the min used to be 1.2% which is nothing really, then they doubled it 2.4% and I'm sure it will one day go up again.

As there's no upfront cost the main consideration is whether you would have got the sale anyway, if you are selling something very unique or specific your search standing may get you the sales, or even with high volume items your best match standing might be getting you to the top on it's own but either way personally I think it's worth paying for.

Promoted listings advance is old fashioned pay per click, eBay had a £50 voucher at the start of the year and aside from a glitch causing the fees to be charged (no surprise there) there was some clicks and a couple of sales but not enough margin to justify the expense. It really depends on your product, if it has a high margin then perhaps you can afford it, if you are shifting massive volume on popular products, keeping the cash flowing, the best match ranking positive and churning through stock maybe worth cutting a slim margin (even to the point of zero).

I think this model works on Amazon because they have the customers, I don't think it works that well on Etsy unless you have the margin and with eBay I think you might end up with views and watchers but I just don't think they have the volume of buyers to justify the expense, but of course it can work for some on eBay.  

Paying eBay to advise on Google seems pointless to me, I don't get why you wouldn't just have your own website and spend that money doing the same thing without eBay taking all the fees.

As a small bit of history, many, many years ago you could pay £50 a month per listing and eBay would put your listing first, it ended up being the whole first page of these listings and in the category I was selling at the time the sellers that could most afford this were all selling counterfeit goods, there wasn't a duplicate listing policy so to gain exposure if you had 10 widgets you put up 10 listing at different times to catch those people looking at ending soonest. 

eBay (rightly in my view) decided that "Best Match" was more suitable with a simple idea that sales vs impressions (the number of times your listings appeared in a search result) was a good measure of who goes first. It did have a slight drawback in that whoever got there first had a greater chance of staying there because as above people just buy what is in front of them. 

Over the years Best Match has been tweaked with various bits and pieces pushing you up or down but AFAIK sales vs impressions is still the main factor, if you are a volume seller then having 10,000 listings will gain you more sales than have 1,000 as the exposure means by chance you'll pick up sales, but as a small business you probably can't afford the time and money to run such a large inventory so you have to do what you can to get sales in without impressions.

Avoiding keywords that aren't relevant keeps down impressions, using MVL keeps sales in one listing (i.e avoid 3 listings for red, green and blue but have them as one under a MVL). Offering discounts via multi-buy, order discount or coupons to bump up orders is a good idea as well.

Postage is difficult, eBay says everyone loves free P&P but I think £6.99 + £2.99 P&P is more attractive to buyers than £9.98. Personally it really bugs me when a seller has a packet sized item, offers free P&P and uses multi-buy to save 27 pence for buying 2. I want a postage discount, not a token gesture and sure they can profit a bit from the extra sale but a more even 50/50 split would be agreeable to me. 

Don't know about image backgrounds and how that affects search engines, I do remember when they brought in the policy of no graffiti, etc on listing images and that was I believe due to aligning with Google's preferences but if someone Googles your item will go to your listing? Quite often the Google results for eBay seem to lead to a cheap listing that has ended. 

It would be interesting to hear from others whether spending money on advertising your own website, whether through Google or social media, is ultimately more profitable than paying marketplaces to be at the top of their search results. 

forgotmyname

A lot depends on what your selling. If it's just generic items to the general public then it's totally different to a niche product with
a specific customer base and it's probably not something you want to mention on here.  Last thing you want is someone reading
your comment and thinking they can do better and push you out.

Example:  Radio Control products.
Do you have a regular customer base?   Are you busy on the forums and a well known if yes they maybe your own website
could get you sales if your allowed a URL in the forums. Just don't get banned on them, the word may get out that your a
business and worth contacting.

Small cost to setup and have a basic site, costs will rise if you need payment options on the site, paypal maybe a cheaper
option still?

