eBay - Anyone Care to Give Me Some Constructive Criticism?

[illadelf]

I have been collecting for years but not so much the past few. I have my cards pretty well organized my player/team as far as the bigger players. The last couple of years I started listing with PWE shipping for some of the lower end cards. Figured this was the best way to get rid of the $1-5 range. I did a decent amount of sales last year but having very few lately. I try to list most with a starting bid of $1.99 and they often only get the one bid. Im contemplating dropping them all to 0.99 but not sure if I’m even getting any profit whatsoever in the end. I don’t do shows and there isn’t a card shop really close to me.

Thoughts?? What am I doing wrong?

Username is illadelf05

[shrevecity]

Stop doing auctions. For the most pat you will never get the price you could at fixed price. Only use auctions to boost transactions and to move stuff you want to get rid of at any price

[illadelf]

Originally Posted by shrevecity

Stop doing auctions. For the most pat you will never get the price you could at fixed price. Only use auctions to boost transactions and to move stuff you want to get rid of at any price

So that has pretty much always been my opinion as well. I just feel like it’s sitting there in either format with 0 views most of the time and it’s almost all RCs of decent players. I do include offers on the auctions as well. These are all low dollar cards so most of the time not expecting to get much more then the starting bid.

[paulcarlcards]

Curate larger lots (20+ cards per lot). Player lots perform best for me but team lots eventually sell too. Switch to free shipping. Fixed price will get you the best price per card usually but auctions will move them faster as long as opening bid is low enough.

If you don’t have enough ammo for the larger lots, probably best to just send to COMC.

[prospectorgems]

Auctions are a crap shoot, you need to have the right people watching for them in that particular time frame you have them listed and in most cases that will not happen. Just be patient with the fixed price option / best offer and you will eventually get more/better sales this way.

If however you are sick of looking at them, then list in one larger lot and do an auction and prepared to get hosed on the sale.

For our ebay store, we rarely run auctions and if we do, it's at higher prices more so to try to get views at our store of BIN/BO's. Been pretty successful at using this process. Granted some days can result in very few sales but then there will be a couple of weeks in a row we get some massive sales. It's all about the patience.

[ggxarmy]

I don't see much overall variety. Only 156 listings on lower end stuff is not going to get much traction, especially when you charge for shipping. From my perspective, buyers would rather pay shipping once and buy an assortment of things they want. You don't have much of a variety. Also, you probably want to be listing things every day and throwing in newer products every once in awhile that have a higher current sell through.

[JeffG1954]

I see you have a lot of multi-card listings....I would try to put the word "lot" in the header....and as others have said, scrap the auctions and go to BIN/OBO.

[discodanman45]

List everything with BIN and offer free shipping. If you need to do a claim and offer free shipping, you can get back everything with ESE insurance. I like to buy cards with BIN and tend to avoid auctions

[Swipe79]

Agree with most of what has been said - BIN/BO w/ free shipping. I would also recommend doing the eBay promotions with a low percentage (I only do like 2%) - it tends to get the cards in front of more eyes.

[illadelf]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I’ll give it a shot!

[MavsRChamps]

I don't really agree with the "Free shipping" advice especially for auctions ... That's a surefire way to lose money and discourage people from buying multiple items.

For low end stuff - someone may want a card for $2 + $1.50 shipping and happily pay that, but in an auction very likely that cards still just sells for $2 w/ free shipping or doesn't get to the $3.50 total. People tend to just bid certain amounts.

Even for higher end stuff, if someone wants a card for $50 most likely they'll just bid $50 or close to it, regardless if it's free shipping or $4.50 shipping.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by MavsRChamps

I don't really agree with the "Free shipping" advice especially for auctions ... That's a surefire way to lose money and discourage people from buying multiple items.

For low end stuff - someone may want a card for $2 + $1.50 shipping and happily pay that, but in an auction very likely that cards still just sells for $2 w/ free shipping or doesn't get to the $3.50 total. People tend to just bid certain amounts.

Even for higher end stuff, if someone wants a card for $50 most likely they'll just bid $50 or close to it, regardless if it's free shipping or $4.50 shipping.

There have been enough experiments and other data compiled to show free shipping is not everything..the biggest plus is with ese items if you file a claim you get it all back on free shipping items.

[discodanman45]

Originally Posted by MavsRChamps

I don't really agree with the "Free shipping" advice especially for auctions ... That's a surefire way to lose money and discourage people from buying multiple items.

Buy it now with free shipping was the advice most of us gave. You can also encourage buying multiple items with BIN + free shipping by offering a discount on multiple items purchased. I prefer the free shipping because of people complaining about stupid nonsense like charging $1 for shipping because of supplies and they receive an envelope that says it was $0.69. They then will want a refund of $0.31 or leave neutral/negative feedback for charging too much for shipping. Some buyers are just weird.

[paulcarlcards]

Originally Posted by MavsRChamps

I don't really agree with the "Free shipping" advice especially for auctions ... That's a surefire way to lose money and discourage people from buying multiple items.

