GRRRR! 18 items listed - none sold!

The first thing that jumps out at me is your gallery picture. It might be more eye-catching to feature a picture of the orchids in full bloom. A picture of a generic-looking green stem attached to a ball of dirt does nothing to tell potential buyers who are skimming through a bunch of ads what your plants will look like in their full glory.

My second suggestion would be to perhaps experiment with starting a few auctions at a lower price. Check out this site here:

http://www.mpire.com/research/search.page

Registering and using the service is free. Do some searches for the varieties of plants that you sell, and try to emulate what successful sellers of these plants are doing to get bids. I did notice that on many of these auctions, lower starting prices seem to generate multiple bids on many items.

I might also suggest putting a few items out as strictly "Buy It Now". What would be the lowest price that would be acceptable to you to get for the plant? Add a dollar or two to that, and list it as a fixed price. I often find that many sellers are willing to pay a little more for something if they can purchase it straight away, without having to wait for an auction to end.

Biscuit: That is an awesome site! Thanks so much for sharing it

Please don't take this the wrong way, but maybe you're just selling things nobody wants. bold too. (What's that, $2?). That is an absolute waste of money. eBay laughs to the bank every time somebody uses it. A typical listing < $9.99 with galley is 75 cents! If your item sells for the minimum, with the FV fee added in, you're up to 10% in fees. Not even worth it to pack and ship. Bad enough a basic listing is 40 cents now, why make it worse?

If eBay wanted to show some kindness to the community (ha ha) by reducing fees, they ought to make gallery picture an included part of a basic listing. But they have no incentive to do that. If you look at the listings, I'd say 80% have a gallery image. That's a lot of 35 cent bumps to loose.

Have you tried other auction sites?
The one I use is eBid which has sites in the following countries.....
eBid USA | eBid UK | eBid Canada | eBid Australia | eBid Ireland | eBid Deutschland | eBid Nederlands | eBid España | eBid France
eBid Italia
Cheaper than eBay,ok so I hav'nt sold a lot on eBid but it keeps the £,sorry $ comming in.
Good luck.

Quite honestly, your prices are too high. Compare to what others are asking for similar items to get an idea. Next, you could be a bit gentler about your return policy - that wording will scare people. Say something like refunds given if item is found to be significantly not as described. It says the same thing, but in a nicer way. The way you have it worded sounds like "if you're too stupid to read the friggin' description, then tough noogies for you!" Also, try to be more reasonable with your shipping. Weigh the things, and go look at the USPS website and get an idea of what the shipping actually is. When you write your auctions, there IS a place to add a handling charge that the buyers don't see, so try using the actual postage plus whatever you feel is a reasonable handling charge for your time and packing materials. As another poster noted, try showing an additional picture of what the plants look like in bloom - if you don't want to pay for two pictures, just paste them into one - half showing the actual plant, the other half showing the bloom when it's open. But price is the main issue, buth on the item and the shipping - especially now that Wal-Marts are selling orchids (at least in some areas). Your layout is good. Just try to adjust your prices, as well as your wording.

quote:

Originally posted by kc425:
As another poster noted, try showing an additional picture of what the plants look like in bloom - if you don't want to pay for two pictures, just paste them into one - half showing the actual plant, the other half showing the bloom when it's open. But price is the main issue, buth on the item and the shipping - especially now that Wal-Marts are selling orchids (at least in some areas). Your layout is good. Just try to adjust your prices, as well as your wording.

Good input KC. Your wording on the return policy is right on the money.

I use Irfanview for Panarama View of several pics.(thats if I feel that adding too many pics of the item will just be overwhelming to the customer).

Good Luck,
Donna

Hi all, thanks for your input. Just a few notes here, not trying to be argumentative. On listing Epidendrum there are 3 pics. Most have 2 with the bloom showing first. So now I'm really confused.

Also, if I list them any lower don't I risk loosing money? I searched and that seems to be the going price for mounted orchids. And if you take what I paid for them, add in mounting and growing costs, I'm really loosing money at $8.50, particularly after I pay ebay and paypal fees. Further, you can't buy these at WalMart or HD - at least not here in Co. Again, not trying to be argumentive, just trying to learn. Are you suggesting that I loose money initially just to get some sales and build up my reputation (not a bad idea if thats what you're trying to say). I guess the whole point was to make money, not loose it.... I'm confused, please forgive me. I'm really trying to learn here and appreciate your patients.

