Nothing is selling: Can u help, Please?

The only suggestion I have is to put one of the shoe brand names in the title.

Best of luck,

Roxy

Deb,
I don't sell much (actually I'm having the same problem as you) but I do buy quite a bit so please take my comments with a grain of salt.

After reading your ad, it appears your terms of sale are.. well, not user (perhaps "buyer" is a better word) friendly. They're kind of ambigious to be honest and sound harsh and strict. Perhaps if you worded them so they sound more...gentle?

Please don't take offense, I don't mean to sound critical, nor do I proffess how to sell.

Crazy Orchid Lady
www.crazyorchidlady.com

no, i am not mad. Not good at describing things I guess..

deb

Hi Deb,
A few comments if I may...Don't take offense please, only trying to help
The first thing I noticed is your shipping is all over the place--for example, no way will it cost $8-$10 to mail some baby rattles. The shoes shipping prices seem ok, I've sold them myself & they are heavy. But I would never pay that much shipping for rattles.
And CrazyOrchidLady is quite correct about your terms...savvy buyers KNOW there is no such thing as 'no refunds' in online auctionland, especially if they pay through paypal.
Lastly, alot of items seem to be very seasonal. What doesn't sell now might get 50 bids a month from now. And of course, most of the bidding action seems to take place in the last hours or even seconds of an auction.
Otherwise, your pics & descriptions are great, I guess I would say just hang in there & see what happens!
Good Luck

I've found some of the best information at the community help boards with eBay or the item specific discussion boards.

http://pages.ebay.com/community/boards/index.html

We're going into the slow selling season for eBay..sales, should be dropping off until August or so.

You might wanna consider opening a free ecrater store and marketing the heck out of them. Ecrater feeds to Froogle/Google and those will show up in web searches.

Good Luck,
Donna

quote:

We're going into the slow selling season for eBay..sales, should be dropping off until August or so.

That's item specific. My best months are Jan-June, and Sep-Nov.

quote:

Please I don't understand why nothing is selling and really need some money. Any suggestions??

I just checked out your listings, and to offer worldwide shipping, well, I live in Australia, and the shipping prices do seem a little excessive, ranging from $21.40 through to $72.75. Personally, I would not be inclined to bid knowing that postage was going to set me back that much.

Please don't take offense at this, I am just looking at it from a wordwide perspective.

I cant help what the post office charges to send to Australia. We all know thats expensive. What was $72?? That doesn't make sense? I don't think anything is more than 12 pds..What i hear ebay is going down the drain...with all the sniper software and excessive fees, maybe they are.. I never use to have a problem selling anything...This elmo lot sold for .24 and 124 people looked at it. Ridicioulus.

Have you considered using flat rate boxes from USPS? They come in 2 sizes (both have same cube inches)and cost is only $8.10 to anywhere in US. It has been such a time and money saver for me. You can order the boxes for FREE on line and they deliver with your regular mail. Just print the labels from your paypay and free tracking comes with it. Oh and it is Priority so it delivers in 1-2 days.

I'd also leave the sellathon thing off. It gives everyone too much wrong information. I've never seen one that made a seller look good.

There is way too many pairs of shoes to fit in one flat rate box. Just makes me wonder is everyone having friends bid on their items to get the auction going.Because I am giving stuff away..There are not that many lots of size 10 & 11 shoes..Common sense these people would buy. At such a bargain. Time to find another way to make money. ebay is just pathetic.

what is the sellathon thing??

Some buyers are put off by:

- "All Sales are final"
- "Insurance may be required in some cases"

quote:

Some buyers are put off by:

- "All Sales are final"
- "Insurance may be required in some cases"

Well, as for the first statement, sellers have to account for things like "bidder remorse" and other such nonsense, as well as people looking for the absolute SLIGHTEST thing to complain about. Too many people fail to realize that much of what is offered on eBay is USED, and will show at least SOME kind of wear or other. But a kinder way of wording something like that would be to say that refunds are issued if an item is found to be significantly not as described.
As for the second remark, sometimes you DO have to require insurance on some items, such as glass and so forth. On most items, I will myself leave insurance as an option, but in some cases I will require it myself - glass items or other similar things that could be described as 'delicate', and of course anything that has a final price of over $100 I'll require insurance on - and nobody has ever had an issue with my terms. Sometimes you have to make the requirement because some people are simply too cheap to spend the extra $1.35 to protect their investment on their own, and it saves headaches later, if the gorillas at the post office have flashbacks of their days of doing commercials for Samsonite. I tend to pack things to what some might call excess, but I figure if someone was willing to spend their money on my items, then I should treat it with respect (what a concept!) and like the 'treasure' they obviously thought it was when they decided to spend their money on it. But none of us as sellers can control how the shipping comanies actually handle the stuff once we send it out the door - yet there are those buyers that feel we should be responsible for it until it gets to their door. Sure - if we owned the shipping company, we'd be responsible. But the responsibility of packing and securing the item is on the seller; beyond that, it's at the mercy of the USPS, UPS, FedEx or whoever is handling it on the way to the buyer - why do so many seem to forget this?

quote:

Originally posted by kc425:
[QUOTE]But none of us as sellers can control how the shipping comanies actually handle the stuff once we send it out the door...

