Ebay Sales Down

[QuinEarlyDoucet]

How?
Unfortunately buyers can always claim that

Originally Posted by NatsSBR

Sounds like it's outside the window for a trading cards INAD claim.

[NatsSBR]

Originally Posted by QuinEarlyDoucet

How?
Unfortunately buyers can always claim that

There's a 3-day window for trading cards rather than the usual 30.

[newcokeandtaco]

Originally Posted by NatsSBR

There's a 3-day window for trading cards rather than the usual 30.

Correct, if the seller has "no returns" set on the listing.

[boxbuster7]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

ESE delivered on Dec 15th at 10 am. Buyer reaches out today, Dec 19th around noon complaining about condition...about 20 minutes after the player gets traded. I can tell them to pound sand, correct?

what player? hope nobody was making a hassle over brandon lowe

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by boxbuster7

what player? hope nobody was making a hassle over brandon lowe

Part of that deal...Jacob Melton.

[RandAlThor]

Originally Posted by NatsSBR

There's a 3-day window for trading cards rather than the usual 30.

This is where I have issues with this 3 day window especially with Ebay standard envelope. I recently bought a card that was shipped using ESE where the tracking showed delivered but I didn't actually receive the card until 5 days later. No big deal until I opened the package and it wasn't the card I purchased. I messaged the seller and he pretty much said oh well and refused to ship me the correct card or refund me. I then claimed INAD with ebay and they denied my request because of the 3 day window. I left negative feedback on the seller and only then did he offer to refund me. I told him he should have offered the refund when I asked the first time for his mistake.

[rwperu34]

Three day rule definitely in effect. They opened a return. One of my options is "Decline the return, the buyer keeps the item". I've never seen that one before, but that's the one I'm going to choose.

ETA: It also asked why I didn't want to take the return and they won't share it with the buyer. I mentioned the trade and likely loss of value on the card.

[fungi2510]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

Alright. I got sucked into an hour long convo with Gemini. The end result is I am going to start running 1¢/free shipping auctions as a loss leader on a regular basis. The key point Gemi made is if I run two a day (out of 2,000 listings), even if every item ended at 1¢ it would cost me less than $75 a month. Obviously they won't all end that low. Even if those buyers aren't the one's that come in and buy my higher priced BIN (althoug it happens), this should help boost my store and search ranking and overall sales. In theory.

I've currently got 245 items listed under $2, all with zero cost basis. There are another 30-50 on march to under $2 in the not too distant future (I lower prices incrementally every 4 weeks). Some of those cards would eventually sell, so that's another part of the cost. But most of what I have listed under $2 right now (especially at 99¢) is pretty bad and headed for a Card Show Ready Lot.

The one area where I'm going against the reccomendation is I'm running them 7 nights a week at 5 days instead of just Sun/Mon/Tue at 7 days. Although thinking out loud here, what I might do is run them at 5 days except for the one's that start on Sun/Mon (run them at 7). That leaves me no 1¢ auctions ending on Fri/Sat. Then again, do I want to ignore the Fri/Sat people or should I try and draw them into my store as well? Maybe just a straight 7 every night.

ETA: My first two, starting tomorrow, are guys that got traded this week. Perfect!

How has this gone? I started something similar since I have time off as a teacher. I have not had anything end yet, but we will see how it all goes on my end. I just want to move some stuff.

[rwperu34]

Loss Leader Update

So far I've sent 26 packages, 30 items, and I'm down $5.98. So that's less than 20¢ per item. If I'm running ~60 a month, that's $12 a month in cost.

Is it helping my other sales? After backing out the loss leaders, my sales were up during week 1 relative to the week before. Items sold are up in week 2, but $ are flat relative to the baseline week. There was a partial week at the start which saw a big jump. This is during the Holidays though, so my sales are typically slower these two weeks. So maybe it's helping my sales? The problem is it's all within normal variance. This is a longer term strategy too. Who knows how I'll be affected in April/May/June...etc.

Some other notes;

Lots are doing worse than singles. Much, much worse. I've tried running them in the lots category and removing lot from the title and running them in singles. Neither has made a difference. Four of my bottom six sales (including both that ended at 1¢) have been lots despite only having run six total auctions.

