This post is coming from a simple discussion on one of my facebook groups. A lot of people want to sell full time, but don't seem to know how. It really is an easy concept, but it is one of those things that just buzzes over peoples heads because they over think it. Once you break it down into manageable data, it really is simple to figure out.
Everyone's situation is different as are their sales models. For the purposes of this post, I am going to generalize and keep things fairly simple. Once you understand the concept, it's real easy to port the information over to your situation. My example will be making a few assumptions based on average sellers and sales numbers. While there are a lot of us who are above these numbers, it does reflect what the averages are. So, here we go.
To put yourself into a position to sell full time, you need to make sure you understand your profit margin. The average runs about 60%. So out of each sales, you get to keep 60 cents per dollar. So if your item sells for $20, then on average you will profit about $12. Our analysis will be based on that sales number just to keep things simple. I would venture to say that the average seller would need to sell about $4,000 per month in order to sell full time on ebay. So, based on the 60 cents per dollar profit number, you would expect to see $2,400 as money in your pocket.
So, how do you get to that amount? Well, it's purely a numbers game. If we are selling our product for $20 and we want to reach $4,000 in sales, then we need to sell 200 items per month. In ebay terms, you generally will sell about 10% of what you have listed per month. So to sell 200 items, you need to list 2,000 items. Now you can see why the name of the game is not just listing quantity, it's listing quality. Take the same $4,000 and an average sales price of $40 and you only need to sell 100 items and list 1,000 and so on. You get the idea.
For me, I average about $39 per sale, and have around 1,200 listings active. I average around 153 sales per month. As you can see, my numbers are pretty close in line with my example. If you want to sell full time, then do the math and figure out where you need to be. Don't be throwing darts in the dark. Set your goals and work towards them. It's ok to start small until you figure things out. Gradually raise your prices by buying more desirable products. You'll find things a little less intimidating once you understand how things work.
It's not rocket science. There is no secret. Hard work and knowing your numbers is all it takes. So go out there and make your own way!
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Being organized
Here is a video I did showing my setup and how I do things.
How do you do your business?
How do you do your business?
Monday, June 16, 2014
Friday, June 13, 2014
Friday Q & A and Sale of the week
Ask away on any topics you wish.
The sale this week was a Gleason Bros. vintage cowboy hat with the original box. Picked it up at a local thrift store for $10. Sold in less than two hours for $109.99. Gotta love sales like that!
So what was your sale of the week?
The sale this week was a Gleason Bros. vintage cowboy hat with the original box. Picked it up at a local thrift store for $10. Sold in less than two hours for $109.99. Gotta love sales like that!
So what was your sale of the week?
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Maximize your profits
I frequently look at other sellers and what they have sold. Of particular interest is how much they sell their items for. In this business there is a saying, fast nickle or slow dime. Fast nickle means you price to move where slow dime means you are willing to wait for the higher margin even if it takes some time. So which one are you, and are you doing the right thing?
A post by another member in one of my groups is what got me on this track. When I first started ebay, I was fast nickle guy. Get it, sell it. Make what I could and move on. What I soon figured out was that it took just as much time to list the fast money, low profit items as it did the slow moving, high profit items. So my logic kicked in and I figured out that it was better to list the slow dimes and make as much profit as I could. Now I do still sell some fast nickles, but by and large mine are mostly slow dimes. Of course following this model does have drawbacks.
In order to make a decent business with the slow dime method requires storage space. You are going to accumulate a lot of items and they are going to sit waiting for the right buyer. The more you have, the more frequent your sales are gonna be. This is one of the considerations you have to take into account when deciding how you are going to run your business. Are you a Walmart seller, or are you a Nordstrom seller?
The down side to the fast nickle is that once you gain a following, it will be hard to make the transition to a slow dime seller. You will slowly lose your following and have to build new followers. This can take a toll on sales as you make the transition. For me, the slow dime approach is the best fit. I want high profit margins. I want to be able to enjoy life and not have to work constantly to feed the fast nickle inventory system.