For low end stuff - someone may want a card for $2 + $1.50 shipping and happily pay that, but in an auction very likely that cards still just sells for $2 w/ free shipping or doesn't get to the $3.50 total. People tend to just bid certain amounts.

Even for higher end stuff, if someone wants a card for $50 most likely they'll just bid $50 or close to it, regardless if it's free shipping or $4.50 shipping.

Offering free shipping is crucial because it increases your listing’s ranking in the search results. They explicitly state it in this patent: https://patentimages.storage.googlea.../US9672554.pdf

[BostonNut]

Love auctions.

Start at $0.01, free shipping, 10-days.

You win some, you take it on the chin some.

The low prices encourage bidding wars. (At least in my experience.)

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by paulcarlcards

Offering free shipping is crucial because it increases your listing’s ranking in the search results. They explicitly state it in this patent: https://patentimages.storage.googlea.../US9672554.pdf

All that talks about is their search engine and how it sets a score for listings I see nothing expressly saying free shipping. Yes free shipping is a factor but there are many other factors that are weighed in.

Regardless Ebay can say all they want, but is it true that is debatable. Its another case of doing what works for you. I list most cards that ship ESE with free shipping anything else is charged shipping many cases because of the high variations across country in price.. Before I made that change I was selling more with shipping and for better prices than I was similar items with free shipping. Most sellers I know are in process of or have pulled back on free shipping

[paulcarlcards]

Originally Posted by shrevecity

All that talks about is their search engine and how it sets a score for listings I see nothing expressly saying free shipping. Yes free shipping is a factor but there are many other factors that are weighed in.

Figure 3 on page 3.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by paulcarlcards

Figure 3 on page 3.

Still showing its part of the scoring also shows power sellers and high quality seller score boosts it so again its a factor, which nobody has denied.. In that chart those 3 only gained 2 points on the score. So a seller offering free shipping that has a low quality score and is not a power seller will possibly get zero boost or a simple one point.

On same token a good seller that is a power seller and has shipping costs could have the same score.

Then this does not seem to look at promotions.

Really looking at it the data on that chart is not conclusive. It does not show the score difference if say only on or 2 are met or other combinations. It also does not show exactly what raised it those 2 points and how many points each item is worth or how much it deducts. It's just giving examples which again nobody has said free shipping does not boost its still unclear how much it does

[thenightman]

Originally Posted by paulcarlcards

Offering free shipping is crucial because it increases your listing’s ranking in the search results. They explicitly state it in this patent: https://patentimages.storage.googlea.../US9672554.pdf

It's all anecdotal, but about 90 days ago I switched from free shipping to $0.30 on all ESE listings. I am currently a Top Rated seller, have 5.3K items sold, and have 100% feedback. I randomly picked a card that was about a month old and was common. When I inputted it in the search there were 480 listings of this card and, after looking past the promoted listing, mine was third on this list.

All that said, while having free shipping can be important, it's not a death knell if you don't.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by thenightman

It's all anecdotal, but about 90 days ago I switched from free shipping to $0.30 on all ESE listings. I am currently a Top Rated seller, have 5.3K items sold, and have 100% feedback. I randomly picked a card that was about a month old and was common. When I inputted it in the search there were 480 listings of this card and, after looking past the promoted listing, mine was third on this list.

All that said, while having free shipping can be important, it's not a death knell if you don't.

And likely got many with free shipping below you in those rankings

[thenightman]

Originally Posted by shrevecity

And likely got many with free shipping below you in those rankings

I think it's fair to say this is accurate.

[Budler]

Originally Posted by illadelf

I have been collecting for years but not so much the past few. I have my cards pretty well organized my player/team as far as the bigger players. The last couple of years I started listing with PWE shipping for some of the lower end cards. Figured this was the best way to get rid of the $1-5 range. I did a decent amount of sales last year but having very few lately. I try to list most with a starting bid of $1.99 and they often only get the one bid. Im contemplating dropping them all to 0.99 but not sure if I’m even getting any profit whatsoever in the end. I don’t do shows and there isn’t a card shop really close to me.

Thoughts?? What am I doing wrong?

Username is illadelf05

The big elephant in the room. (Inventory). Last year did you sell all of your good cards and now have only the ones that move more slowly??? Are your $1 - $5 cards really worth that amount as I see your cards on COMC are overpriced per other sellers.

Inventory has a lot to do to how fast cards move. When I got my nephew's collection. The 40s, 50s, 60s and most of the 70s moved really fast and at good prices. Now I'm down to the late 80s and early 90s and it is hard to get rid of. About 50% of the 200,000 cards were in sets and sold as sets. I do it as a hobby so I just purchased cards for my PC and not for other cards to resell. I do a lot of trading also.

It takes a little luck to have someone see your cards and willing to buy them.

PS. I really enjoy reading all of the advice members are giving out. (this posting and others) 99% of them are good with a few I wonder about.

[paulcarlcards]

You can see how it’s changed your rankings in your traffic report tab.