As far as shipping, ok, I'll admit, they're too high. I guess I just got lazy and figured it was easier to put one price in rather than weighing each item. Ive seen others do it and sell effectively. Laziness cost me, lesson learned.

Again, thank you everyone for your input. I'm taking a break from ebay for a few weeks to work on my business plan and hopefull will get this figured out, but your input has been imperative to this process. I'm deeply grateful and will be watching the forums for more input.

CrazyOrchidLady

quote:

Originally posted by CrazyOrchidLady:
Hi all, thanks for your input. Just a few notes here, not trying to be argumentative. On listing Epidendrum there are 3 pics. Most have 2 with the bloom showing first. So now I'm really confused.

Yes, but your gallery pics are these:





etc... Not very eye-catching pics, if you know what I mean.

By comparison, here are gallery pics from one of your competitors:





Much nicer to look at...

I don't think anybody's suggesting you intentionally lose money. But if you can't price competitively then you may be selling the wrong thing.

Thanks! So do I show the pics of the actual plant as the 1st pic (the one you see when you do a search) and then of what they would look like in bloom in the listing or the other way around?? I'm real new at this and perhaps don't know what "gallery" pic means and its placement.

Thank you so very much for your help. I assure you your advice will make a world of difference and I'll put it to use as soon as I better understand.

I think that you will do alright as soon as you figure out the proper shipping ammounts and put the pictures that you need as the others have already said.
For me it would not matter which picture was first as long as you show them both somehow. I know how it would look blooming because of some experience with horticulture, but not everyone does. The one photo shows honestly what it looks like so no one is suprised when they recieve it, while the other shows what it would look like after planting and care of it. It is a win-win siuation when done correctly and your sales should go up accordingly.
Make sure you do it in a way that people know that there are two pictures. On another note, you might want to try one auction one way and another auction another just to see which sells better. It will definitely get easier for you as time goes on. Do the hard work at the start and then you don't have to worry as much later.

I agree with Biscuit on the pics you choose for gallery. (that's the one customers see when they do a search, not the ones they see in the actual auction).

Put the finished product in the gallery...that would catch my eye!

Best of luck,
Donna

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Bradford:
I don't think anybody's suggesting you intentionally lose money. But if you can't price competitively then you may be selling the wrong thing.

I agree this is a huge issue here.

Have you tried possibly finding a more competitively priced source for the plants? Do you grow these yourself, or buy them from a supplier? I know zilch about plants and flowers, so I don't exactly know how it's done .

Good points from Buscuit. According to an 'about you' page on your site, you first got some orchids from your fiance, (Sorry about his passing... ), and grew your own plants afterward. Do you grow from seeds? Do you harvest seeds from mature plants to make new ones. This is not the easiest thing to do in horticulture, but if it can be done, your budget should become more comfortable.
Also as Buscuit mentioned, starting auctions at a low price can be unbelievably profitable. I've seen it happen time and time again. There are times that one can lose some money, but for the most part, it is really a good way to go especially considering buyer/auction mentality. People like an unbeatable deal and they hate to lose!
Final note. Even though you seem to be an internet only business, have you ever sold plants in your own area? (School sales, Flea markets, yard sales, street fairs, county fairs...?) You can give out business cards to your website which can only help future sales in addition to your overall positive well being. Sometimes watching people actually looking at your plants in person is worth it and helps during those times that you are waiting on someone to buy something from your auctions.
Haven't seen anything lately on your site. I hope you haven't given up. I think you have great potential. Also your blog is very informative.
Alright, I talked enough.
Bye Bye for now.

quote:

Also as Buscuit mentioned, starting auctions at a low price can be unbelievably profitable. I've seen it happen time and time again. There are times that one can lose some money, but for the most part, it is really a good way to go especially considering buyer/auction mentality. People like an unbeatable deal and they hate to lose!

But starting low and ending high depends on a lot of different factors -- what you're selling, how good your descriptions are, condition of item, buyer confidence, shipping charges, day of week, time of day, etc., etc.

In other words, it can take some work to perfect it.

quote:

Are you suggesting that I loose money initially just to get some sales and build up my reputation

Perhaps you should think of it as "tuition" Once you start selling, even at a loss, It might help you to understand the market and give you a boost in confidence.

Speaking of "tuition", the graduation and prom season is almost here. Are orchids popular around this time (I've been out of school too long to remember)

Hang in there!!