The other down side to fast nickle is you wind up devaluing brands. Each time something sells under market value, the next one will have to come down in order to compete. People see something valued at $50 selling for $19.99 and they start seeking out other $19.99 ones. The closest one they can get to that price is the one they are going to buy. Sellers panic and start lowering prices to get sales. Next thing you know, no one is making a decent margin. Think I'm making this up? One perfect example is Polo Ralph Lauren shirts. They used to be a decent margin shirt. Now you are lucky to get $19.99 for one. They have to be special labels to get anything above that.
Don't make the mistake of working yourself out of business. Fast nickle on ebay will only work for so long. Sooner or later those fast nickel items we be devalued so much that you can't make enough to justify selling them. Be smart and make sure you are getting the margins you should. Don't leave money on the table.
A post by another member in one of my groups is what got me on this track. When I first started ebay, I was fast nickle guy. Get it, sell it. Make what I could and move on. What I soon figured out was that it took just as much time to list the fast money, low profit items as it did the slow moving, high profit items. So my logic kicked in and I figured out that it was better to list the slow dimes and make as much profit as I could. Now I do still sell some fast nickles, but by and large mine are mostly slow dimes. Of course following this model does have drawbacks.
In order to make a decent business with the slow dime method requires storage space. You are going to accumulate a lot of items and they are going to sit waiting for the right buyer. The more you have, the more frequent your sales are gonna be. This is one of the considerations you have to take into account when deciding how you are going to run your business. Are you a Walmart seller, or are you a Nordstrom seller?
The down side to the fast nickle is that once you gain a following, it will be hard to make the transition to a slow dime seller. You will slowly lose your following and have to build new followers. This can take a toll on sales as you make the transition. For me, the slow dime approach is the best fit. I want high profit margins. I want to be able to enjoy life and not have to work constantly to feed the fast nickle inventory system.
The other down side to fast nickle is you wind up devaluing brands. Each time something sells under market value, the next one will have to come down in order to compete. People see something valued at $50 selling for $19.99 and they start seeking out other $19.99 ones. The closest one they can get to that price is the one they are going to buy. Sellers panic and start lowering prices to get sales. Next thing you know, no one is making a decent margin. Think I'm making this up? One perfect example is Polo Ralph Lauren shirts. They used to be a decent margin shirt. Now you are lucky to get $19.99 for one. They have to be special labels to get anything above that.
Don't make the mistake of working yourself out of business. Fast nickle on ebay will only work for so long. Sooner or later those fast nickel items we be devalued so much that you can't make enough to justify selling them. Be smart and make sure you are getting the margins you should. Don't leave money on the table.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Youtube bound!
I finally decided to start making youtube videos. I figure it will give readers a glimpse into my thrifting life and see what I buy. Still trying to decide on topics, if any to include in the series. But, for now here is the first one:
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Slow and steady...
After reading a post in one of my groups, it sparked a topic I felt I should blog about. It concerns new sellers and their quest for knowledge in finding what to sell. Everyone wants to have that ultimate source for the killer stuff that sells almost as fast as you list it. I mean after all, the web is filled with these sorts of people. You see their success stories all the time. Or do you?
While there may be a few like that, they are the exception rather than the rule. What usually happens when someone discovers a product that sells well is this. Word spreads and soon hundreds if not thousands of sellers are looking for the same item. As they find and list them, each seller drops their price just a bit to compete with the next guy. This continues until the product is virtually worthless because the price has been driven into the ground. This is know as a race to the bottom.
The real success and sustainability with ebay is what we call bread and butter items. These are the items that are priced anywhere from $25 - $45. This is the sweet spot for decent items to sell at. If you are sourcing correctly, these items will net you anywhere from $15 to $35 profits per item. This is what you want the majority of your ebay business to contain. They sell frequently and create a steady income stream, provided you have a decent amount of inventory listed. That's not to say that you don't want to carry the higher end stuff, but you want stuff that has a constant influx of revenue.
