Follow Up to My eBay Experiment - Working Smarter

I wanted to do a follow up to my September post about increasing average sale price, because some of you have been asking. (Read that post here.)

2015 is my 12th year selling on eBay and I still continue to refine the business every day. I set a goal for myself to increase average selling price to $40 by the end of 2014. I didn't make it, but here is my progress.

October was exactly the same as September and August - $29 per item. I saw a huge jump to $57 per item in November, but I can't take credit for hard work there. I sold these Auburn vs. Alabama tickets for $1,588.99:

Where did I get them? My dad is an Alabama alum and at the age of 77 still gets season tickets every year. He no longer goes to the games so I sell the tickets locally and on eBay for him. By the way, event tickets are a great way to pick up some consignment commission using your eBay skills. Tickets are the only item I put on auction, they are a guaranteed sale, super easy to list and ship, and are never a returned. So this big sale skewed my numbers for November.

December was actually kind of slow and my average sale price was back down to $35 an item. I offer free shipping on items that can be shipped first class or fit in a padded flat rate mailer so that is included in some sales in the average sale price calculation.

So, I did not meet my goal of $40 per item average sale price, but my number of sold items is increasing alongside the average price per item. I sold 71 items in December which was 10 more items than in November, and 19 more than in October. Slow progress is still progress.

No, I am not a huge seller, in fact, I am a pretty small seller. eBay is one of many income streams I have built over the last 12 years. See my eBay store here.

But, I am a real seller, I sell items every day, and I am in the trenches right there with you and have been since 2003. I have built several other businesses over the years but eBay is still my favorite and something I am passionate about. I strive to be an efficient seller by doing the following:

1. Carefully choosing products to sell. I always consider profit margin and the amount of time involved in cleaning, photographing, listing, and shipping an item before buying it for resale. It is never a matter if something will sell on eBay, but how much time will be involved in dealing with the item and how much profit I will end up with. Pick your battles.

2. Listing what I have already purchased before buying more. Unlisted items cannot sell. Period. When I was interviewed for a reality show about eBay sellers a couple of years ago, the producers told me my workspace and storage area was "not exciting enough for TV." I told them that the reality is that not all sellers have thousands of items in their homes and that this business can be done with very little stock and in an efficient manner.I was not their gal because my inventory was not impressive enough - which is ok - eBay does exactly what I need it to do for my unique business.

3. Keeping things manageable. I have never had more than 500 items in my eBay store because I can generate the kind of income I want from eBay with fewer than 500 items and the time investment that works for me. There is nothing wrong with having hundreds or thousands of items, but I tend to feel overwhelmed with that many items to manage. At one point I had 12 people working for me (listing, shipping, shopping, running errands, teaching) and my life became about managing other people and paperwork. I prefer to do my eBay business in a very hands-on way so I can do what I am passionate about and what inspires me every day. The push on the internet these days is "grow your business - scale your business!" That wasn't for me. I would rather keep things manageable and have my sanity and a life. I would rather run my business than have it run me.

4. Constantly refining the business. Learn something new about eBay every day, whether is it what to sell, how to keep better records, how to save time, or new ways to use your eBay expertise to make money. Selling on eBay is a skill that is marketable in our culture in many different ways whether through consulting, consignment, teaching classes, or writing articles.Figure out how to use your eBay knowledge in different ways to create more streams of income. Want to know more? I am here for you!

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Are You Wasting Time Micromanaging Your eBay Store?

My Little eBay Experiment - Work Smarter!

I wanted to share something I have been working on personally in my eBay store. Maybe this will help some of you trying to get your numbers up.

For the last 3 months, I have really been focusing on selling higher priced items, as well as purchasing them as cheaply as possible to increase profit margin. Most things I buy now don't cost more than $2, and you can see from this sales chart that my average sale price per item has doubled in 90 days. (*Note: Free shipping is included on items shipped First Class or that can go in a padded flat rate envelope, so that skews the numbers a little.)

For those of you who want to increase your profit on eBay, please remember it is not about the number of things you sell, but the profit you make each month. The most frequently asked question I receive from sellers is, "How can I make more money on eBay?" Well, here is your answer.

I am on several Facebook eBay groups, and often see sellers posting pics of their giant piles of outgoing packages. Please do not be misled by quantity. A seller may be shipping 25 one day, but profit might only be $2 per item - which of course is still good money, but quantity isn't the end game here.