My big hits are a buyer bought three separate items for a total of $3.50, a single card that had been selling for $1.50 went for $3, then an auto that I had listed for $1.99 + shipping for the last month went for $2.

I've started trying to list items of the same player on the same day when I have it. The hope is the same buyer will win both. The package I just made was a success story. Buyer got two 40¢ items, taking my loss from ~70¢ each to a total of 34¢ for both.

Speaking of winning multiple items, I've had three buyers buy multiple items. The two noted above, then another that won a 6¢ lot and paired it with a 60¢ item to make the beating not too bad.

I've started taking some of the better dummy cards that come in packages and listing them in this program. So far the only one that's ended (or even been listed) is that $3 card. This should help the bottom line and the added work is incremental. They get listed as I'm listing other items and it's only 1-2 at a time. This is a better fit for advertising my current inventory.

I ended up going with five day auctions except those started on Sunday and Monday, which are 7 days. So nothing ending on Friday/Saturday, four auctions ending each of Sunday/Monday.

I have yet to have someone dip into my store and combine a Loss Leader with regular inventory in the same purchase. What I don't know is if any of these repeat buyers that buy normal inventory were drawn in by the Loss Leader.

In an effort to entice buyers to buy regular inventory, I'm considering sending an invoice with a message of something like "Feel free to keep shopping. If you find any other ESE eligible items you like I'll give you free shipping. Just add the items to your cart and request an invoice".

[uminnesota]

I paused all Campaign activity on December 13 to see how it would go—and it turned out to be the best decision between Dec 13 and today. Performance was strong, and I saved about 2%.
After seeing those results, I’m comfortable not restarting the Campaign especially since the campaign is set to increase Jan 13th for everyone. I am happy without campaign.

[rwperu34]

Ok. I really want to start actively pumping my main inventory on these Loss Leader Auctions. I'm thinking I send an invoice with this message;

Thank you for your purchase. If you see any Buy It Now items you like in my store, add them to your cart, request a combined invoice, and I will give you a $1.25 credit toward shipping. TO GET THE DISCOUNT YOU MUST REQUEST AN INVOICE! Thank you, rwperu34

1) What do you think of the strategy? This means I'm sending invoices with a copy/paste (takes time, albeit not very much) and puts me at risk of getting hit with the 30¢ twice on a multi-item buyer if they pay before I send the second invoice. Obviously the upside would be buyers would buy a 2nd item (or more) far more often.

2) What do you think of the wording? Is it clear that other 1¢ auctions are not eligible? Do I need to better explain what inventory is eligible?

3) How often do you think someone pays for two items without the invoice (costing me the 30¢) and asks for a refund of $1.25?

[frenchquarter]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

Ok. I really want to start actively pumping my main inventory on these Loss Leader Auctions. I'm thinking I send an invoice with this message;


3) How often do you think someone pays for two items without the invoice (costing me the 30¢) and asks for a refund of $1.25?

I send refunds every day. Many people buy 5 to 10 items and pay for them all individually. It costs me 30 cents per item, and I have to spend time refunding shipping charges, but that is fine as long as people are purchasing from me. There is rarely a day that goes by where there aren't at least a couple of buyers who make 2 purchases as individual transactions. But it only take me a few seconds to issue a shipping refund and it is easy to combine the 2 orders into one order and still use the ESE.

I'm not talking about 1 cent auctions. I am talking about mostly ESE's and I charge $1 shipping, and purchases from the $1.50 range up to $10 or so. All BIN's. No auctions.

[discodanman45]

Has anyone else seen a big uptick in sales this year? Lots of things that I had sitting for months at BIN being bought the last three days.

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by discodanman45

Has anyone else seen a big uptick in sales this year? Lots of things that I had sitting for months at BIN being bought the last three days.

Jan VS December
274.0%Up
vs. prior time period


Jan26 vs 25
104.7%Up
vs. prior time period


And 2025 VS 2024

49.9%Up
vs. prior time period

[f2tornado]

Originally Posted by discodanman45

Has anyone else seen a big uptick in sales this year? Lots of things that I had sitting for months at BIN being bought the last three days.