The higher end stuff doesn't sell every day. It normally requires the right person to see it. That can take a few days or a few months. These are what we call long tail sales. They take a while to sell, but the profits are usually worth the wait. Focus your energy on the bread and butter items. Don't stress about finding the high end items. You'll find them when you least expect to.
New sellers normally drop the "what sells best on ebay?" question. My answer is almost always the same. Sell what you know first, then expand. As most seasoned sellers know, not everything will sell well for everyone. It's an odd quirk with ebay. One person can sell the heck out of coffee mugs while the next guy can't give them away. Find your own way. Find what works for you and quit obsessing over what other people sell.
New sellers almost always fall into the same trap. It's called shiny object syndrome. They either read about something or see a youtube video about something someone is selling, and immediately go out and start buying it. They have not learned the basics of sticking to what you know and expanding slowly. They wind up either giving up because they can't seem to sell stuff, or they wind up with a bunch of stuff being re-donated. Don't be that guy! Do your homework. Research these items and be sure you can sell them at the profit margins you need.
Slow and steady. Be methodical in your approach. Expand your inventory into other products slowly. Just because you listed an item and it sold in a couple days does not mean it is a hot seller. Take your time and see how these new items perform over time. Nothing sucks more than buying a butt load of product only to find out it will take 2 years to clear them out.
While there may be a few like that, they are the exception rather than the rule. What usually happens when someone discovers a product that sells well is this. Word spreads and soon hundreds if not thousands of sellers are looking for the same item. As they find and list them, each seller drops their price just a bit to compete with the next guy. This continues until the product is virtually worthless because the price has been driven into the ground. This is know as a race to the bottom.
The real success and sustainability with ebay is what we call bread and butter items. These are the items that are priced anywhere from $25 - $45. This is the sweet spot for decent items to sell at. If you are sourcing correctly, these items will net you anywhere from $15 to $35 profits per item. This is what you want the majority of your ebay business to contain. They sell frequently and create a steady income stream, provided you have a decent amount of inventory listed. That's not to say that you don't want to carry the higher end stuff, but you want stuff that has a constant influx of revenue.
The higher end stuff doesn't sell every day. It normally requires the right person to see it. That can take a few days or a few months. These are what we call long tail sales. They take a while to sell, but the profits are usually worth the wait. Focus your energy on the bread and butter items. Don't stress about finding the high end items. You'll find them when you least expect to.
New sellers normally drop the "what sells best on ebay?" question. My answer is almost always the same. Sell what you know first, then expand. As most seasoned sellers know, not everything will sell well for everyone. It's an odd quirk with ebay. One person can sell the heck out of coffee mugs while the next guy can't give them away. Find your own way. Find what works for you and quit obsessing over what other people sell.
New sellers almost always fall into the same trap. It's called shiny object syndrome. They either read about something or see a youtube video about something someone is selling, and immediately go out and start buying it. They have not learned the basics of sticking to what you know and expanding slowly. They wind up either giving up because they can't seem to sell stuff, or they wind up with a bunch of stuff being re-donated. Don't be that guy! Do your homework. Research these items and be sure you can sell them at the profit margins you need.
Slow and steady. Be methodical in your approach. Expand your inventory into other products slowly. Just because you listed an item and it sold in a couple days does not mean it is a hot seller. Take your time and see how these new items perform over time. Nothing sucks more than buying a butt load of product only to find out it will take 2 years to clear them out.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
My back story...
I don't normally talk about my past or growing up. However, I see too many people using their past as an excuse to not be successful. Maybe my story will give some motivation or inspiration to others out there to take life by the reigns and make your own way. So, here we go...
I grew up in a family of 5 kids. My parents divorced when I was about 4 years old. I don't have many young memories of my dad. I was probably 7 or 8 when I really remember him. The relationship between him and my mom were strained at best. I was lucky if I got to see him an hour a week. There were times I would go a month or more without seeing him. When I was 8, my mom remarried. At first we thought this was great. We would have a dad around. But that was short lived. He ended up being a little abusive.
