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 

[ojewellery]

I've just been doing a bit of a run through stock and checking overstock so completely agree with found but frustrating bonus'

I'm going to try auctions to reduce stock levels on some items.  If I do them regularly/ daily I hope the algorithm will count it as me listing.

Can I have the same SKU item as a single item auction and with multiple available as a seperate buy it now listing?

[bojangled]

@ojewellery my SKU are store room location references, so I use the same one repeatedly, if that's what you mean?

It's certainly tough out there this month.  'Blue Monday' hype to deal with tomorrow.

Got to have the rough to appreciate the smooth though.

Jo

Jo

[ojewellery]

What I'd like to do is items I have excess off, put the odd one up for auction, whilst keeping the buy it now listing.  So both listings would be for the same item one as a buy it now, the other in auction format with a lower starting price.  I've read the eBay help page and see I can have multiple auctions for the same item but only one without a bid on will show at a time.  I'm not interpreting whether I can do auction and seperate buy it now.

[fatbobfan]

Double Whammy question if you would be so kind

I am running a coupon at 10%, and Ebay is telling me I can send offers

If my item is £15.00 and I send an offer at 10% (£13.50) can the buyer use a 10% coupon on top £12.15 sale price?

Thanks

FBF

[ojewellery]

An offer is a final amount.  It can't be used with a coupon or further discount.  

So in your example the buyer can accept the offer at £13.50 or use the 10% discount against the sales price, not both.

[fatbobfan]

Looking at PL standard, Ive been reducing (very slowly) the ad rate for a few months, and continuing to do so. 

Been looking at the correlation, before/after rate drop and comparing to the same time last year, last Christmas was not the best so would expect this years Christmas figures to be up. Current inventory level down 10% compared to last year

Only for November to now in reducing the PL rate, but promoted listings impressions is countered by the increase in organic impressions. There is an increase overall in impressions/clicks and sales but also putting this to better account best practices.

Reducing my PL standard rates anywhere from 9% max and 5% minimum heading towards 5% max to 2% minimum, 5% being for more expensive/common/competitive market not getting first page results in a filter by P&P low search and 2% for listings with a sales history and less common inventory, eg 5% Black Umbrellas, where as a 2% for Gold umbrellas. Lots of people selling black,less so for gold being my logic for the decision. 

This thread has made me look at what I was promoting, at what rate, and what rate was actually needed, eg how many listings are there for gold umbrellas, instead of blanket rates. (now I realise not the best decision) 

Christmas is Christmas so will have to see what the next few months bring but so far so good, organic impressions still holding their own in January to Christmas levels

If you feel i've missed something in my equations, please educate, always happy for a school day.

[tornari-group]

All sounds good. My main change is to listing titles - apparently the first four words are more important, so I've been putting the size, brand and product at the start i.e. 5 Litre, Grime-X, Bike Cleaner. This may work with clothing - if I was looking for a shirt, I would searech by size, then colour or logo etc. I have experimented with listings, and stagnent products need ending, sell similar, with a change of title and an extra photo. Roll on Spring....

[vintagewatchpart]

A few tips from me, don't know if they will benefit anyone but sharing in case they do. These ideas may only work for those selling unique products or collectables without an exhaustive level of competition.

Promoted listings

I realised a few weeks ago that if your item is promoted and it appears in search results, the only way it can possibly sell is via promoted listing, even if there is just one result - your item - it will show as sponsored.

So on January 15th I turned off all of my promoted listings, I mean all of them. The results are pretty crazy, but I won't go into too much detail I may save this for a proper analytical post but...

Sales have actually increased. My organic impressions and page views are massively up - of course they will be because all my items are now being shown organically in search results and not via promoted listings!!

I have worked out that in the past 22 days that I have not been promoting, I have earned an additional £1900 approximately by having NOT promoted my items - fees that would have gone to Ebay.

Why have sales gone up? Unsure but my theory is when I look for items to buy I actually ignore the promoted results, I feel like they are ads like you'd see on social media or Google and I always skip those for organic content as no one wants to feel like they are being sold to, thats what ads do to me. 

So by the items showing as unsponsored, buyers are converting better.

