Share your tips for increasing sales

[vintagechinashop]

Good afternoon to you all 

it's very easy to get bogged down with negativity. I for one have in recent times been quite negative, but this morning I had a sale and yesterday I had 3 so I've decided to try and be positive in these uncertain times 

so I thought it would be a good idea to start a positive post 

would anyone like to share your tips for increasing sales. Something that has worked for you maybe or something you are trying to see if it has results 

I know there's no magic wand to be waved but let's see if we can try to improve our sales by sharing the love 

my first tip is to use sell similar on ended listings and to change just one thing. I think in the past I have been very complacent and just need to up my game a bit. I've been taking fresh photos of ended items to refresh the listing 

over to you 

[fatbobfan]

Ready cash flow is interesting one and finding/attracting/keeping the cash rich is certainly going to help any seller. 

We live in the world of 'The Haves' 'The Have Nots' and the 'Somewhere Inbetweens' guessing most flit up and down in there somewhere but when times are hard as we are currently being told, it depends on the individuals purchasing style and what is and is not important to the individual and the items necessity. 

Understanding your marketplace,  your debate earlier in this thread was interesting as it highlighted 'price' for both parties. One arguement was price point and yours was preference/favourtism, neither are wrong, you both understand your customers. I would buy from both, love a bargain if I am after something I need and its a good price, ticks my boxes, but if I come across my favourite and preferred tartan UGGs I would pay you top price and not quibble. 

Soo comfy and soo stylish....!

We are trying to cater for all with New and only quality preloved, (Quality and Price options) covering the bases so to speak, but thinking with the squeeze and the majority of our potential customers being not spare cash rich, price competitive is very important. 

Ebay and other market places are now pushing preloved so joe public are also actively involved making it harder, We often used to 'out sell' our competitors on quality and listing quality but not so much now especially the last 12 months, hard lesson learnt, we did not pay attention to our competitors, not the right price for the market, we paid the price but are hoping weve addressed the issue. 

Grey pound youve mentioned, Pink pound another, economists recognise these markets, guessing there are many others, I attended a hobby exhibition event this year and watched in awe as massive car parks filled, trains emptied and queues form at the tills watching three figure leisure transactions and wads exchange hands I couldnt beleive it. Sat there, people watching proper eye opener, definitely plenty of cash around  

There will always be 'The Haves', and they do have it and are happy to pay for it. 

[fatbobfan]

Can I ask what promotion @simplyessential_uk 

And  if PL standard (and a question to all) what does your PL standard rate look like compared to 'Ebays Suggested Rate'

[simplyessential_uk]

I pay 2% Standard promos and they suggest 12%+ for my listings.

I have experimented with increased prices and increasd promos but makes no difference 

I tried Dynamic last week on a few listings and think I gained an extra 200 impressions in a few days but no clicks, but it was setting me at 12% (which is virtually no profit) but i wanted to test it out.

I do use Multi buys promos 10% off with 2 or more items etc and created some listings (of same items but using different title/keyword order) with buy 3 and get 1 free etc and price them higher after a few sales - That gets me more to be honest 

If you get a sale on an item then it has a higher chance of selling again so Id rather put the starting price lower, get a sale then put it back up, its then got a listing history and higher up the rankings organically.

[elianajvintage]

I often don't buy the cheapest as I prefer to buy from sellers with good feedback and preferably  business sellers.

[fatbobfan]

PL standard for a few years and every time I increased so did my suggested add rate 3 went to 5, then 5 went to 9 and now 12/13.  Was just being nosey as to what others opinion was.

Ive been bringing it down (slowly) looking at each indiviual listing, its competition and sales history, which you kindly suggested in another post, thank you. When weve dramatically reduced across all inventory in the past we went off the cliff so setting it as a daily chore and so far seems OK, our impression/click rate is better than we thought it be but the that might be time of year and the hard work weve been putting in 'tinkering'  

We have a different listing trick to yours, We pair the same item, so sell 2 of the same thing, an example of what I do on an item from your account, So your  £13.99 for one item becomes 

Shaving oil for men and women TWO 250ml SKIN SOOTHING razor rash cleansing Calming

with My Made up Price £26.50 (passing the postage saving to the customer) 

We use a higher PL rate as logic says searches by P&P lowest will never find it but this is compensated by the P&P saving. 

Good points

Does get business and Multibuy business, (genuinely just had one pop in) 

Any customer who comes across may email for one if only one needed or check shop/other listings

Increased visibility in a saturated market

For us, uses up shop listing allowance

P&P savings - Can be used for Margin/Price point/Increased PL rate

Bad point

Ebays duplicate listiing algorythym, or thats what I call it, took us a while to figure out why no views or why it wasnt coming up in searches no views may be the price issue but sometimes it came up in the similar items at the bottom of the page but put it down to the algorythm. Do your own research but we find using the word TWO in the listing title and tinkering with titles (fingers crossed) seems to have worked and make the photo's very different to the singular item. Again own research on visibility, were still tinkering (but getting business) 

Our logic being if your offering Multibuy and its a saturated market whats to loose bar a little time, we set it up with all new lines at the beginning so its not alot of extra work and again multibuy on this is also getting business.  