Moving forward, we were not well off my any means. In fact, we were fairly poor. Most of my youth I got new clothes once a year, and that was a couple pairs of pants and a few shirts. Most everything else was given to us by members of the church. It wasn't until I was a teenager that I was finally able to buy new clothes. We knew we were poor, but we made the best of it. I remember one winter when we got a blizzard. We were stuck in the house and all we had to eat was tea and crackers. That is about the only time I really remember being hungry.
I also grew up with a mother who was raised in a very religious home. As a consequence, we were in a very strict environment. Rock music was the devil's music, as was dancing. I remember not being allowed to attend an assembly at school because it was a magician, and that was evil. Being raised in that environment but also being a part of normal public interactions, it created the perfect rebellious environment for me. I longed to be a normal kid and be able to do the things other kids got to do. Of course this brought down the wrath of my step-father. By the time I was 17 I had had enough.
In January of 1981, I dropped out of school and enlisted in the US Navy. I spent 3 years on a destroyer. It was ok, but being newly released from my religious prison, I pretty much indulged in everything that was available to me. How I stayed out of trouble is beyond me. But I finished my enlistment and was honorably discharged in 1984. What a time that was to be without a job! There was no work, and because of what I had worked with in the Navy, I could not find a job. I was overqualified for most anything out there, including McDonald's!
I spent the next 7 years floating from one job to the next. But sprinkled in there were spurts of businesses I tried to start. I tried silk screening t-shirts. I tried flea market selling. I even tried selling vacuum cleaners door to door. I found myself homeless on more than one occasion. But I always knew that I was going to find my way. I knew there had to be more to life than this. I settled on doing HVAC work. It was something that came naturally to me and I could see the possibilities of business ownership in this field.
By the time I was 28, I was ready to settle down. I met my wife and 7 months later we were married. We moved back to her hometown where I started my HVAC business. 3 years later we were the second largest HVAC contractor in the area. I was grossing $500k a year. Life was good. My wife convinced me to get my GED, which I did. I was a respected business leader in the community, even getting elected as the president of our downtown business association. But in the back of my mind I knew that I did not want to be installing HVAC equipment when I was 50.
Things changed in 1995. I saw my first PC. I was fascinated with it. Then one day my business manager brought his computer from home in and was getting online. I had no idea what that meant, and he showed me the future. The Internet! I was hooked! I set out to start my own internet company. In late 1995 I started setting up a dialup ISP. By Early 1997 I was grossing $16k a month. It was going well.
But, the area where my business was located was 50 miles form home. Normally not a big deal. However, it was also located in the snow belt of the northeast. In the winter of 1996, we had a snow storm where we got 4 feet of snow in one day. My son was 18 months old and I remember driving home in bumper deep snow for 50 miles and thinking this was crazy. My wife and I had a long discussion about the business, and we decided to sell it and move south to north Carolina.
By February, 1997 we were in north Carolina. We had sold the ISP and were looking to start a fresh new life. Over the next 14 years, I worked many tech jobs, got my degree and also owned several businesses. Three were tech businesses and one restaurant. I had also been selling on ebay part time. I sold anything that I thought would make money. From industrial equipment to dollhouse miniatures and lingerie, I sold it all. I now had two sons, and the oldest was a couple years from graduating. He hated the heat (so did we) and we knew that after he graduated he would be heading north. We decided to move north, back to PA.
Shortly after we moved, my son began dating a girl whose parents sold full time on ebay. I had never met anyone who sold full time, so I was quite intrigued. We finally met the parents, and we hit it off pretty good. We used to go on thrifting trips together on the weekends. This was the point that I realized the trick to ebay was volume. You had to list a lot to get a lot of sales. I spent the next year really honing my ebay skills. I studied successful sellers, and took bits and pieces of information from each of them to develop my strategy.
I still work a full time job, but ebay has given me the ability to not be dependent on my job. Last September my company was bought out. I learned that I would be losing my job at some point in the future. I ramped up my inventory so I could get as much cash banked as I could prior to losing my job. This will be my operating capital. I will transition into a full time seller once my pink slip is delivered.