My click through rate has gone from 0.1% to 0.5%, conversion rate has gone from 0.5% to 0.7%.

External ads via third party

My items appear on google shopping sponsored results through third party affiliates such as redbrain and shopping. This process takes a few days.

I've noticed that items will sit on ebay for a few days then the views and sales suddenly trickle through from those listed batches.

Its worth checking to see if your items are being shown on Google via these affiliates into shopping sponsored positions, this negates the need to even consider using Ebays external ads promotion service.

Sending offers

Sending offers on items to a large number of people like the maxmimum 30 gives that item some real boost on Ebays algorithm. Quite often I will send out offers then within a few hours or a day or so the item will just sell at full price.

Because the sudden surge in interest in that product appears to influence Ebays search algorithm to give that item more prominance. 

This also works when batch sending offers - I'd send 30 offers on 30 products that have been sitting there for a while and I will find myself getting a bit of a flurry of sales on other items, this happens almost every time, don't think it is coincidental but I think again the algorithm sees people looking at my items suddenly and things "ooh that sellers items are popular, we'll boost them in the organic search result to get more sales" 

Get your buyers to save you as a seller

I have 4.6k followers, I put this down to a simple link in every one of my items that encourages buyers to add me to their favourites list to find out when I list more items.

18.5% of my buyers were repeat buyers last year, think thats pretty high. So buyers will get updates on when I have listed new items via Email. You can also send a newsletter to these followers and coupons, although I have not had to send coupons to them, sending a newsletter out will only get views onto your items that can only boost the algorithm that displays your items.

I will always be critical of any element of ebay that is hindering growth and visibility but I still have to put up with the platform for now at least, hopefully these ideas may not have been explored and can help you grow a little.

[simplyessential_uk]

You know I was going to write something similar but wanted to wait a little longer so Im glad you have re-inforced my findings 

Promoted listings

As mentioned before I only do 2% and if people have switched off the effect next day is "fall off a cliff" so panic and switch back on so Ive always recommended ppl do that slowly (or maybe thats the "crazy thing" that happened you mentioned) but after a week It evens out - As my own online website is booming Im actually earning more now on there than Ebay( once fees stripped out so looking ahead ) and not wanting to get too near the VAT threashold I decided to switch my 2% promos OFF OFF for 50% of my listings ( good sellers) - and yesterday was a good day, today not but did a quick search for listings off promo and still there at the top so who knows but I do think Ebay like to play this game in the Algorithms of punishing listings who dare reduce quickly / off or maybe it take a week to resettle in the rankings - who knows but Im keeping them switched off and gradually switching the rest off over the week.

Sending offers

Also I removed all auto offers before Xmas, as sneakily Ebay had defaulted them and I couldnt work out why ppl were buying my items cheaper until I realised, so I decide to "send Offers" and as you say this boost algorithms - the more you sell the better you rank organically, I havent seen that tail off neither infact Its hitting 15 a day so ppl are clearly finding me and If I offer a discount I know promo isnt going to add ontop

Get your buyers to save you as a seller

I find this tricky as I have ALOT of repeat buyers infact 50% a day are repeat but pop my own web details in their boxes with discounts but I can never seem to get my followers up - Sitting at 593 and hardly moves so any tips on that is welcome.

[fatbobfan]

Just chucking this in for balance,

Sending offers

What works for some may not work for all, I know my inventory and purchasing style of potential buyer will not suit some of the tools Ebay has supplied to attract buyers, mine tend to have a need it now/yesterday requirement. Get online get it ordered now and disappear, never to return as the requirement is no longer there and wont be, perhaps ever.

Requirement purchases are what they are, I have rarely sent offers but times were bad last year so sent 170ish offers and had 3 bites, got to be honest I was mightily disappointed, put this down to tyre kickers and competitors using the system to price watch.

I now use coupons as a tool and it does seem to be working, its an offer just in another name.  I rotate inventory in blocks so its not all inventory all the time. (all advice taken from this thread, thank you) To me its an offer already sent, its there ready and waiting for future customers, again a few have commented in this thread about some buyers love the feeling of getting the discount, some insist on it.

PL Standard

I dropped my PL standard early 23 and it was a car crash, felt the need to whack it up between 5 and 9% soon after. 

