18th October 2010, 03:36 PM
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#1
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Member
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Posts: 28
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Ebay Is Not My Happy Place
I ponied up for an ebay store. I'm selling makeup online and my ecommerce site is off to a slow start, so I thought ebay could help fill in the gap.
I'm using twitter to drive people to my ebay auctions.
But of 20 listings, I'm lucky if I get 2-3 sales.
Meanwhile, ebay gets:
$15.95/mo
$0.25-.50 insertion fee (this is killing me)
8.9% commission
Mostly, I seem to have to drop my drawers there. None of my auctions are getting multiple bids.
The insertion fees seem nearly criminal, given that any sale is a crap shoot but ebay still gets paid.
the insertion fees also complicate my ability to figure out if I'm making money or losing money by selling there.
I'm told Amazon is better, but for my niche, I'd have to pay $40 just to be able to sell there.
Any advice?
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27th October 2010, 06:47 AM
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#2
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Member
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Orange County, CA
Posts: 9
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What is your feedback score? Having a good feedback score does catch peoples eyes because you are trusted by others.
What hours are you starting your auctions at? If you start your auction at 2pm you are less likely to make sales compared to 7-10 pm. Even selling at the end of the week is better than the middle of the week because many more people are off work.
Shipping: Use used boxes, or you can go to your local USPS store and pick up free flat rate boxes. Even with shipping you can make a few dollars each sale. You are paying for packing supplies, tap, and effort in wrapping up the items.
Keep advertising yourself!
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10th November 2010, 05:49 AM
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#3
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 13
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I've also decided to open up an ebay store while i'm waiting for business to pick up on the website.
So far it's a disaster. I'll have to close it soon if sales don't pick up cause it'll just be costing more to keep it open.
I just find it so hard to promote an ebay store....... would love to know how some people seem to be so successful on ebay!!!
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10th November 2010, 07:05 PM
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#4
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Member
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Orange County, CA
Posts: 9
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There are other selling options, if you find web forums specifically for your items (lets say jewelry), see if they have a for sale section and go from there.
In high school I supported myself by fixing on surfboards and selling them through a surfboard forum.
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29th November 2010, 06:14 PM
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#5
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Member
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 16
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I sell some items on Ebay that don't fit in the scope of my retail business when I happen upon a good deal. Here is how I do it, maybe it will help some of you:
I did not opt for opening a store because I felt it was an extra expense that I didn't need. I list items on Ebay as 'Buy It Now' only, no auctions. Not everyone wants to get involved in the complicated auction process - they just want to BUY something. They will pass you by because they want it now, not when you auction ends. They also pay immediately, which auction winners don't always do. It also eliminates the danger of auctions that don't go as well as you'd hoped.
How do you make your items look more professional and stand out from the mob? I use PageMage for listings - very simple to use, very creative looking. You get 24 listings per month FOR FREE, more for a small fee. You can also link your cool new ads to FaceBook, your website, your blog, etc. for extra viewing opportunities. You can also post an unlimited number of photos in your listings, something that you can't do on Ebay without it costing you.
Then I added Auctiva - their FREE SERVICES include the crawling gallery that you see on so many listings, featuring most of the items that you have listed on Ebay scrolling along above whatever item someone has clicked on. What else do they offer for free?
A STORE, THAT'S WHAT! They will make a store out of all your Ebay listings FOR FREE. You can pick from many, many templates to make your store look as cool as you want it to. You can link that store to FaceBook, your blog - you can even add it to your own website - FOR FREE.
Also, make sure that you make the link to your store part of your email signature for extra free advertising.
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16th December 2010, 09:24 AM
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#6
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Member
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by luxuria
I ponied up for an ebay store. I'm selling makeup online and my ecommerce site is off to a slow start, so I thought ebay could help fill in the gap.
I'm using twitter to drive people to my ebay auctions.
But of 20 listings, I'm lucky if I get 2-3 sales.
Meanwhile, ebay gets:
$15.95/mo
$0.25-.50 insertion fee (this is killing me)
8.9% commission
Mostly, I seem to have to drop my drawers there. None of my auctions are getting multiple bids.
The insertion fees seem nearly criminal, given that any sale is a crap shoot but ebay still gets paid.
the insertion fees also complicate my ability to figure out if I'm making money or losing money by selling there.
I'm told Amazon is better, but for my niche, I'd have to pay $40 just to be able to sell there.
Any advice?
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I had an eBay anchor store to match my laundry bag site. It did decent but as you indicate eBay/Paypal were getting most of the profit. At the time I only had the one non-ebay bag site and it did much better than the eBay store. So I closed the eBay store when they raised the fees.
However I found that writing guides was one of the better ways to drive traffic to my eBay store. If you visit my first bag site in my sig and click eBay feedback at the bottom of the home page, then click top 5000 reviewer you can see the guides.
The guides get crawled by SE's. Just make sure you use good tag keywords.
As mentioned I seldom put items in auction just "buy it now". Also the guides are over 4 years old so the info may be outdated. |
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28th December 2010, 06:04 PM
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#7
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Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 27
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I understand, eBay's fees are insane. In my experience, make up doesn't sell very well on eBay. I would suggest just forgetting about eBay and Amazon and do some hardcore traffic generation for your website.
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24th January 2011, 04:02 AM
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#8
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Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 10
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aimtoplease
I thought adding links from ebay listing to your site was against ebays TOS. I thought u weren't allowed to link your items to a site where it "could be cheaper to buy"
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26th January 2011, 01:37 AM
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#9
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Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Seattle
Posts: 85
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TynnishaH
I understand, eBay's fees are insane. In my experience, make up doesn't sell very well on eBay. I would suggest just forgetting about eBay and Amazon and do some hardcore traffic generation for your website.
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I guess there is no easy way out in this case. Selling on eBay or Amazon or your own site, all involves cost.
So you just need to be aware of the initial effort you need to put in, be it money or time or something else.
By the way, acquiring traffic to your own site, might turn out to be a LOT harder than you would think...
__________________
JiansNet.com - USA Web Business Tips, A Developer's Perspective
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27th January 2011, 02:44 AM
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#10
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Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Tampa, Fl. USA
Posts: 9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by skatersollie
I thought adding links from ebay listing to your site was against ebays TOS. I thought u weren't allowed to link your items to a site where it "could be cheaper to buy"
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The last time I checked you could not link to a page that is selling something.
In my About Me page I link to my Blog, and my Blog links to my store.
Gary |
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