Yes everyone I know has been complaining about slow sales on ebay. I think there are several factors in this.
Slow Economy- People are not spending as much on ebay
Ebay- Ebays changes have had a more negative effect then they wanted
Competition- Ebay has some strong competition now that thousands of sellers have moved away. Although ebay has stated they would gain more buyers they really did forget to note that the majority of the sellers are the buyers and that when they left they stopped buying on ebay and started buying on the competitors sites.
I have actually seen my sales off of ebay increase on Amazon, I have seen many sellers state Ebid is starting to work really well for them. So in turn I think that ebay really hurt itself by pissing off the sellers..
My advice is don't forget you have many options for yourself. If you can multi task list the same items on multiple sites. I have the same items on craigslist as I do on ebay and the same on amazon as I have on craigslist. If an item sells for MY price before an auction ends I will cancel the auction or listing on the other site.
Dont be willing to loose an item for way less then its value if you have other options to sell that item. Dont just list on ebay if there are other sites you can try and sell on. Yes you have items that other sellers are selling lower. But have you ever shopped on places like ebay. There are people that don't want to wait to fight for an auction only to lose after waiting 5 days. I have lost hundreds of auctions over my time on ebay and I wont bid on an auction anymore. I think of the hundreds of auctions I have bid on I have only won 3. If the seller does not have a buy it now price I wont buy it. Look at the closed auctions sometimes for items. Many of the buy it now prices sell higher then the auction prices. Just because a buyer would rather pay a higher price then go through the drama of loosing an auction.
Also consider the layout you use if you sell on ebay. It can have a major impact on your sales.
One of the big mistakes alot of my buyers for our profit packs think is that every item in their pack will sell immediately for big profits. But they don't think of the big picture. You have to put yourself out there for your products to sell. I have watched several profit pack buyers sell their items with horrible descriptions. I have sold the exact same items for much higher in the past and there is a reason why their item sold low.
They think if they just list the item with no decent layout and all text that the auction will sell for huge money. I spent over 300 hours creating my listing template that I use today in my auction. I went through 20 different designs and spent countless nights adding and removing text and experimenting on auction styles. I have also seen auction from sellers that are selling them very well and you can tell that they put their time into the auction. If your sales are slow. Critique your own layouts. Ask members of salehoo to critique your layout. Some sales can be lost just due to a simple problem with your layout.
Yes you may not have a lot of items to start your business up and you really need your items to sell. But when me and my wife started on ebay we ran at a loss for 5-6 months buying items, filling our store. Building our reputation and more. But now with our rating just on ebay our auctions tend to sell higher then before. We never sell items for prices less then we wanted them to sell for. Just because you do a search on completed listings and you see your item selling for $22.00 does not mean you cant sell it for higher. For instance.
I had a big cappuccino machine listed on 3 different sites. I did not want to sell the item for lower then I though it was worth. So I set a price and listed it on 3 different sites. Took 1 re listing and about 5 days but it just got a bid this morning for my price of $1499.00 Several other units had prices of $1200 and less and got no bids. But after being patient and sitting on the product for a few weeks I got a bid. We canceled the Amazon and craigslist listings and were letting it sell on ebay.
The services I use for ebay are Squaretrade and Reliabid. I pay them a decent amount of money but having those services does help me increase my sales so I do keep them. If you have a service that is not affecting the sale of your product then dont use it. Auctiva I personally do not like. It just looks cheezy to me. If a buyer wants to see my store they will click on the link I give them.
Dont spend money on services that don't work. If you are paying for a store and it costs you more then you think you should be making to have it ,close the store and just run a fixed price listing on multiple sites.And take advantage of sites where you can list for free. If you have to pay ebay to sell an item and your paying more then $9.99 to list and sell after fees. Run a Newspaper ad for that item. Run the item in a public auction ( I have had really good luck selling items I wont put on ebay in public auctions). Use multiple sales avenues. And be willing to try new sites. Ebay is hurting. There are still many pissed off people staying away from ebay and visiting the forums to discuss how bad ebay is doing.
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