Started reducing my PL standard rates (2% and 5%) autumn last year, very slowly and my organics January are double this time last year(10% less stock)  Would this suggest needless promoting? feel free to comment, to me it does.

Currently PL and Organics are still increasing, some of my inventory needs PL, some doesnt but and again apologies for going on about this thread but pretty sure it was here someone posted a CS chat saying if your promoting and a slots there, you get it, who knows, I PL all inventory between 2% and 5% if I feel its needed, 2% is not a big hit.

The balance, 

Not a negative post, just a bit of balance, I can see why Offers work , not dismissing them in any way, they are a good tool as PL can be, its more about finding the right tool/s and understanding your inventory and potential buyers

[simplyessential_uk]

Nothing negative there bob, its all about offering ideas, what works for one may not work for another, Im glad your downto 2%-5% from 9% thats gonna save you a fortune over a year 

Im wondering if the bubbles burst for Promos, alot of ppl will be 10%+ (mine recommend 12-15% on some listing) so if i uplift prices 10% (as i cant absorb that) then sales may die off as buyers arent stupid, they will search for "lowest" so as long as im not "hidden"  id prefer to offer lower prices or send out vouchers or offers. 

[sheba-knows-best]

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@vintagewatchpart wrote:

A few tips from me, don't know if they will benefit anyone but sharing in case they do. These ideas may only work for those selling unique products or collectables without an exhaustive level of competition.

Promoted listings

I realised a few weeks ago that if your item is promoted and it appears in search results, the only way it can possibly sell is via promoted listing, even if there is just one result - your item - it will show as sponsored.

I really appreciate your post. And I do have an open mind. But this is incorrect. I have just searched a very specific item. I have two. One is promoted, one isn't. Both show up within 10 listings and niether are 'sponsored'. That is because my first three keywords matched exactly so no sponsorship was needed. I am 99.9% sure that sponsored items do sell organically.

[sheba-knows-best]

I am going to reread these posts on PL tomorrow when I am more fresh.

But I also wanted to add that every time I go over 82k I drop PL and my sales crash. I let them crash to 79K ish before turning them back on. Frankly, dynamic uncapped (to accelerate sales) and dropping PL (to slam the brakes on sales) are possibly the only two reliable tools on ebay. Sadly.  🙂

I think maybe preloved is a law unto itself as it is swamped with sellers of every hue (highest possible volume sellers, business sellers, private-really-business sellers and genuine private sellers). Frankly it is a competive jungle so I suspect PL matters more than in most areas. 

[simplyessential_uk]

Out of curiousity, when you switch off ads, and see the slump, are you looking at profit margins rather than turnover.  As Vintage mentions the £1900 saved in fees.  Last year I thought Id done better as "sales" were up approx £10k,  but once i did my tax returns and saw my costs and fees had also increased, my actual profits were less than the year before so now I ignore sales but concentrate of costs more.

[bittyboy101]

I believe the real reason why we're not getting as much sales as we once did is because eBay are not always indexing our listings properly and within 24 hours as they promised in their tems and conditions.

Before 2020, I could list something desirable and get a quick sale within 2-3 hours of putting my listing up on eBay and the item would say something like 12 - 15 views before it sold...

Now if I list that  same item, it  just stays there on eBay with "0 views" for many days and that's it.

Some items I have up on eBay are saying 20 odd views whilst some are still saying 0 - 1 views, so I think that the eBay indexing team are skipping/ignoring some listings whilst indexing others and this is being done at random.

Of course if you pay for a higher percentage of "promoted listings" then the eBay indexing team will happily place your listing at the front of the que and it will be indexed promptly, and you will start getting views and maybe a quick sale if it's something good that people want.

It says in eBay terms and conditions that "it can take up to 24  hours for your item to be indexed to appear in search results." which is fair enough... but it is now 7 days and some of my items clearly have not been indexed to appear in the search results as they are still saying "0 views" ! so there is definitely a problem/issue with the indexing team not doing their job properly or they don't have enough man power to cope with the high volume of listings people are now submitting to eBay ?

[vintagewatchpart]

I have also seen this, most of my "quick sales" come from my repeat customers. I have many saved sellers, and check several times a day for their new items to see if I can pick up something unique so only presume people are doing that with my items.