So don't feel sorry for my life growing up. It has helped mold me into the person I am today. There were so many times I should have either died or been in prison. I guess I just got lucky, or I just figured things out in time to correct the path I was on. Either way I was able to pull myself up and move on. People now days want to fall back on some past injustice to justify not being successful. I'm here as proof that you can rise above everything and achieve success. You just have to want it bad enough.
So, what's holding you back from being successful? Is it fear you will fail? I have failed more than I have succeeded. But I never let failure stop me. I am in control of my destiny. I will succeed, and each success is always better than the last. I do not fear the unknown. I dive in and go for it. I came into this world with nothing, and I lived most of my life with nothing. To go out with nothing would be to leave as I entered.
Life is not about who has the most toys. Life is about fulfillment. Life is about experiences. Life is about making the most of every day and celebrating everything we have, no matter how small we may think it is. Enjoy life and celebrate. You only get one, so make sure it is a good one!
I grew up in a family of 5 kids. My parents divorced when I was about 4 years old. I don't have many young memories of my dad. I was probably 7 or 8 when I really remember him. The relationship between him and my mom were strained at best. I was lucky if I got to see him an hour a week. There were times I would go a month or more without seeing him. When I was 8, my mom remarried. At first we thought this was great. We would have a dad around. But that was short lived. He ended up being a little abusive.
Moving forward, we were not well off my any means. In fact, we were fairly poor. Most of my youth I got new clothes once a year, and that was a couple pairs of pants and a few shirts. Most everything else was given to us by members of the church. It wasn't until I was a teenager that I was finally able to buy new clothes. We knew we were poor, but we made the best of it. I remember one winter when we got a blizzard. We were stuck in the house and all we had to eat was tea and crackers. That is about the only time I really remember being hungry.
I also grew up with a mother who was raised in a very religious home. As a consequence, we were in a very strict environment. Rock music was the devil's music, as was dancing. I remember not being allowed to attend an assembly at school because it was a magician, and that was evil. Being raised in that environment but also being a part of normal public interactions, it created the perfect rebellious environment for me. I longed to be a normal kid and be able to do the things other kids got to do. Of course this brought down the wrath of my step-father. By the time I was 17 I had had enough.
In January of 1981, I dropped out of school and enlisted in the US Navy. I spent 3 years on a destroyer. It was ok, but being newly released from my religious prison, I pretty much indulged in everything that was available to me. How I stayed out of trouble is beyond me. But I finished my enlistment and was honorably discharged in 1984. What a time that was to be without a job! There was no work, and because of what I had worked with in the Navy, I could not find a job. I was overqualified for most anything out there, including McDonald's!
I spent the next 7 years floating from one job to the next. But sprinkled in there were spurts of businesses I tried to start. I tried silk screening t-shirts. I tried flea market selling. I even tried selling vacuum cleaners door to door. I found myself homeless on more than one occasion. But I always knew that I was going to find my way. I knew there had to be more to life than this. I settled on doing HVAC work. It was something that came naturally to me and I could see the possibilities of business ownership in this field.
By the time I was 28, I was ready to settle down. I met my wife and 7 months later we were married. We moved back to her hometown where I started my HVAC business. 3 years later we were the second largest HVAC contractor in the area. I was grossing $500k a year. Life was good. My wife convinced me to get my GED, which I did. I was a respected business leader in the community, even getting elected as the president of our downtown business association. But in the back of my mind I knew that I did not want to be installing HVAC equipment when I was 50.
Things changed in 1995. I saw my first PC. I was fascinated with it. Then one day my business manager brought his computer from home in and was getting online. I had no idea what that meant, and he showed me the future. The Internet! I was hooked! I set out to start my own internet company. In late 1995 I started setting up a dialup ISP. By Early 1997 I was grossing $16k a month. It was going well.
