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 

[simplyessential_uk]

Its finding that right "goldilocks" price point.  Some ppl love cheap, some get suspicious if somethings too cheap, some find a middle bracket price or search for the specific item and will pay whatever is asked as they really want that item as they cant find it anywhere else. 

I have listed 100ml massage oils for £7.99 then I have grouped similar blends as a variation with a buy 3 get 1 free promo but put it at £8.75 so it baffles me when someone buys 1 of the £8.75 when its also listed at £7.99.  Ive also tried higher price with higher promo and it gets 0 views so its trying to find the right price.  It maybe worth testing that £200 item at £180 and slowly drop the %promo by 1% and how it effects impressions. We never know whether that eventual sale would have come from someone who searched specifically for that item or just someone browsing.  Imo i think 1% (or .5%) may not even equate to a position down the rankings but 1% of £200 is £2, not alot but it adds up over lots of items for months.  Try searching for an item change the promo % then search again next day, does it move ranking? 

[sheba-knows-best]

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@simplyessential_uk wrote:

  Try searching for an item change the promo % then search again next day, does it move ranking? 

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Oh Gosh we're in such different businesses...

Search my items and the 'broken search' brings up 100,000s each time depending on how specific you are and what you search and people will change the search terms, and the order, on a whim of course. What I need are the pop ups at eth side - and at the bottom - and just before people pay...

I just cant be this specific as so many things will change the order. Sometimes I am in top 3, sometimes you cant find me and i havent changed anything!

[sheba-knows-best]

Just to add... 

That must be why I focus so heavily on the numbers. i have to measure sales on a day basis to know whether I need to change anything or not because search doesnt equip me with enough evidence.

[ojewellery]

@sheba-knows-best  In the early summer I found I was working flat out and had a bit of a what am I going to do about Christmas peek moment.  I sat down and took a hard look at my business, thought about the different directions it could take.  I  had a major life change a year ago.  One of those complete life pivot things that has ment my future now has potential to be very different to what I had accepted it would be.

I did two things that have really helped my business, I watched the eBay webinars back in late spring/ early summer and sat down actually typed up a just for me business plan, thinking about what I'd like from my business and realised I actually want to grow.  Having realised I have more ambition than I'd allowed myself to dream about, I joined Catherine Eardlys resilient retail club (I heard her talk at the NEC back earlier in the year and I like her approach).  

As a big part of my business plan and going through some of the at your own pace workshops in the club, I've benchmarked my business against 6 competitors some on platforms a couple more accessible end high street.

My prices for the quality of jewellery I'm producing are very fair, low end against most of my benchmarked competition.  I'm getting great feedback (higher than average feedback left I believe on Etsy and eBay) on quality/ price/ packaging/ customer service.  My sales haven't been drastically affected by reviewing my prices - my profits have.  Possibly my sales cross platform are slightly up.  Its hard to know exactly because I have a larger range than last year.

Only one company I benchmark against has a presence on eBay.  That presence is now more of a clearance outlet.  That may be the way my brand goes, but I have a lot of loyalty to eBay and I'm not ready to walk by some way. 

I don't wish to pit my prices against mass produced items that use bits of glass listed as precious/ semi precious stones.  I have my own personal ethos and my own brand gemstone items are designed by me. produced in low volume and unique to Ojewellery.  They have natural traceable gemstones, my packaging is lovely (I love my packaging but almost all my feedback across platforms comments on it so I don't think this is an arrogant statement), my postage is fast and tracked - typically 90% next day to UK, my customer service is on point always within 24 hours generally much faster.  Thats not what you're getting when you buy by searching lowest price first.

I do invest a lot of time in listing templates, thorough descriptions 12 varied photos showing dimensions, items being worn, in packaging etc and videos for just about all items now.  This certainly helps on some platforms, not sure eBay give much, if any advantage, to thorough listing at present, the algorithm seams to prefference stack it high, fast turnover stuff, regardless of product feedback and how quickly the seller rating is dropping.  But its how I want to present the brand so its important to me.

