So eBay has been in the crapper for a lot of people the last few weeks and since summer is seasonally slow and back to school can be seasonally slow for a lot of sellers depending on what you sell, it is very unwelcome. Some of the issues are eBay messing around (there is a new software update and eBay always seems to mess everything up whenever they add or change – I mean they jacked up labels last week and how hard is that)
So it is NOT always just you — sometimes it is straight up eBay and software issues and bugs – but here is the rough part — sometimes it is YOU 🙁
So if you think it is just eBay, then relax and roll with it. I know it sucks but you can’t fix it so maybe focus on getting on some other platforms so you don’t have all your eggs in one basket. For certain things this can be hard because Amazon gate and limit certain categories and platforms like Etsy and Poshmark are limited to what you can sell on there because of how they see their sites and Mercari is app only and it is a bit of garage sale. So — that said, there is still money to be made on those sites. So if you have products that can work on them, you should be on there. For Etsy, it is not just crafts, it is also vintage so if you have things like old toys, old albums, old doodads – and they are over 20 years old, you should set up an Etsy shop.
OK — SO TRY SOME OTHER PLATFORMS
#1 – DIVERSIFY and GET ON SOME OTHER PLATFORMS
Whether it is Poshmark if you sell clothes or Etsy if you sell Vintage or Amazon if you sell new things that they will let you list in or Craigslist if you don’t mind meeting people, you should consider selling places other than just eBay — it will be good for your wallet as well as your mental health and you ship things anyway so why not have a few other platforms.
#2 – CONSIDER YOUR OWN ONLINE STORE
Not sure you want to be on Etsy or Mercari or Poshmark. Well, you can always open your own store. If you already have a lot of regular customers that you know, this may be a good thing for you. It can be a lot of work in the beginning so do some research but you may do very well with one
OK NOW SOME THINGS YOU CAN DO TO TWEAK YOUR EBAY SALES RIGHT NOW!!!
#3 – PLANT SOME NEW THINGS
Sometimes I think of my eBay store as a garden and it may sound stupid to some but it is a good way to think of it because eBay want you to take care of your garden, tend it, weed it, pull out the dead things, plant some new things. So my first suggestion for sluggish eBay sales is to PLANT SOME NEW THINGS. Cassini loves new listings so give it some. Do some new listings and try to list new things very often. It is hard if you are not a full time seller to list every day but you can always use the scheduling option to drop new listings all week long if you prefer to list all at once.
#4 – PULL OUT SOME DEAD LISTINGS (and possibly relist with sell similar)
Again, to the garden. Dead things make your garden look yucky and eBay and their algos do not like old stale listings. Pull them out. You can do this in a couple of ways. One is just end them and sell them elsewhere. Two is to end them and then relist them with sell similar (this actually works really well if you are sure your price and item are popular and they just didn’t sell and also with the automatic GTC on listings, they can go stale) You can use the sort by “start date” in your active listings to see how old they are. If you have free listings available in your store subscription that you do not use, you should do this because it doesn’t cost anything. If you do not, be careful how many you do as there is a cost for that relist. AND DO NOT END TOO MANY AT ONCE as they take at least 24 hours to reindex so just do a handful or a dozen at a time.
#5 – TEND YOUR GARDEN and TWEAK SOME LISTINGS (and possibly adjust some prices)
So if you have a store that has say 700 listings, you can do this with about 100 at a time but again don’t do too many at a time as they take a while to reindex. Sort your active listings by start date (if you don’t see that, press customize on the right and add it to your active selection) and then pick out some old stale ones and click edit and then go in and fix and adjust them. You can tweak price (you should tweak this even if it is just 5 cents down as it will reindex it and may improve its visibility) and then you can tweak things like the description (is it correct, bloated in code that isn’t needed) your item specifics (is it missing a required item or is there more info you can fill in there) Better item specifics always help so try to be thorough and I find every time that I do tweak listings, I find something whether it is a cut and paste error or a blurry photo or ebay messed up one of the photos — so it is a good exercise and really you can do about 50 of these in about 15 minutes so it shouldn’t be a time burden.
#6 – COMPLETE YOUR TASKS
Do you have a lot of uncompleted eBay tasks like leaving feedback, shipping items, answering emails? I don’t know (and I don’t know if anyone outside of ebay knows) if these affect your listings at all but there are tons of accounts on the web of people who went and shipped items or left feedback and things picked up. And answering emails in a timely fashion is just plain old polite and can result in a sale so try to keep up with your questions even if some of them seem silly (like the “how cheap will you go” post which I always want to answer with “how high will you go”) but it does seem like it is just good business to answer emails and ship items in a timely fashion especially since you don’t even need to stand in line at the post office and can just drop off almost anything so really waiting several days to ship will hurt your metrics and possibly your feedback and your sales so do these housekeeping things if you have some that you have put off.
BONUS — GET MORE RETURNING CUSTOMERS AND WORRY LESS!!
If you have a stable full of regular buyers, you are blessed but many eBay sellers do not do a very good job at the after sale care or the sale to get very many but for every returning customer you do have, you don’t need to try to get someone new and this can really add up. Things that get your return buyers are NOT some of the things ebay suggests like free returns (BARF!) or Guaranteed delivery (ALSO BARF!). Things that get you return customers are BEING A GOOD PERSON and NOT SCREWING THEM OVER. Pretty simple right? So if you sell something, ship it timely (like within a couple of days — you don’t need to head right to the post office but don’t sit on it forever either. Personally I ship M-W-F and that is plenty to please everyone and they fill my feedback with quick shipping comments – just set your handling time to what you are actually going to do) People also like things wrapped — don’t put their precious items in an envelope (you can use a padded envelope for many things but wrap it up still). And a small box for a lot of items is better (you can get all of these things FOR FREE from ebay with your store subscription so use the free packaging. And seriously use some bubble wrap. It is fine to reuse boxes but I get a lot of items where people have not wrapped it at all or they have used old Walmart bags instead of bubble wrap. Bubble wrap is SUPER CHEAP and if you are getting all your other items for free with your store, you can spend $10 and buy a giant roll of bubble wrap that will last you! A returning customer who buys once a week replaces 4 new people every single month — do a bit of work to make them happy and keep them happy and they will happily spend their money with you!!