Stuff was selling faster the second half of the year, both eBay and COMC. I used fewer eBay push offers during this time as I was able to get my asking price on most items without much delay. Biggest challenge is finding/maintaining available inventory. A lot of orders in the PSA pipeline and I'm hitting more card shows than ever.

[rwperu34]

Loss Leader is now a Gain Leader. For the first time I had a buyer purchase extra cards with the Loss Leader. They ended up spending $18 total!

[MavsRChamps]

General question for you all that sell more than me through Ebay. What months do people generally buy more? I'm mainly talking basketball, but all sports may qualify.

For me my general strategy is to sell between September - March.

To get more specific, basketball from September to April, Football from August to January, Baseball from January - onward (I don't do much baseball though).

Curious your thoughts on when best time to sell for each sport?

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by MavsRChamps

General question for you all that sell more than me through Ebay. What months do people generally buy more? I'm mainly talking basketball, but all sports may qualify.

For me my general strategy is to sell between September - March.

To get more specific, basketball from September to April, Football from August to January, Baseball from January - onward (I don't do much baseball though).

Curious your thoughts on when best time to sell for each sport?

I'm baseball only, but I suspect the other sports work similarly. In season sales are going to be better because players are in the news on a regular basis. For baseball that's pretty much mid Feb through The National at the end of July. Then sales start to slow as teams fall out of the hunt and football gets going.

[jamcas997]

Originally Posted by MavsRChamps

General question for you all that sell more than me through Ebay. What months do people generally buy more? I'm mainly talking basketball, but all sports may qualify.

For me my general strategy is to sell between September - March.

To get more specific, basketball from September to April, Football from August to January, Baseball from January - onward (I don't do much baseball though).

Curious your thoughts on when best time to sell for each sport?

This was last year all sports Number sold and $$$ You decide what months are best.



JAN 545 $1,927.55
FEB 289 $1,244.53
MAR 654 $2,546.88
APR 255 $1,829.17
MAY 246 $1,714.72
JUN 351 $1,993.70
JUL 318 $1,837.32
AUG 522 $5,516.17
SEP 221 $1,880.26
OCT 547 $3,160.14
NOV 190 $1,892.20
DEC 232 $1,819.04

[rwperu34]

Make sure you bring plenty of lube the next time you print out a Ground Advnatage label.

[Breesus85]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

Make sure you bring plenty of lube the next time you print out a Ground Advnatage label.

I recently raised my GA rate to $5.99, which I hated to do, and it feels like it probably wasn’t enough. The hikes were larger than I expected.

[thenightman]

Originally Posted by Breesus85

I recently raised my GA rate to $5.99, which I hated to do, and it feels like it probably wasn’t enough. The hikes were larger than I expected.

For some locations it won’t be enough. I’ve already seen $5.20. eBay’s cut will put the net below that.

[f2tornado]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

Make sure you bring plenty of lube the next time you print out a Ground Advnatage label.

Yeah. Wasn't expecting $5+. I've been charging $3.95 and was already losing a little plus materials cost when it was like $4.38.

I threw a bunch of ESE cards up over the weekend at low to mid comps and many sold within a day. I might have been able to eek out a few more dollars but I tend to be slightly aggressive when card shows are coming up that are sometimes quite effective draining a wallet.

I'd normally send this stuff to COMC but 65 cents a pop is getting a little rich. I might go back to my old ways 15-20 years ago putting together player and rookie lots and letting them fly on eBay.

[Bosoxfan5990]

Originally Posted by Breesus85

I recently raised my GA rate to $5.99, which I hated to do, and it feels like it probably wasn’t enough. The hikes were larger than I expected.

I went up to $6.99 flat prior to the holidays (regardless of how many cards).

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by thenightman

For some locations it won’t be enough. I’ve already seen $5.20. eBay’s cut will put the net below that.

It's $5.68 to the Northeast for me. That means it will be over $6 next holiday season.

In theory I would only pay 60¢ more for a card I was going to sell for $30 vs $20. The reason that's in theory is because I've completely eliminated the $30 price point from my store. Pretty soon I'm going to have to eliminate $35 as well.

One thing is for damn certain. eBay needs to raise the threshold for ESE to $25, even if they keep the max total at $50.