But, the area where my business was located was 50 miles form home. Normally not a big deal. However, it was also located in the snow belt of the northeast. In the winter of 1996, we had a snow storm where we got 4 feet of snow in one day. My son was 18 months old and I remember driving home in bumper deep snow for 50 miles and thinking this was crazy. My wife and I had a long discussion about the business, and we decided to sell it and move south to north Carolina.
By February, 1997 we were in north Carolina. We had sold the ISP and were looking to start a fresh new life. Over the next 14 years, I worked many tech jobs, got my degree and also owned several businesses. Three were tech businesses and one restaurant. I had also been selling on ebay part time. I sold anything that I thought would make money. From industrial equipment to dollhouse miniatures and lingerie, I sold it all. I now had two sons, and the oldest was a couple years from graduating. He hated the heat (so did we) and we knew that after he graduated he would be heading north. We decided to move north, back to PA.
Shortly after we moved, my son began dating a girl whose parents sold full time on ebay. I had never met anyone who sold full time, so I was quite intrigued. We finally met the parents, and we hit it off pretty good. We used to go on thrifting trips together on the weekends. This was the point that I realized the trick to ebay was volume. You had to list a lot to get a lot of sales. I spent the next year really honing my ebay skills. I studied successful sellers, and took bits and pieces of information from each of them to develop my strategy.
I still work a full time job, but ebay has given me the ability to not be dependent on my job. Last September my company was bought out. I learned that I would be losing my job at some point in the future. I ramped up my inventory so I could get as much cash banked as I could prior to losing my job. This will be my operating capital. I will transition into a full time seller once my pink slip is delivered.
So don't feel sorry for my life growing up. It has helped mold me into the person I am today. There were so many times I should have either died or been in prison. I guess I just got lucky, or I just figured things out in time to correct the path I was on. Either way I was able to pull myself up and move on. People now days want to fall back on some past injustice to justify not being successful. I'm here as proof that you can rise above everything and achieve success. You just have to want it bad enough.
So, what's holding you back from being successful? Is it fear you will fail? I have failed more than I have succeeded. But I never let failure stop me. I am in control of my destiny. I will succeed, and each success is always better than the last. I do not fear the unknown. I dive in and go for it. I came into this world with nothing, and I lived most of my life with nothing. To go out with nothing would be to leave as I entered.
Life is not about who has the most toys. Life is about fulfillment. Life is about experiences. Life is about making the most of every day and celebrating everything we have, no matter how small we may think it is. Enjoy life and celebrate. You only get one, so make sure it is a good one!
Growing up!
When I decided to start my blog, I did it with the intention of helping people learn the ropes of selling on ebay without all the hype and fluff that is normally associated with this type of thing. So far it has been what I envisioned it to be. But as with anything worth doing, the time has come to grow this into other venues. Social media pretty much dictates that I do this.
So, as a result I have started a companion Facebook group. Here is the link to it:
Ebay Unleashed
I decided to do this because I have had quite a few people ask me if I had a group or not so they could follow me. I have a personal facebook page, but I rarely post anything ebay related on it. My hope is to have readers join the group so they can not only ask me questions, but to also share information and help one another. I want to control the growth. I do not want to be spending all of my time supporting this, but at the same time I feel I need to give back to the community that helped me when I was starting out.
Who knows what will be next. Maybe a podcast, maybe youtube videos. I'm not committing to anything, but I am also not ruling anything out. A lot depends on time constraints and whether it would interfere with my selling. The good thing about starting the group is I can make announcements about anything new and be able to reach everyone in one place.
I hope you join and enjoy the group.
So, as a result I have started a companion Facebook group. Here is the link to it:
Ebay Unleashed
I decided to do this because I have had quite a few people ask me if I had a group or not so they could follow me. I have a personal facebook page, but I rarely post anything ebay related on it. My hope is to have readers join the group so they can not only ask me questions, but to also share information and help one another. I want to control the growth. I do not want to be spending all of my time supporting this, but at the same time I feel I need to give back to the community that helped me when I was starting out.