Maximum dollars in the bank account is what we all want. It doesn't matter if you sell 1,000 items a month if you are only making $3 an hour doing it. Look at your profit vs hours worked to see how much you are making. Put the pencil to paper and many of you will be shocked to see you are working for a fraction of minimum wage.

Also, consider the time and work involved in selling lower priced items as well as additional supply cost. (Mailers, labels, ink, tape, etc.) After doing this for 11 years, I have decided I would rather spend the bulk of my time looking for items that will yield a higher sales price rather than doing this business like a mouse on a wheel. Just because you are busy and money is going into your Paypal account does not mean you are running a profitable business. Remember, it takes the same amount of time to list a $50 item as it does to list a $5 item.

Bottom line: It is never a question of IF you can sell something on eBay, but the question we need to focus on is "How MUCH can I sell this for?"

Just thought I would share my little experiment with you. I hope to increase average sale price to $40 per item by the end of the year.

You can find your average sales by going to Summary > Sales Reports and look in the middle of the page. You can visit my eBay store, Atlanta Golf Shop here to see the kinds of things I am selling.

What are your goals for increasing sales by the end of 2014?

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Dropping Prices on eBay Items Cannot Force a Sale

An overwhelming number of eBay sellers are new to running a business. For many, an eBay business is their first experience with a home business and they may lack skills, experience, and knowledge of how to price their items. A common mistake is dropping prices to force sales. This simply does not work.

Many eBay sellers assume sales will increase if prices are lowered. And while this makes logical sense, it doesn't necessarily work in the real world. Why? Because people do not buy solely on price alone - maybe they have in the past and had a bad experience. Lower price often means lower quality in many consumers' minds. Even on eBay. Bottom line:

Lowering the price devalues the quality of the product, it can change the expectations people will have about it. (Instigator Blog.)


The above snipped is in the August 2014 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine. This quote jumped out at me,

"For some reason every small business owner I know is scared to death of raising prices."

This fits many sellers who read this blog or are involved in daily discussions on my Facebook Group (which now has over 15,000 sellers participating.) Is this why eBay is the garage sale of the internet? Because so many sellers believe being the lowest price is the only way to get a sale? I strongly disagree. I sell items all the time where my price on the exact same product is higher than another seller's price.

This concept goes along with what I have been saying for months about watchers on eBay items. Raise the price. See if buyers react. If nothing else, you can lower the price back down later or add best offer. Remember that being the lowest price seller isn't a great thing for your image because rock bottom prices often means poor quality, sloppy service, slow shipping, or some other negative perception in the consumer's mind.

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21 Ways to Boost eBay Sales

21 Ways to Boost eBay Sales

One of the most common questions I hear from other eBay sellers via email, when working with clients on site, on phone consultations, and on Facebook groups is,

"How can I increase my sales on eBay?"

While there is no magic answer that will work for everyone because each seller's business is unique, I have seen the same patterns over and over again, and many issues are a quick fix.

I've compiled information about this issue over the last year from these sources:

eBay Webinars
eBay Announcements
eBay Education Specialists (trained by eBay)
eBay Outreach
Successful sellers in my Facebook group of 14,000 members
My own personal experience on eBay since 2003

In other words, this isn't a bunch of stuff I made up. This is a handy reference guide with 21 ways to boost eBay sales in the 3 major areas of struggle:

Optimizing listings for the eBay search engine (Cassini)
Optimizing listings for eBay mobile (25-40% of sales are made on mobile devices)
Improving customer service to attract more buyers

These strategies don't require you to buy any tools, apps, or services - just sit down and start working through the material. All that is required is your time and the desire to succeed.

This report is an instant download priced at $19. Get your copy today and start applying the strategies so you can increase sales on eBay.
 

Are You Wasting Time Micro-Managing Your eBay Store?

Over the past year, since eBay's new search engine Cassini has been in place, sellers have been scratching their heads trying to figure out how to to rise to the top of the search. There has been a boatload of "advice" on the eBay forums, Facebook groups, and blogs. But what are we REALLY supposed to be doing?