I know I have a long way to go and a lot to learn but I'm very proud of Ojewellery and the shape its taking.   Its going to be an interesting journey and I'm generally enjoying it - the mental stimulation is important for me too.

[sheba-knows-best]

@ojewellery

Thanks. I'm in awe. Good for you.

[fatbobfan]

Bulk refresh was a tip from CS agent many years ago and have still heard it many years later, they never really explained it technically but implied if there was some sort of issue(that there never is), you are refreshing your listings in thre algorythm. Click all listings/edit/ (dont change anything) submit

In the past Ive had a CS agent who acknowledges theres an issue and if I raised it they would say it cant really hurt. Sort of get it going back a few years but ago but with the new end/sell similar I dont really know, did try it more than once in the summer out of desperation when my sales fell of the cliff with no success.

Cant see it being a bad thing,  

[fatbobfan]

I stand by post 94 its difficult to get the balance right. An outsider looking in your ROAS could be well be bang on, its a very competitive market, not surprising

The one thing this thread made me do is look at what I was promoting against and was the spend actually needed

Good luck and tweak slowly

[fatbobfan]

You've posted similar in other threads,

Just to say it probably been the best advice I've taken this year.

[messier44000]

Something I tried a while back with a little success was a combination of 2 things.

Doing a few brand new listings.  Raising PL with a few experimental products 

to 9% . As soon as they sold, dropped PL to 2.2% and they continued to sell.

No where near what my website does , but gave things a kick start.

Oh and yes, here I go again for those who see me rabbit on about you-tube product demos

for increasing my visability.

Guy walks into one of my public open days at the weekend. 

"Been looking at your you-tube videos" . He then went on to spend £279 on a product he had

seen me demo.

Just about to pack a £149 order from the website this morning. Looking at my referrers on the tracking 

stats. 100% you-tube. So without the buyer saying anything I am guessing they linked 

from YT.  

[goingfishinguk]

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@fatbobfan wrote:

Click all listings/edit/ (dont change anything) submit

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Does this actually alter your stock levels as I've tried this before and all of a sudden I've loads more stock of items I'd sold well in the previous month or so?  For example if I'd sold 10 of a certain item when I did the above action eBay would suddenly add 40 or 50 to the stock levels which meant I had to manually go through all the listings and revert the stock back to the correct level.  This was bad when eBay was selling my items I had no stock for so had to refund/cancel etc.

So yes willing to give that a try on the assumption it does not alter stock levels to what eBay thinks they should be.

[oceanartsnorthdevon]

I also read somewhere, though this was a while ago, it was recommended you submit listings for an update  from those emails you get from Ebay every now and then where they advise updating a few picked out items from your inventory for whatever reason, maybe adding free p&p, tracked delivery on orders over a certain amount, posting times etc etc with the the aims of being a top rated seller or something like that (it looks like the bulk editing when you are about to submit for update, but it is all ready to go when you open email for the selected items advisory). The advice was to sumit updates for these selected listings for varying recommendations even if you do not want to make any of their suggested changes which apparently works on the same principle as bulk editing your items with no changes, these updates are suppose to be detected on your account as changes whilst doing something to the algorithm/updating (allegedly). I still do this and also bulk edit from time to time, part or all of my listings without making changes when things go quiet, whether it works or not I am not sure as sometimes things start to move, usually in a day or two allowing time for items to reindex.  If any movement is to do with this I am not sure as there have been times not a lot happens but you could always look at that as the market not interested in my items at that particular time, who knows? I was told to bulk edit all my items by customer service several months ago when things went stagnant so it still must be a thing,

If anyone is giving bulk editing a go for the first time without making any changes, give it a day or two and update us on here if it has had any affect, would be interesting to see if it still works.

[oceanartsnorthdevon]

Found this article (copy and pasted below) online explaining about the bulk editing, this article was updated in October 2023 so there still may be something in it. Although article refers to editing listings as oppose to not making any changes and bulk editing, hopefully it will still have the same effect or you could try just making one minor change in listings to see if that makes a difference.

