Low sales: Advice?
Hello,
we signed up for Ebay a little over two months ago, coming from years of selling on Amazon, and so we created an initial catalog of about 180 products, also setting up our Ebay Store.
For about half of the products we set a paid shipping charge of 6/8 euros, so that we could keep the prices lower than the competition (and therefore more appealing), while for the remaining offers we set free shipping in 1/2 days.
After 2 months the results obtained turned out to be much lower than our expectations.
9 sales, a large number of impressions (92,008 in the last month) but an impression click-through rate of 1% (700 visits in the last month).
Are these results normal? Does the fact that we are new sellers and have only 2 feedback, both positive, penalize us that much?
What advice can we follow to increase our sales?
Thanks.
heavenwelkin
·2 years agoFirst of all, FORGET the numbers you were doing on Amazon, regardless of the fact that you are new sellers and all the rest.....
Then you need to see whether the products you sell are already listed by other, more "senior" sellers and maybe you also need to look at the prices the competition is charging.
The algorithm usually doesn’t take a single factor into account (for example, a better price) but evaluates a wide range of factors, and a new seller with only 2 feedbacks who still appears as a private seller is definitely not advantaged in this respect.
If you want to make some numbers, you need to INVEST rather than in sponsorships in some item sold below cost to make a few sales and increase feedback.
Usually most users don’t leave feedback, so starting from zero it will be difficult to increase feedback in a short time.
Including a thank-you note in the order (aesthetically pleasing and impactful) asking that feedback is important, etc. could help.
Try to sell something that not many other sellers have and that is in demand, because if you sell many items and don’t have many complaints, you improve your position in item searches.
In my opinion, sponsorships are too early for now because it takes time and effort to really understand how the eBay system works, because without experience/knowledge, in my opinion, you just throw money away on sponsorships that may have little effect.
It takes its own time to understand how eBay works.
Kind regards and good luck.
teamcadrega_1
·2 years agoThe advice on how to request feedback is good and valid, but the few sales they have, beyond the fact that they have the account with few feedback, are tied precisely to an issue with certain types of items that, like the one I analyzed, simply don't sell on eBay. So the whole feedback-request thing might help, but it won't solve the underlying problems.
At first glance it's obvious that they brought over Amazon's logic thinking it was similar on eBay, and they thought that a lot of stuff that on Amazon sells easily with a bit of advertising, like the Naruto figurine for example (therefore comparable to collecting or compulsive buying), would be sellable in a similar way on eBay, which isn't true.
There's a ton of merchandise that, if put on Amazon, sells like crazy, while on eBay it doesn't because eBay simply sells less and has many fewer compulsive buyers than Amazon.
I disagree about sponsored listings because the standard ones already (which require zero technical advertising skills to use) in some cases help quite a bit with a product's visibility, and this happens especially with low-margin products that a lot of accounts sell.
With standard, if a product doesn't sell on its own, it's very likely to keep not selling, and in that case they don't lose anything if they at least have a basic store (as in their case) because eBay doesn't take commissions from them like in CPC campaigns, but only takes them on sales. It's different if they don't have a basic store and unsold items cost them 35 cents + VAT in fees every 30 days, but we're still talking about ridiculous amounts.
Other products, on the other hand, as mentioned earlier, really need sponsorship in order to be sold.
The problem with standard sponsorship is precisely that they have to pay particular attention to margins, but if they read my post they can hardly get it wrong because the additional fees to be paid are shown to you right away and you have to add 22% VAT to them. Nothing complicated.
In any case, as vonbalden said, blueinternational operates in a sector where price wars are brutal and margins are almost zero (some, on the other hand, run at a total loss just to cover business costs, while others are known to, let's say, have less-than-clear dealings behind them, to be polite and not offend anyone).