Nor do the buyers have any control. I said this once before, but if you ordered something from Amazon, and it arrived busted up, wouldn't you expect Amazon to make it right?

Insurance protects the seller, not the buyer.

quote:

Originally posted by biscuit:

quote:

Originally posted by kc425:
[QUOTE]But none of us as sellers can control how the shipping comanies actually handle the stuff once we send it out the door...

Nor do the buyers have any control. I said this once before, but if you ordered something from Amazon, and it arrived busted up, wouldn't you expect Amazon to make it right?

Insurance protects the seller, not the buyer.

I agree. Insurance is for me...not my buyer.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Bradford:
Some buyers are put off by:

- "All Sales are final"
- "Insurance may be required in some cases"

quote:

Originally posted by kc425:
Well, as for the first statement, sellers have to account for things like "bidder remorse" and other such nonsense, as well as people looking for the absolute SLIGHTEST thing to complain about.

If you take PayPal, sales are not necessarily final no matter what you say in the listing. Besides, even uninformed buyers will hit the back button if it looks like they'll have no recourse if the item turns out to be broken or poorly described or whatever.

Ditto on what the others said about insurance. You can require it but a lot of savvy buyers will pass up your listing because they know PayPal is all the insurance they need.

I like to charge flat rate shipping so I calculate to the farthest point and then if it comes in less that is my "handling charge." Overall it works out well for me, not excessive for anyone but I cover my packing and travel costs. For items that "require" insurance, the insurance is for me, because I can't afford to take the loss on some items, especially collectibles that I can't offer a replacement on. I add the insurance into the shipping cost and say "insurance included" in the auction description. Never had a customer complain or question that policy.

"You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar." I think a little sugar coating in your TOS goes a long way to attract customers.

For some interesting really bad advice on selling see the About Me page for n.s.sherlock on ebay.

Really Bad Advice

Would you please explain to me how to calculate a flat rate shipping??? I'm just not real clear on that - I understand the concept but what it is based on? Thank you Dawn
PS Really Bad Advise was a hooot to read!

In response to the sellathon question. It's a great tool that I have used for years. I get it free with Auctiva, but you can get it for any auctions for 5.99 a month. www.sellathon.com and check out all the info it gives you, including what time of day people are looking at your auctions, what your best selling days are, how long someone looked at your listing, but BEST OF ALL.. what search terms they used to find your auction. Very valuable info! KL

Flat rate shipping is not an exact science, however, the best way to estimate your shipping costs is to go to USPS and put in approx. weight and then type in a zip code farthest away from you. You can then estimate regular mail, priority, etc.

Since eBay is actively blocking everybody's auctions (See full story http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2007/4/1176346322.html )from being viewed at their own descretion under their supposed proactive fraud reduction, most tools that are currently available for assisting with sales become useless. Keyword searches that pull-up your auctions one minute, don't show any results for the same products seconds later.

quote:

Originally posted by eBay trainer:
Flat rate shipping is not an exact science, however, the best way to estimate your shipping costs is to go to USPS and put in approx. weight and then type in a zip code farthest away from you. You can then estimate regular mail, priority, etc.

Thank you so much for your help - every place is far away from here - I've been using our mail machine but the difference in what it wants to charge and what ebay wants to charge is considerabley different. The ebay shipping is more - I guess I'll eventually figure this out - thank you again for your time - Dawn

Make sure the shipping service matches. For example, if you check usps for first class mail, and you have your default on eBay as UPS or Priority, it's going to be more.

Perhaps it is the items you are selling.

Many people like to try footwear on before they purchase, maybe that will go against you.

How do you get Sellathon free with Auctiva? I think when I first joined Auctiva I had it for a trial period.

I may have missed something here

Dear Shoes;

I would recommend getting off any negativity thinking or attitude about ebay and looking at them like the kind of venue they have become. They are self serving because it is their business to do this for themselves. They are not going to stop doing that. Learn to do what is necessary to work around any obstacles that are in the way of making money on there. Welcome to the club of saavy Ebay users that have had to do the same thing to make a few extra bucks now. There are always alternatives. In a sense aren't we self serving wanting to make as much as we can. In a way it is war and your learn to fight to win for yourself. Just don't go negative in the process, since it requires your proactivity to win.

Wow I cannot believe I am still getting messages way after a month after I posted this. That is my problem I am not seeing how to get around the ebay thing but maybe eventually I will. Either way I will keep panning for gold (hopefully one of these day I will get the real thing).

shoes

Welcome to the Ebay Gold Panners Society of America. EGPSofA for short. An exclusive club of 49er type diehards that never give up as long as they made a dime profit last month. Amazing that Ebay has actually taken a notion to join our society etal so that they can make a dime too, since they were the cause of our founding in the first place.

You don't get Sellathon free other than a free 30 day free trial. You will continue to get a counter for free but not the full stats unless you pay.