Seasonal selling, saving for next season

Hello, can anyone advise me please?

I'm a private basic seller who can not justify the cost of an eBay shop.

Selling seasonal items, Easter, Halloween, Christmas items etc, there is a lot of time invested in taking photos, writing descriptions and listing. When items don't sell and you are out of season, you need to take those listings down.

How can I save these listings with the photos so I have them available to resist come the next season?

I have tried saving as templates before but when I come to relist the photos are not available.

is there any solution without having to subscribe to a 3rd party product/service does anybody know?

appreciate any advice

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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

In answer to the question you asked, you can leave them in ended listings for 3 months, them move them to drafts for 3 months by just opening and saving. That takes you to June for xmas stuff. I noticed the shops had easter eggs in the seasonal section TODAY so listing xmas stuff in July does not seem too early. 

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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

Unfortunately whatever way you look at it, by law YOU are a Business seller. 

 

Private accounts are for those who are having a clearout of unwanted possessions. Business accounts are for people who are selling things they have purchased to make profit from. 

 

You are not only breaching eBay's terms but you are breaking the law by depriving buyers of their rights to return purchases from you for any reason. By law under the distance selling regulations, any business seller (someone selling for profit) must show full contact details including address before a purchase is made. The only way to do that on eBay is with a business account. 

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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

Business sellers don't need to have a shop, you can just pay for your listings singly.  Private sellers are those selling off items they no longer want, so they tend to just list them year round as the idea is to get rid.
I'm not too sure how business sellers would deal with seasonal - maybe even some of those leave them on all year round.

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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

I'm interested to know why you believe you are a private seller?

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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

In answer to the question you asked, you can leave them in ended listings for 3 months, them move them to drafts for 3 months by just opening and saving. That takes you to June for xmas stuff. I noticed the shops had easter eggs in the seasonal section TODAY so listing xmas stuff in July does not seem too early. 

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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

Same, & in the past my much detailed listings all "vanished" & all photos gone.  I only save one photo per item once listed as room on the broom is limited 🧹So I move them back & forth to relist & start the 3 months over again. 

It might be a good idea to suggest feedback to ebay to request a "store cupboard"  or archive. 

Many of my listings seem to have vanished over the years too because I have items that were listed, yet not sold hanging about and of course i will need to relist the full item (research/photos etc) but i never ended the listings.

 

Now I keep ending my listings and relisting the whole lot every month or so!

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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

Any craft items could be listed from July, as that's when leading craft companies start their major promotions (one leader calls their sales push "Christmas in July"). For instance, your rolls of ribbon (for decorating cards, such as ribbon-threading, or decorating card/gift presentation boxes - boxes that a crafter's probably made themselves), and yes maybe even the napkins as some crafters like to apply certain techniques to them to turn them into card toppers (see YouTube tutorials for how to do it).

 

It's like an arms race, with the major craft companies trying to get ahead of their competition, so that you start seeing items in shops, including eBay shops, in late June!

 

I don't sell on eBay, I only buy, but I believe that when you list you can assign your items to categories. The crafting section is a large category.

 

Some crafters buy a lot of stuff in late December and in January, ready for the next Christmas; some even start making Christmas cards (and decorations etc) in January, though usually people will start in August or Sept.

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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

I find with seasonal it is easier to leave it on all year round.

 

You will find buyers are buying seasonal items all year round. Christmas especially has sales every month, maybe not in big numbers right now but still a few sales.

 

It is not worth the hassle of resisting all seasonal items at the start of each season 

 

 

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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

Good point.

 

Last month I bought a Christmas item in the craft section. I didn't want it for anything Christmas-y.

 

For instance, small Christmas LEDs can be used to make a luminary greeting card for any time of year. Some crafters pride themselves on re-purposing things.

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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

🎄 🎅
I guess i do not have many,
some Xmas jumpers and a few Halloween🧛‍♂️🕸🎃 items from my attic,
& I guess in truth I was just fed up with seeing them month in month out 😂
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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

I certainly will try to sell a Christmas Jumper if I can, such as a kids red jumper with Penguin's on it. I removed "Christmas" from said listing and focussed on the Unicorn 🦄and pink Flamingo as a selling point..
well even the jumper was confused, Xmas trees with palm trees 🌴🎄
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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

I hope it sells quickly. People love a flamingo. It's amazing how many flamingo-themed items a certain other selling platform has. I'm looking at my plush flamingo (complete with legs!) as I write...

 

 

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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

Well private sellers don't have " seasonal stock."  If you want to become a business seller then good luck.  Also, if you wish to persist as a private seller, beware of HMRC!  

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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
I've done my tax returns thank you, I didn't even use the £1,000 trading allowance... Since I used simplified expenses. 
As for seasonal stock, yes we do... Such assumptions... My daughters old Halloween costimes we made, my vintage nativity... Don't won't your advice anyway as plenty of lovely people on here giving there's. 
Have a nice Day! 

Sent from my Huawei phone
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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

Thank you, keeping with flamingo theme🦩: i had such a lovely message from a buyer who bought a pink flamingo purse bag for her flower girl, "Thank you so much, the flamingo has landed.
I have given you 5* would have given you a 6 !"  🦩

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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

Oh, that's most kind of you to say so!

 

"The flamingo has landed" - love it 🙂

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Seasonal selling, saving for next season

I worked out why i was getting these messages 'above' in my private emails inbox & have now stopped them,   "Success! Email subscription deleted."     I'm a 🦖

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