"If your store has thousands of products, you’ll probably be familiar with eBay’s bulk editing tool, which saves you time by editing multiple items at once. What perhaps you didn’t know is that you can also use this tool to boost your listing. All you have to do is edit your items in batches instead of editing them all at once. No need to do anything else! This is technically considered a refresh that will trigger something in the eBay algorithm that knows when there’s been a change. In turn, it’ll help boost your listing. Boosting your listing will in turn help you to increase eBay sales."

[fatbobfan]

I never had an issue with stocks levels, so its your call.

Post 152 explains it better

[fatbobfan]

Guessing its inventory/price point specific to its benefits but you are certainly highlighting its success

If was selling inventory that was appropriate for YT I would be taking your advice. 

[ojewellery]

As its first of the month, I remembered another one I use monthly and thats newsletters.  My open rate is 41.79% over the last 3 months, click thorough just over 3%  and sales as a direct result of click through £217.  For 10 minutes once a month its not a bad return and keeps me infront of customers with quite a good click through that top of funnel stuff potentially generating other sales during the month when buyers remember a need.

I think of a theme and write a few things I'd like to include then get assistance from Bard ai to put it into words, editing slightly to be in language I'm fully comfortable with before posting.

Todays theme is small business Saturday, supporting small business on eBay, birthstones for December and final post dates.

[sheba-knows-best]

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@ojewellery wrote:

As its first of the month, I remembered another one I use monthly and thats newsletters. 

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How do you issue a newsletter? Is it an eBay tool? I don't know anything about this... Do you send it to buyer groups or?

[sheba-knows-best]

Please! And thank you for any help 😀

[ojewellery]

You can send to people who've purchases last 30 days, people whove purchased more than 30 days ago, people who've subscribed, people who follow your shop.  You can link a promotion or send a private offer code.  You get a 70 character title and 1000 character message space.  So can be reasonably creative on an ai to generate a message.  You can in theory send every two weeks but with so many hours in the week I send around the start of the month.  

Here's todays one, feel free to follow the shop to receive it and to prompt you to send/ utilise the theme for your own each month should you want to do the same:

email header (the sender is eBay):  

Happy Advent, Small Business Sat 10% off, December Birthstones, Post

Content:

As we enter advent, let's show our support for the small businesses that mean so much to us. eBay is home to countless sellers with inspiring stories and a passion for their niche. Every purchase, every positive review, and every kind word contributes to their success. Small businesses form the backbone of our communities, and their tax contributions play a vital role in our society's well-being.

In celebration of Small Business Saturday, I'm offering an extra 10% off with code SMALLBUSSAT10.

As December approaches, I'll mention the birthstones of the month: Blue Topaz and Tanzanite. Blue topaz symbolizes wisdom, truth, and loyalty, while Tanzanite represents prosperity, good fortune, and love.

Suggested Final Post Dates for Christmas delivery:

Australia: Wed, Dec 6th
USA/Europe: Wed, Dec 13th
UK RM24 tracked included free post: Wed, Dec 20th
UK Special Delivery: Thurs, Dec 21st

Wishing you a merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

Sincerely,

Lindsay
Ojewellery Ltd

[sheba-knows-best]

Thanks OJ that is interesting.

[sheba-knows-best]

Just an update (and apologies for anyone who has read very similar on a different thread):

Despite my horror at my high ROAS vs. other people's, I decided that it was a necessity in my market and I would stick with it until I went over 80k. That happened at the beginning of this week so I am now capping 70% of my stock  (and the 30% still uncapped, I want rid of anyway). Whether I can reduce further, we will see... it depends if I touch 81k.

WHilst I am running this close to VAT, I will also only send out offers on stock I want gone (because I have had it for ages, because it no longer represents the offering I want, because it is taking up too much room etc etc). Not sending offers actually seems to be having a good effect on the final selling price. Possibly when buyers 'watch' and dont get sent an offer they view the stock as more appealing. Or maybe it is just payday weekend...

ANyway, I thought I would share.