One tip given in a January 2014 article in Ecommerce Bytes stated,

"Don't Use Good Til Cancelled. New, well priced listings from a reputable seller with high DSR ratings will be automatically placed near the top of the Best Match category for the first day or two and then will slowly move downward as other sellers list their items and they are placed above yours. To make this work for you, don't use GTC, and end every item every 30 days and then relist them."

I started thinking about this strategy, especially when reading the Money Making Mondays posts on my Facebook group (which now has over 14,000 sellers.) Many sellers with large inventories post items that sold each week. I began to wonder if these sellers with larger inventories were using GTC or relisting unsold items. It would be a huge time suck for sellers with thousands of items in inventory to manually relist unsold items. So I asked some of them.

Kathy said, "I have 2 eBay stores - 1 has all GTC, about 250 listings and the other has 1,100 or so right now and I do mostly GTC and run auctions as I have time to list. I am currently shipping about 60 packages per day. I haven't had a slump at all. I think your standing as a seller and overall sales are what helps. if you have lots of sales in general, all of your items get a boost. That's why listing new things gives you a boost. You might sell a new item and it boosts everything else."

Jay, who has 3,400 items said, "Yes, all our items are listed once and 'good till cancelled.' Our motto is 'list it and forget it.' Most items sell within a year, but we have had items take 36 months to sell. At 5-cents a months for listing fee, that's only 60-cents a year. Being listed for three years only costs $1.80. If our profit is $20+ an item, we still make out like bandits.We want things to sell quickly, but you see how we have zero stress once an item is listed. Its not like FBA sellers who worry about storage fees. We do the research, put a strong price, and add 'make offer'. That's gives buyer leeway to haggle.  We did an experiment about six months ago where we ended all 3000 of our items and re-listed them as new. We saw no rise in sales. I couldn't tell if we were noticeably higher in search rankings. What it did do is lose all our followers on the items. Lesson learned.Instead of wasting time trying to fool the system, we just focus on listing more items. It's ridiculous to think that eBay would build a search algorithm that could be so easily fooled." 

*Note - Jay has an anchor store which explains the fee breakdown.

John, who has 5 stores and over 12,000 items in inventory said, "If I could I would switch all my items back to GTC. My number two source of traffic is Google. Before I sold half the business, my best performers were the old GTC items I had, and the traffic was not from eBay, was bookmarked and Google. I think instead of taking the time and relisting I would do something to change the listings. Price, add pictures, social media links, something. But as for traffic other than eBay the sell similar stinks, as when you sell similar you change the url of the item (SEO) with restockable items that long term url is a huge advantage." 

*John's business is based on easily restockable items, so his situation may be different than yours.

So there you have it. If you are spending precious time allowing listings to end than manually relisting them, it may not be doing you any good. The 3 sellers above are successful sellers with large inventories. If you want to be successful, do what the successful people are doing - and they are spending their time listing more items. Don't look back, look forward. Spending hours every week tweaking and micro-managing your listings isn't a good business strategy.

Everyone's most valuable resource is time. We can all get more money, more help, more space - but no one can get more time. Use it wisely so that your actions are focused on income-producing activities, not busywork.

What is your opinion on GTC listings? Are they working for you? Let's have a conversation about it so leave a comment below.

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6 Ways to Get Out of an eBay Rut

As we head into summer, many eBay sellers will feel the infamous summer slump. Depending on what you sell, you may or may not feel this. But for many, this can be a frustrating time because you are working just as hard as always, but sales slow down dramatically. Understand that eBay and ecommerce are cyclical and you will have months where sales are better than others. Don't take it personally and don't let the summer slump get the best of you. Keep your cool and keep moving forward.

Unfortunately, there is no magic answer, but there are things you can do to keep moving forward and keep cash coming in. Buying more inventory isn't always the answer - maybe because the cash flow isn't there or space doesn't allow. And making impulsive price reductions out of fear isn't a good idea either because once Back to School starts everything will pick up and you can get the original asking price. Don't panic and be a sell out!

Slow months are an excellent time to diversify, learn something new, or create new streams of income. Staying busy working on productive tasks will keep your mind off of the slow sales as well as empower you to learn new skills and build new streams of income that will serve you all year. Here are some suggestions for new streams of income to build during the slow months.