[bojangled]

Morning all

Thank you @vintagechinashop  for starting this thread.

I'd like to know what sort of success others have had with the Social Marketing tool? I'm probably late to the party on this as I'm not a fan of SM on a personal level, find it far too toxic. However I do like Pinterest, and having linked my eBay account last week, I'm seeing some positive movement in external site views. 

I certainly like Pinterest analytics. 

And I'm finding it easy to share and post, my boards are all a little rudimentary and rough around the edges while I tweak things. 

Just thought I'd see what others have learned, had success with or what to avoid.

Jo 

[sheba-knows-best]

---

@bojangled wrote:

Morning all

Thank you @vintagechinashop  for starting this thread.

I'd like to know what sort of success others have had with the Social Marketing tool? I'm probably late to the party on this as I'm not a fan of SM on a personal level, find it far too toxic. 

I certainly like Pinterest analytics. 

Just thought I'd see what others have learned, had success with or what to avoid.

Jo 

---

Hi Jo

Yes - I find SM toxic too. But my daughter (teenage quirky fashion addict) has just closed her instagram account (toxic) and started liking Pinterest, so I was considering getting help. I'm an SM baby. So when you link your ebay account - does that just mean your ebay photos show on Pinterest with your shop name or??? Can you walk me through the baby steps...

Be interested to hear thoughts from others too.

[sheba-knows-best]

---

@elianajvintage wrote:

I often don't buy the cheapest as I prefer to buy from sellers with good feedback and preferably  business sellers.

---

I think it is clothes buying people like you keeping my business alive - thank you!

[sheba-knows-best]

---

@simplyessential_uk wrote:

I pay 2% Standard promos and they suggest 12%+ for my listings.

I have experimented with increased prices and increasd promos but makes no difference 

I tried Dynamic last week on a few listings and think I gained an extra 200 impressions in a few days but no clicks, but it was setting me at 12% (which is virtually no profit) but i wanted to test it out.

---

I think must be one of the major differences in our businesses. It is hard for me to generate those sales as all of mine are one-offs. I think I already said on this thread (although maybe elsewhere) I had a heart stopping moment week 36-37 this year (so about start of September) where my sales just didn't pick up. I was already on dynamic PL of about 7.5%. I lost 2k in 2 weeks (y-o-y) so was down at 76k. Then I threw everything at it - including dynamic PL with no cap. Had recovered and back to 80k in under 2 weeks. To me this is evidence I have to use dynamic PL - although I am gradually shifting more stock to a much much lower level. To be honest, ebay's encroachment on my profits is a concern.

I wonder if I need to follow up more with Bojangles idea of social media to get free interest in my listings (and maybe straight to my listing so no PL). Also as we have discussed before - maybe I do need to invest time in my own non-ebay shop.

[bojangled]

@sheba-knows-best 

I'm not the most articulate in giving instructions, but here's how I sort of discovered the process. 

Created a business account on Pinterest, linked account.
Created an empty board with a title on Pinterest.

On eBay active listings, selected the drop down on Actions 'edit' menu on one listing select 'share listing'. 

Get this pop up :

Select Pinterest and save to your desired board.

Just investigating posts for promotions via the marketing tool, with rather good AI descriptions, and that's not something I thought I would say.

It does seem rather easy, but I think I have a lot to learn. 

A YT tutorial might be in order for me. 

Anyone with experience feel free to correct me.

Jo

[goingfishinguk]

I think the 'social media' advertising if you can call it that then you can do it yourself.  I've posted a few times through eBay and all (it seems) to do is place a link to your shop on your social media page be it Facebook, X etc.

As far as I can see and I could be wrong, a link you post yourself to your shop on Facebook or X etc is exactly the same as eBay doing it for you.

[bojangled]

@goingfishinguk 

I appreciate I could probably do it myself, as I'm a complete non player on the likes of X, FB and Instagram, (all deleted my from my life) even Reddit scared me, having the tools within eBay to play on the safer space that is Pinterest, I'll give it a go. Nothing to lose!

I posted one promotional link this morning and have had 13 clicks to it, not earth shattering yet but interesting to see how that translates in sales as paydays drop in this week. 

Jo

[fatbobfan]

Never had a facebook account, use 'X' as a tool for hobby information and thats it, they appear as time consuming, creators of misery, toxic been used a few times in these posts.

But do kindly ask for your updates

Perhaps the grumpy old person needs to step out of his comfort zone

[goingfishinguk]

---

@bojangled wrote:

I appreciate I could probably do it myself, as I'm a complete non player on the likes of X, FB and Instagram, (all deleted my from my life) even Reddit scared me, having the tools within eBay to play on the safer space that is Pinterest, I'll give it a go. Nothing to lose!

---

I *think* you already have to have a FB account etc for it to work as all it did with mine was post my shop link to my FB page, like I said something I could have easily done myself...  might work differently for others.