[vintagewatchpart]

My YTD sales vs the previous 2 business years are almost the same, within a 2-3%.

My Ebay fees in 2022 up until Feb 7th were £24.1k, in 2023 £27.2k and this year are £36k!

That all came about from me increasing my promoted listings percentage in April last year after a sudden plummet in visibility. Increased from 3.5% to 6 and then eventually 12.5% - this is unsustainable and would rather take a slight hit in the sales to reduce my costs but its a balance.

[bittyboy101]

Same here ! - I had one guy who bought a couple of locks from me and he was a repeat customer that had bought a lock from me 6 months before he repurchased again !, he said that he had added me as a favourite seller because he liked the item he bought from me.

I guess I must have made a good impression then ! 🙂 

[vintagewatchpart]

Interesting, and it is worth people conducting their own experiments but I spent literally 2 days analysing everything I could on my items, I must have conducted 300 searches in an incognito window for terms that would show my items as results, and every single time they only appeared in the search results as "Sponsored" and never as an organic un-sponsored result.

So for me, this is the case, I did start a new thread about this in the Promoted listings forum but no one ever goes there:

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Promoted-Listings/Promoted-Listings-Standard-Clarification-Needed/m-...

When I go back over my sales this seems to have been the case for a while. August last year was my best month, ever. 87% of my sales were promoted and 13% organic. 477 transactions so a pretty big sample.

Each and every of the organic sales came from a repeat buyer or was for an item where I had sent an offer, obviously to someone who had watched the listing more than the 31 day cookie window apart from just 1 sale. So I can't explain that 1 sale and how they found my item, we don't have that detailed a level of analytics but I suggest everyone look at their own results and see if there are any similar themes.

Again I want to emphasise that the advice probably only suits those who sell unique collectables or used items, the competition within the new item space is probably too fierce to risk un-promoting.

[sheba-knows-best]

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@simplyessential_uk wrote:

Out of curiousity, when you switch off ads, and see the slump, are you looking at profit margins rather than turnover.  As Vintage mentions the £1900 saved in fees.  Last year I thought Id done better as "sales" were up approx £10k,  but once i did my tax returns and saw my costs and fees had also increased, my actual profits were less than the year before so now I ignore sales but concentrate of costs more.

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I make a lot of mistakes selling, but for me, it's never about staying on top of sales and profitability. I think one of my top tips was learn how to use Excel and keep a spreadsheet for yourself. It's also useful as it keeps an eye on ebay's own calculations (with an £81.5k rolling turnover, mine and ebay's figures rarely differ by more than £500 - despite all of mine being manually input per sale/return - and ebay's often being offset for a month or so with promotions etc).

So to answer the question - when my sales crashed, my profits crashed. In fact it would have been the profit crash that made me take a long hard look at sales. In fact, thinking about it now, one of the biggest examples of PL rushing in like the cavalry was documented on this thread. I didn't get my usual pick up in weeks 31 and 32 last year. I waited two weeks and then slammed on dynamic uncapped and a 25% off coupon. Sales leapt and I gradually reversed the promotions. I probably did go in like a bull in a china shop. But I cannot lose those Aug/Sep sales as it is when I make space in my storage.

This year I've completely overhauled my use of dynamic ads. Including listing some at above ebay's suggested amount (sounds dumb, I know, but its working and bringing the overall rate down and getting rid of some very old stock). I've also overhauled my spreadsheet to focus far more than previously on a cost breakdown. So for instance,  ebay fees so far this year are 23% as a % of sales, but my new spreadsheet design also shows that non-ebay costs are 33%. So I realised, that whilst I still want to get ebay costs down (don't we all), there are other areas to chase... Basically I'm still refining my new strategy which involves changing dynamic ads on a daily basis along with the sell-similaring. 

All very time consuming of course which is NOT what I want - but I'm saving time as listing less because I'm buying smarter.

You know one of the things that amazes me most is how EASY it was to sell on ebay when I started out. Now, I sometimes feel like I'm strategising in a global market place against extreme competition... but, oh, yes... I am.  That's what we all forget... online retail has changed forever. It is no longer an easy option job choice 😞