In any case, they seem at least somewhat structured financially (my personal opinion), so they might even be able to handle these issues better than their competitors, especially for someone starting from scratch with selling in general, without a solid business foundation underneath.
heavenwelkin
·2 years agoIf they have resources to invest, they could also consider the help of an eBay CONSULTANT who could act as a trailblazer by listing the right products in the right way to allow the business to start racking up numbers, because otherwise they risk being here for years without getting anywhere.
Then here it's harder to find buyers searching for the Naruto figurine unless you get indexed by Google and have a price that is definitely better than Amazon's.
If it's small amounts, a buyer (usually terrified of scams) might decide to leave the SECURITY offered by Amazon and buy small, low-value items on eBay, driven by the savings and the low value of the item; that could overcome the fear of losing money.
But in GENERAL, selling online, doing good numbers and doing them well is anything but simple unless you have exclusive products or special design, handcrafted items, etc.
teamcadrega_1
·2 years agoHello.
You started less than a month ago and eBay, in terms of sales speed, is definitely not Amazon, but it gives you a lot less hassle than the ones you deal with daily on Amazon (you probably know better than I do).
Analysis should be done after 6 months / 1 year and not just after less than a month, but aside from that, you need to understand what might be causing the low number of sales.
The items you sell have a decent market, but that’s not true for everyone.
For example, I spent 5 minutes analyzing one of your products (a Naruto plush with the search query "Peluche Naruto Shippuden") and the 6-month sales analysis is not that great:
Basically, excluding shipping costs, the product’s total sales are well under €225 in 6 months. This is a clear sign that this product is not particularly in demand, and this kind of analysis should be done for all your listings to understand how to increase conversions and what you may have done wrong when creating the listing (listings are not always made badly, sometimes they simply don’t sell, but everything needs to be carefully analyzed). I suggest running queries for both 6 months and 1 year of sales to see how the various products perform, and to do that you need to log into your seller dashboard, go to the "Analisi" panel, and then click on "Ricerca Prodotti".
Ending and recreating the same listing that doesn’t sell can also be useful, and this happens for various internal eBay algorithmic reasons.
As you’ve already been told, Standard Sponsorship helps a lot and you only pay a commission on what sells. So be careful to check whether your profit margins still work. The commission percentage charged on sponsorship will be shown to you when you activate it, and a 22% VAT must be added to that. So if the sponsorship is standard, for example, it takes a 10% commission, to which you’ll need to add 22% of that 10%.
Do careful analyses and you’ll see that sooner or later you’ll manage to sell, and eBay, despite its flaws, is still a good marketplace both for beginners to get started on and for expanding your business.
Regards.
technopartsbay
·2 years agoIn search, eBay still indexes you as a "private seller" even though you have professional references.
You could also start some campaigns (obviously paid) to boost your indexing further and... yes, last but not least, only 2 feedback make you less appealing to the average user....
blueinternational
OP2 years agoHi and thanks for the reply.
I forgot to mention that we are professional sellers, but because of some bug our listings are shown, in search results, as sold by "private seller".
vonbalden
·2 years agoI agree with the advice given by heavenwelkin. What I’d like to point out, especially in the event that Blueinternational decides to tweak the way it presents its listings, is that it sits in a delicate spot between three oversaturated sales categories on the platform. You can see an entire range of plastic gadgets with tried-and-true themes like little hearts, stars, chains, and tiny bracelets with a boot, alternating with stationery items such as decorated pencil cases, backpacks with characters chosen from the fantasy world of the youngest heroes, all the way to little fiber figurines for small collectors to put on the bed or in the bedroom. All these items together are aimed at a target audience made up mainly of stay-at-home moms, grandmothers who want to buy a little surprise for their grandkids whom they see every day at lunchtime, hurriedly sent over by moms who have to go back to the office to slog away, by domestic workers of other ethnicities who want a keepsake, or by the neighbors next door on the landing for a little gift for the condo friend. If you take a look, there are thousands of sales like this. There’s no margin, that’s obvious, not even if you ship it for free. It is only right to encourage the category of items that have delivered the best results, perhaps branching out into less commercial genres.
Best regards.