[simplyessential_uk]

I had this conversation on my website suppliers forum and it was a unanamous response of SM is not getting any traction as it used to and more useful as a page/tool for people to contact you on (not that anyone contacts me via them).  I went looking for info on changes and on FB they have restricted "groups" views which was what I had opened as normal FB wasnt getting any traction so think they cottoned on to that and closed it down too so think the info I read said if you had 10k followers only 1% will see your posts so whats the point so much effort for little rewad unless of course you pay ads
Personally Im sick to death of ads and companies on my feed but sometimes they catch my attention, depends on targt audience I suppose

[ojewellery]

One of the things that's concerned me with social media posting from my eBay listings, particularly to Pinterest, is that the link will break when a listing is ended and sell similar used.

I post promotions to Pinterest and I would consider it for long standing listings.  I've done a little from time to time. 

I link from my website to Pinterest and get a little traffic but think plain background just product shots aren't really what gets pinned.  A collective post showing vintage jeans paired with a lovely jacket, seasonal shirt and winter boots (all with product links to listings) is more likely to generate interest.

I'm not knocking trying, if you've got the time.

If you do create your own posts, then eBay have an affiliate programme you can sign up to which could help with balancing some of the eBay profit encroachment.  You can even earn from linking to others products if styalising a piece of two from your own collection.

Maybe we could do some collaboration posts from those on this thread...Vintage outfit, contemporary jewellery, natural ambiance essential oil fragrancing, elegant setting accented by vintage china pieces.    

https://partnernetwork.ebay.com/

[bricklanebargains]

After a bad summer in terms of sales, I finally reached last year`s figures starting from early October and will hopefully pass last November if the current trend continues till the end of the month. In my case, it wasn`t about end listing/sell similar or playing with promoted listings, tweaking titles, etc. (I still think they don`t have a huge impact on sales). It was doing research and trying new things. There were a few lines/brands which I already knew were selling well on other platforms after checking out those trendy kids` listings but I didn`t think they would do well on Ebay. Apparently they do. There are a few other lines which worked well for me in the past but I had given up on those as they take up too much storage space. Apparently I was wrong and luckily some of my suppliers have them in stock and they are doing great at the moment, mostly purchased by North Americans which is an added bonus for VAT purposes (applies to VAT registered businesses only). So my advice would be mainly to try new things and not to hold on to stock that doesn`t sell fast. Everyting sells eventually but it`s always good to bear in my mind one of the basic concepts of economics called "opportunity cost of capital".                

[fatbobfan]

Think 'depends on the target' is the key

I live quite a soilitary life in a small town, I go away to the smoke so to speak and it then becomes very apparent people genuinely live their life through their phones, bewilders me, but this is the real world and the future.

SM really is a thing

[sheba-knows-best]

---

@fatbobfan wrote:

I live quite a soilitary life in a small town, I go away to the smoke so to speak and it then becomes very apparent people genuinely live their life through their phones, bewilders me, but this is the real world and the future.

---

That made me laugh. Seriously I could have written those words. I live in the peak district but holiday in London and I agree - I add up the heads in phones on public transport and it is incredible. Having said that, paperback books do often hold up their end, and I presume some people are also reading (news or books) on their phones. So I think the real loss is people talking to eachother/strangers. I think this is why we are living in an increasingly divided society - everyone constantly re-enforces their own views on their chosen devices (be they books or phones or friends 🙂    ) and opposing views rarely get put forward and defended by strangers. 

I'm going off thread, I know... I agree SM is going to be mega important. Why else would ebay be trying to get us to do some of the work for them...

[sheba-knows-best]

---

@bricklanebargains wrote:

After a bad summer in terms of sales, I finally reached last year`s figures starting from early October and will hopefully pass last November if the current trend continues till the end of the month. In my case, it wasn`t about end listing/sell similar or playing with promoted listings, tweaking titles, etc. (I still think they don`t have a huge impact on sales). It was doing research and trying new things. There were a few lines/brands which I already knew were selling well on other platforms after checking out those trendy kids` listings but I didn`t think they would do well on Ebay. Apparently they do. There are a few other lines which worked well for me in the past but I had given up on those as they take up too much storage space. Apparently I was wrong and luckily some of my suppliers have them in stock and they are doing great at the moment, mostly purchased by North Americans which is an added bonus for VAT purposes (applies to VAT registered businesses only). So my advice would be mainly to try new things and not to hold on to stock that doesn`t sell fast. Everyting sells eventually but it`s always good to bear in my mind one of the basic concepts of economics called "opportunity cost of capital".                

---

Hmmm - this gave me food for thought. Like most people I am sick of sell-similaring. I do think it works. But I agree just having the right stock works better than anything.  I constantly restructure and move my 'offering' in different ways.  When other people come on these boards and say 'last year I was selling fine but now.... so it must be ebay'. I usually think, yup, there's your problem, right there. I guess that's particularly true in terms of stock in our category, but I suspect it is also true of pricing in other categories. I always think if you are making a healthy profit on ebay, it wont last, because people will copy you and undercut. (So one off items are less likely to be undercut because they are difficult to source)