Who knows what will be next. Maybe a podcast, maybe youtube videos. I'm not committing to anything, but I am also not ruling anything out. A lot depends on time constraints and whether it would interfere with my selling. The good thing about starting the group is I can make announcements about anything new and be able to reach everyone in one place.
I hope you join and enjoy the group.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Bells, whistles, shiny and new!
If you have been on ebay as long as I have, then you have seen just about every type of listing known to man. You probably also remember using Auctiva or any number of template hosting sites during that time. Colored text in the description area, all sorts of disclaimers and pretty much anything else you can think of. I still see people using templates and decided to try an experiment back in January.
I created a sweet template. I designed it based on a huge seller to try and replicate as close as I could what they were doing without copying exactly. I figured the shiny, colorful and professional template they used had to be a factor in their large amount of sales. I was determined to get that polished, professional look for my store. I launched my new template on January 1, 2014. I was so jazzed about getting that polished look I had spent 2 weeks developing. I felt like a proud poppa watching his child take their first steps.
I sat back and waited for the inevitable sales increase to happen. After all, my store was slick, pretty and very professional looking. Who wouldn't feel confident buying form someone who projected that kind of image? Well, apparently not many. My sales did not increase. I gave it two months just to be sure. Finally I gave up and beginning in March, I started listing with just a basic listing. I did my normal pictures and titles. However, my description went to as basic as I could get it. Title and measurements. That's it. No colors, standard font, no fancy formatting, no description, just the facts. Wow! What a difference!
March ended up being a record month for me. Since then I have steadily been editing my listings and removing the fancy template, converting them all to the plain one. My sales have come down, but are still higher than they were when I started the experiment. My decision to go plain was based on some articles I had read about Cassini. Cassini doesn't like a lot of HTML code in listings. Simple, left justified text. I think the reason for this was they were trying to target more mobile users, and this is the best way to show the items to those users.
I don't know if it was a fluke or what, but the results don't lie. Prior to this change, I averaged about $4,000 per month in sales. Since making the switch, I average $6,000 a month in sales. Other than steadily adding inventory (which I have always done), this has been the only change I have made to how I do business. Will it work for you? I don't know. If there is one thing I do know about ebay, it's that nothing seems to be a standard.
As I've said before, trial and error. Don't be afraid to try something new. You never know which change you make will be the one that triggers your flurry of sales.
I created a sweet template. I designed it based on a huge seller to try and replicate as close as I could what they were doing without copying exactly. I figured the shiny, colorful and professional template they used had to be a factor in their large amount of sales. I was determined to get that polished, professional look for my store. I launched my new template on January 1, 2014. I was so jazzed about getting that polished look I had spent 2 weeks developing. I felt like a proud poppa watching his child take their first steps.
I sat back and waited for the inevitable sales increase to happen. After all, my store was slick, pretty and very professional looking. Who wouldn't feel confident buying form someone who projected that kind of image? Well, apparently not many. My sales did not increase. I gave it two months just to be sure. Finally I gave up and beginning in March, I started listing with just a basic listing. I did my normal pictures and titles. However, my description went to as basic as I could get it. Title and measurements. That's it. No colors, standard font, no fancy formatting, no description, just the facts. Wow! What a difference!
March ended up being a record month for me. Since then I have steadily been editing my listings and removing the fancy template, converting them all to the plain one. My sales have come down, but are still higher than they were when I started the experiment. My decision to go plain was based on some articles I had read about Cassini. Cassini doesn't like a lot of HTML code in listings. Simple, left justified text. I think the reason for this was they were trying to target more mobile users, and this is the best way to show the items to those users.
I don't know if it was a fluke or what, but the results don't lie. Prior to this change, I averaged about $4,000 per month in sales. Since making the switch, I average $6,000 a month in sales. Other than steadily adding inventory (which I have always done), this has been the only change I have made to how I do business. Will it work for you? I don't know. If there is one thing I do know about ebay, it's that nothing seems to be a standard.
As I've said before, trial and error. Don't be afraid to try something new. You never know which change you make will be the one that triggers your flurry of sales.
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