Listing on eBay with Turbo Lister - Neeed your help


colin24
Full Member
  • Posts: 2
  • Joined: 16 Sep 10
  • Karma:
24 Sep 10 11:36:23 am
Hi....

All new to this dropshipping... Been in retail sector for twenty years in Ireland, Spain and UK.. built up good business until the downturn when the banks (who created the mess) desided to foreclose on me... So back to the start again!!!!

I have good reliable suppliers for dropshipping but my problem is getting up there and listed with auction sites on a low, nearly non-existant budget.

For example I have spent two days creating 263 auction listings for ebay giving a starting price (enough to cover cost of product and shipping) and the "buy to sell" option. I used no other pay options, when I went to upload last night the price came back at 346euro!! cannot understand..... I must be doing something very wrong (to be honest I dont understand their fee structure). For example if I list for auction for0.05 cent with no reserve (Free) and I don't make my cost back, how is this viable??

I have also subriscribed for a shop, but have done no work on this as yet.

Obviously I want to list on ebay but is there any other sites that in your view worth looking at? oh.. one more thing on Turbo Lister I have Ireland, UK, USA and Canada as default does this upload auto. to these or do I have to do each seperatly. am I charged as a new listing for each aera if this is the case? I have looked everywhere for info on this and cannot find.

Thank you for your help..


Euroconnections

irene_salehoo
Site Admin
  • Posts: 2563
  • Joined: 21 Mar 10
  • Karma:
27 Sep 10 02:21:34 am
Hi Colin24,

Glad to see you here. Could you please provide us a link to the eBay listing that you have created? This will help us to check and assess your concern more clearly and will definitely enable us to provide appropriate advice.

Look forward to hearing from you again.

Kind regards


Irene

richelle_salehoo1
Site Admin
  • Posts: 5202
  • Joined: 20 Oct 08
  • Karma:
27 Sep 10 09:12:39 pm
Hi and welcome to SaleHoo Colin24,

I'll try to help you with a few of your concerns :)

When listing using Turbo Lister you have to make sure that you provide the correct information as this may affect your listing cost.

Also, another thing you have to take note of is that listing fees vary on factors such as the type of listing and final value fee of your product/s. To learn more about eBay UK's listing fees please visit this link, Link hidden: Login to view

Based on how I understood the guidelines, yes Turbo Lister will automatically upload your listing to the various eBay sites you indicated (ticked) during the list creation process. And yes, a corresponding listing fee is charged as each list goes live. To learn more about Turbo Lister please visit this link:

Link hidden: Login to view

I have asked Erika to help you out with your other concerns. I'm sure with her experience and knowledge she'll be able to point you towards the right direction.

All the best!


Richelle

Customer Support Manager
SaleHoo Group Limited

erika-garnica
Full Member
  • Posts: 47
  • Joined: 22 Oct 09
  • Karma:
28 Sep 10 05:01:49 pm
Hi Colin24,

Richelle asked me to respond to your post and address some of your questions and concerns.

First, as Richelle said, it sounds like you may be unclear about how much eBay fees are, because listing 263 auctions with Buy It Now options can add up to quite a bit, especially if your starting price is higher than 99p. The higher your starting price, the higher your insertion fee is to list the item.

And since you mentioned that you set your starting price at an amount that covered the cost of the product and shipping, clearly, your starting prices must have been higher than 99p.

In addition, your items are unlikely to sell if your starting price is so high that it already covers the cost of the product AND shipping. First, you don't need to incorporate the shipping cost into your starting price, since you can put in a shipping cost separately. Secondly, very few eBay sellers set such a high starting price that it covers the cost of the product --that's just not going to work in most cases, unfortunately.

That's one of the risks you take when you list items on auction. You have to set your starting price as low as possible, or at least as low as other listings for that product, and for most products, the vast majority of listings will have a very low starting price.

That brings me to your question about how you can have a viable listing when you start it at 0.05 with no reserve, which is what you should do if other sellers are starting their listings for the same products that low.

The key to doing this successfully is knowing your product and its market, or in other words, conducting thorough and accurate market research. As long as the market research indicates that a particular product has sold for a certain average selling price lately on eBay, you can be fairly safe that your auction will reach up pretty close to the same price, provided you're doing everything else you should be doing to create a good listing, list it in the right format and category (according to what the market research says), with reasonable shipping, and your seller performance is high (i.e. high positive feedback percentage and Detailed Seller Ratings, no or few buyer disputes, etc.)

eBay firmly believes in the premise that you should set as low a starting price as possible and let the market determine the value of the item, and this works very well in most cases. But if you just don't feel comfortable doing this, then maybe you shouldn't list your items as auctions, but as strictly fixed price/Buy It now items, with no bidding. And actually, the market research will also indicate the most successful listing format for a particular product as well (auction or fixed price).

As a general rule, items that are rare and/or in high demand usually do better in auction format, and commodity items do better in fixed-price format.

As far as your fees are concerned, another thing I wanted to point out is that only your first 100 auctions every month are free with a starting price of 0.01 to 0.99 -- every auction beyond 100 in one month will cost you the insertion fee for the auction, which means that even if all of your auctions have a starting price of 0.99 or less, 163 of the 263 listings you posted would still have charged you insertion fees.

As far as your shop is concerned, if you're very new to selling on eBay, I strongly recommend that you close your shop and don't worry about having a shop yet. Opening an eBay shop when you're a brand new eBay seller is like trying to run before you know how to walk. All it will do is overwhelm you at this point, so I suggest closing your shop and not reopening it until you've been selling on eBay at least 6 months and you're generating at least a few hundred pounds a month in sales.

There are many other auction sites you can utilize besides eBay (i.e. Bonanzle, Addoway, etc.), but none of them have nearly as much buyer traffic as eBay does, so you need to consider that factor carefully.

Lastly, as far as listing on multiple international sites in Turbo Lister, as Richelle said, YES, you are charged a separate insertion fee for each eBay site on which you're listing your items, which is clearly another reason why your initial fees were so high. But please understand that it's NOT NECESSARY to list your items on all of these different sites in order to market your products successfully to people in all of these countries.

All you have to do is list your items on ebay.co.uk and select that you also ship to Ireland, Canada, and the U.S., and your listings will appear on all of those eBay sites as well.

I hope this helps!


Erika Garnica
eBay User ID - Theauctionguru
Link hidden: Login to view

colin24
Full Member
  • Posts: 2
  • Joined: 16 Sep 10
  • Karma:
28 Sep 10 05:11:30 pm
Thank you Erika... Your information has been invaluable.. Colin


Euroconnections

richelle_salehoo1
Site Admin
  • Posts: 5202
  • Joined: 20 Oct 08
  • Karma:
28 Sep 10 09:21:29 pm
@Erika: WOW! I was right to ask for your help on this post :) Thanks!

@Colin24: Really happy to know that you are definitely getting your questions answered!

Cheers guys :)


Richelle

Customer Support Manager
SaleHoo Group Limited

irene_salehoo
Site Admin
  • Posts: 2563
  • Joined: 21 Mar 10
  • Karma:
29 Sep 10 01:18:17 am
That's a gem Erika! :) Thanks for sharing. Pricing is indeed a factor, it affects the insertion fee and yes you cannot start your price too high that it would appear to be straight retail, because that's not what customers/buyers come to ebay for.

Cheers!


Irene

 

SaleHoo helps over 137,216 online business owners
find reliable low cost suppliers

Find out how
cron