1. Learn to source in new ways. If you always go to thrift stores, you will most likely see the same types of things every time like clothing, kitchen items,or toys. Try estate sales where you might see vintage glass, mid-century collectibles, vintage license plates, or valuable Christmas ornaments. Or if you always go to yard sales, try live auctions. Shake things up. Exposing yourself to new ways of sourcing inventory will provide new opportunities and you will learn more about different kinds of items to sell. Get out of your comfort zone.

2. Learn to sell on another venue. Amazon and Etsy offer other opportunities that eBay doesn't. Learn what they are and if those sites will serve you. Download my free guide to getting started on Amazon, or check out my Etsy course for beginners.

3. Check out virtual work on sites like ODesk and Elance. You can do data entry, social media marketing, proofreading, copy editing, or other tasks not related to eBay. Or you could set up a profile as a Virtual Assistant for another eBay seller who has too much work. A Virtual eBay Assistant does things like edit photos, create listings using information provided by the seller, or social media marketing (like posting listings on Pinterest). Many sellers are looking this to hire this type of help and another eBay seller is perfect for the job.

4. Consider partnering with another business that has inventory.  Maybe you know of a small thrift store, church thrift store, consignment store, or small business that has inventory that could be sold online. You can approach them and either teach them how to sell, or sell their items for a commission. I partnered with a small Humane Society charity thrift store in 2011 and sold their better items on eBay and books on Amazon. I made $12,000 (not sales but my percentage) that year from this partnership, plus I learned a lot about items I had never been exposed to before. I simply walked in and asked if they sold any of their items on eBay. They said no, and a wonderful relationship was born. Find consignment clients - get listed in my eBay Seller Consignment Directory.

5. Write a Kindle book. Anyone can do this on any topic. Kindle books provide a nice stream of income all year and they are pretty much passive income once you get them written. Kindle books are actually short reports so if you were good at writing term papers or wrote for your high school newspaper, you can do this. I have three Kindle books that provide a nice check every month. This is also a great gig for teachers over the summer break.

6. Write articles for pay. You know I write for The Examiner and this is a good gig that pays well each month. You can write about any topic, so regardless if your passion is cooking, crafts, animals, the environment, exercise, collecting, designer clothing, or any other topic - there is a column for you. If you are interested in learning more about this opportunity, send me a message and I can send you some tips to help you submit your application.

The point here is that you don't have to sit around all summer worrying about why sales are slow or obsessing over what you are doing wrong on your eBay listings. Push yourself out of your comfort zone and try something new during the slow time - something that will benefit you in the months and years to come. Remember, when we are uncomfortable we are growing. I have 11 income streams now, and if I can do this, you can, too. I'm just a stay-at-home mom with a passion for never working for someone else again!

As always, if you want some one-on-one help with eBay or any of the other income streams above, contact me for a private consulting session. I am glad to help you with your online journey and share what I have learned along mine.

3 Tips for Increasing eBay Traffic and Sales

eBay sellers are becoming increasingly frustrated with lack of sales or slow sales since the change in the search engine algorithm last July. Many sellers are intimidated all the changes, and what we are supposed to be doing now to be successful. I see this frustration daily from sellers from all walks of life, all store levels, and using different business models. 

Usually on a daily basis, I receive emails or Facebook messages about these issues:

My sales suddenly dropped off. What am I doing wrong?

Traffic to my listings is way down. What happened?

My items aren't coming up in searches - why not?

How can I increase sales? My prices are already as low and I can go.

If you don't understand the Cassini search engine, and haven't educated yourself about how eBay rewards and punishes sellers for different actions, this is a huge part of the problem. The new search engine not only rewards sellers for doing certain things, but it actually punishes sellers for doing or not doing other things.  The punishment is being pushed to the bottom of the search - so far down that buyers don't see the listings.


3 things you can do immediately to improve traffic, and hopefully sales:

1. Make sure listings are optimized for mobile. eBay estimates 40% of sales are made on mobile devices. I see this error a lot, and if buyers can't read your listings on mobile, they won't buy from you. This isn't a Cassini issue, but is important to connecting with buyers.

2. Extend return policy to 30 days, whether you like it or not. Cassini rewards sellers for this and you will be placed higher in searches.

3. Remove any extraneous HTML code from your description area. Listing templates, banners, widgets, maps, and info copied from the internet that carries code with it can junk up this area, and Cassini can't read it. Listings with too much HTML are punished and pushed to the bottom.

Learn about more ways to improve sales on eBay here.