If it's generic then a website may struggle as your products change and pulling customers to it unless you spend a
LOT of money advertising.

ballisticbrian

There's a wealth of experience I can see in the replies. Some of these things I've mulled over but never seen them written altogether like this. The only thing I can see missing from what the_luatic said, was eBay does take into account your dispatch time and service used. I've had two other sellers contact me saying that their stores no longer "worked" offering 2nd class post and had to switch everything back over to first class. What I mean is, the sellers using first class are being given more impressions.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

ballisticbrian said:

There's a wealth of experience I can see in the replies. Some of these things I've mulled over but never seen them written altogether like this. The only thing I can see missing from what the_luatic said, was eBay does take into account your dispatch time and service used. I've had two other sellers contact me saying that their stores no longer "worked" offering 2nd class post and had to switch everything back over to first class. What I mean is, the sellers using first class are being given more impressions.

At some point eBay introduced a requirement to have an express delivery option for the listing to be Premium Service, needless to say many sellers added 24 hour courier for £99 to meet the requirement in a way buyers would never opt for, it took eBay a while, a long while, they are never quick, but they tweaked it to requiring that express option for less than £10.

When Best Match first come about eBay was very open about it, there was eBay employees on the eBay forums answering questions and explaining how it work, nowadays you just have guess, if you ask CS they might give you correct info or it might just be fantasy. 

I can see that the ETA might have some bearing on search ranking but I can't see it would to the point your visibility would dive off a cliff buy using 2nd Class post, for the main reason that most sellers use it (or a comparable like Yodel or Evri) obviously because of the expensive price of 1st Class and next day couriers coupled with competition and high fees driving down margins. 

I think best bet is to offer whatever for standard postage but also offer an express option for under a tenner even if you aren’t TRS.

There have been theories for years about visibility rotation, the idea that, as above not everyone can be first, so eBay will shuffle you in and out, on the one had it makes sense as they need to give you some sales to keep you there, especially if you are paying listing fees or a shop subscription but on the other it could just be conspiracy. 

Only personal musings but I think eBay's idea of being "cheap" along with the issues it's suffered over the years (scams, counterfeits, dropshipping from known retailers) have left it a place where a noticeable part of their customer base perhaps fall within those who have less money, there's always been a noticeable up tick in sales at the end of the month when people get paid and currently the news is full of doom and gloom with inflation and interest rate hikes bumping mortgages so it's very hard to judge what is causing a short term difference in sales patterns, heck the sun comes out, people stop buying indoor stuff and start spending on sun scream and garden parasols. 

You can drive yourself mad looking for answers and keep looking at the other sellers who compete with you but I think ultimately every product has it's limit and to push through certain levels of income you either need to increase your offering or spread yourself out to other sales platforms. 

The question is always how much time and money do you invest in doing this. 

When I started selling on eBay there was high demand for the product, little competition, not just against eBay sellers but online in general, the process was so simple without 500 options and requirements and there was good money to be had. Now I look around and it seems a case of either sell generic items sold at a slim margin or sell things that require time with others selling them for a price that doesn't justify the time. 

I'm sure there are niche ideas out there that are still very profitable, you just have to be lucky (or perhaps smart) enough to find one. 

I set up a little business last year for a bit of extra income, far harder than it was all those years ago and really it's an idea I should have run with during Covid as there would have been good money to make at the time, but it's a supplement to our main household income so there isn't the pressure of earning good money. Just filed the tax return and wonder if it's worth the time but hopefully as it progresses the reward will be greater.

However due to all the things above I'm seriously wondering if that independent website with a company like Square or Shopify is better than paying eBay a very large portion of the sale.

Amazon is great and even better with FBA but the requirements and policies can be a nightmare, Etsy is fine, they seem a little behind in some respects but as they are vintage or handmade the volume of cheap rubbish, whilst it's there, isn't as prevalent as it is on eBay and Amazon.

Not on the High Street is another one but they want £250 to join and take 25% (not sure if that's plus VAT, probably is) and you don't hear much about sale success on there, maybe sellers there are doing well and keep it to themselves.