Just switched to Business Seller and it seems monthly insertion fees will ruin me.....HELP

[eppingauctionscom]

As a private seller I had about 8,000 seperate items listed, i only sell a small % of my stock so every month when my lots expire they are relisted.  As a private seller I was not charged for my lots continuing every month.  However now i am paying a 36p fee for each item when the month ends.  As I sell low value items this is completely unsustainble for me.  Not sure what to do, should i go back to being a private seller. Any advice much appreciated.

[rainbowtrax]

You can't switch back I'm afraid, ebay don't allow it. Not a lot you can do about the listing fees, that's just the way it is. As a business, you don't get any freebies.

Your best bet is to subscribe to a shop to minimise the listing fees. With 8,000 listings that's a no-brainer as you'll pay 36p per listing without one but significantly less with one. The fees for the different shop levels can be found here: Fees for business sellers | eBay to work out what will work best for you. Remember to multiply any figure on that page by 1.2 to take account of the VAT. The break even point from featured to anchor, taking just BINs into account, is 8,700 listings so you're not far off that. But the monthly outlay for anchor is £524.40 so it's not cheap - but better than 36p per listing.

You've just discovered why business sellers have been up in arms at the unfairness and disparity in the fee structure between business and "private" sellers, particularly the crippling upfront listing fees. With 300 new listings free each month and unlimited free relists infinitely, private sellers are incentivised to grow their inventory while growth for business sellers is stifled due to the month-on-month costs just to list before even making any sales.

[eppingauctionscom]

because of the new buyer protection fees i was starting to struggle, ebay is clearly no longer a place to sell small items.  i have been looking at setting up a S h o p i f y website, might have to go down that route. thanks for your help.

[ile136yz]

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@eppingauctionscom wrote:

As a private seller I had about 8,000 seperate items listed, i only sell a small % of my stock so every month when my lots expire they are relisted.  As a private seller I was not charged for my lots continuing every month.  However now i am paying a 36p fee for each item when the month ends.  As I sell low value items this is completely unsustainble for me.  Not sure what to do, should i go back to being a private seller. Any advice much appreciated.

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eBay does not allow a Business Account to change back to a Private Account.

[clip-creations]

Think yourself lucky. You have got away with being a private seller for 20 yrs You should of been a business seller long ago. It is clear by your listings you are not a private seller. 

[eppingauctionscom]

i have been on ebay for 20 years but only selling for the last 2. I have spent far more than i have sold.

[podlingsmum2007]

What about ebid?

[eppingauctionscom]

thank you, yes i will be looking at alternatives, i have opened a medium shop, going to see how that goes, i had always assumed when it said you get 1500 free listings a month that it applied to new listings and that previously listed stuff just got renewed freely.  This has been an eye opener, think i know why some of my fellow collector/dealer associates have been a bit peeved at me over the years.

[dch2112011]

Time for a rethink, when using a private account members just continue listing and relisting for years  - after all it is free . It really isn't about having the most listings - it's about having listings that sell quickly and in quantity.

Now you have to rethink strategy - rather than listing and relisting because you can at zero cost you need to spend time, effort, and make some decisions as to what sells quickly, what sits and rots.

Learn how to optimise for ebay, google, facebook and bing, what keywords phrases are being used by members in search, which ones to concentrate on to achieve page 1 position 1 or 2  to sell quickly, look at repeat lines.

Spend time knowing costs, overheads and pricing levels within the market. 

Understand how item specifics, titles, pictures, descriptions work not only for your customers but also for visability

  What does it matter if it takes months, years to sell - as a business speed of sale is the difference between success and failure -

Dump or change non selling listings , you can no longer list for listings sake - they cost money not make money !

As an example with 350 listings with repeat lines we expect a minimum of 1500 orders a week with many orders containing more than one item - we aim to attract buyers to more than one item with multiple items on one  listing - saves fees as well ! 

So nearly all listings are multi listings and by offering incentives buyers most of the time will buy more than one different item, we also offer multi listings of the same item with different quantities encouraging larger value orders - order value is king !

[banditfrenzy]

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@dch2112011 wrote:

Time for a rethink, when using a private account members just continue listing and relisting for years  - after all it is free . It really isn't about having the most listings - it's about having listings that sell quickly and in quantity.

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Absolutely this. I would add "profitably".

The rest of your advice is I think time wasted, I really don't think OP is cut out for a life in ecommerce.

[eppingauctionscom]

Well i was making £250 a week as a private seller and if i want to i will just open anoither private account, i am  not selling car parts.

[jonat_broad]

As a business you can build variation listings of course, which class as one listing.

given a huge percentage of your items appear to be tarot cards from the same set, you could group them that way?

same with other similar items

i have no idea what you mean by you are not selling car parts. You are either a business, or you aren’t!

[eppingauctionscom]

thanks for that, a lot of folks selling the same stuff as me do it that way

[dch2112011]

But what you are selling just begs to be sorted into multi listings where a buyer can be drawn into the listing and find a group of items which may have the one they were looking for and several that they are tempted to buy - rather than  having to browse through thousands and thousands of individual listings on the off chance  - 

Don't make a multi listing too big in terms of number of items in that the number becomes overwhelming   

What have you got against car parts - we all need them or know someone who needs them ?

[wyntersemporium]

Same here looking at that as well as own website or other alt TT

[eppingauctionscom]

thanks for the advice, a guy selling a single car part posted that i did not have what it takes for ecommerce.

[tommystrezures]

The other thing you could consider is as part of your monthly allowance on featured shop does include an allocation for auction items (600 lots) you could review some of the slower movers or by genre/group etc and offer them as auction lots over 7 days, group them up start them at a realistic price (don't use reserve as you'll get charged 4% of price).

[papso22]

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@eppingauctionscom wrote:

Well i was making £250 a week as a private seller and if i want to i will just open anoither private account, i am  not selling car parts.

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Yes, if you want to you can choose to break the law.   All that stops you is your own conscience, or ebay forcing you to upgrade

[dch2112011]

@tommystrezures  made a useful suggestion.

You can turn your £250 into a daily sales figure with a business account - it takes work and time but the basics are already in place with the effort you put into a private account, it may seem as though the roof has caved in but business accounts work entirely differently

ebay is a vast market place and you have done well so far with the limitations of private selling.

It all depends on how much you want to grow your business - but to grow it on ebay is entirely possible with a business account rather than grind it out on a private account. 

At the moment you have stepped out of your comfort zone making you question your decision and feeling as though you want to crawl back into the comfy nest you built.

That is totally normal and understandable especially with the upheval of change going on at the moment.

I am sure you will work through it and prosper - good luck with the next stage of your venture !

[banditfrenzy]

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@eppingauctionscom wrote:

thanks for the advice, a guy selling a single car part posted that i did not have what it takes for ecommerce.

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Buys a LOT of packaging supplies tho' . . . . 

Running a business is just playing with numbers, running a successful business is knowing how best to play those numbers so that the end number . . . PROFIT . . . Is as BIG as it can be for the least effort & investment possible. How long does it take you to create a listing? You're selling 1000's of items at a very low price point. I'm just assuming your numbers as best I can & your numbers are coming out that you must be making as much as 50p per hour for your effort.

If you want to make £money then you need to take a serious & fundamental look at your business model, that is of course unless you are just looking to fill your time for very little reward.