Closed my E-bay store

2dueces

I sold some items in the last 4 months, but just don't have enough to keep it going.
It wasn't a total disaster, but doubt it payed for itself.
Anyone else close lately because of fees and monthly bill?

bri2327

On your My ebay page go to the " my account " section on the left, then click on subscriptions from there. I think it will show " active subscriptions "....just hit cancel it and you should be on your way. It is really simple, I closed mine 2 months ago when the fee increases kicked in.

storm888

A bunch of people have closed, and more will
close after the Christmas "rush."

Some of my friends and I - and most of my gypsy
family members - continue to open more stores.

Traffic is carpy but all of our stores continue to
break even or better. The used clothing stores
are still fortune builders.

Most of us got spoiled from 2001 to 2005, when
auctions still worked. I have had to put that out
of my mind in order to adjust to the new EBAY.

Now, I use a few cheap auctions to drive shoppers
into the stores. The tactic works, sometimes.

Collectible fevers run in cycles. I have been through
a bunch of those cycles. I just stick it out, until the
fevered buyers return - and they always do.

Right now, common cards are in the john. But,
some other types of collectibles are a tiny bit
hotter.

Most of the big money on EBAY is made far away
from the collectibles categories. I am not an EBAY
cheerleader, but I am still seeing people get on
their way to getting pretty well-off using their
stores in combo with other online efforts. None
of those people have anything to do with the
collectibles market.

While we are talking about this, I might as well
give my report on the other venues.

NOT one of them is worth carp, compared to the
currently crippled EBAY. Amazon and YAHOO blow
a few items out, but the NPB ratio is much higher
than it is on EBAY. WagPop, BluJay, etc. are not
productive. NO buyers means no sales, so cheap
or free rent is irrelevant.

B&M rent/expenses is around two-grand in places
that have even minimal traffic. Doing frequent shows
costs much more, but the sales can be great, or terrible.

Compared to all of the options, EBAY is still the only
cheap way to fly. It sure is demoralizing though to
see such carpy sell through rates.

One thing I have had good luck with is doing co-op
stores. If you get a few of your trusted friends in
the deal, you can all make a little bit. One person
get a reasonable extra slice for doing the
collections/disbursements. Everybody lists their
own stuff, sends invoices, and packs and ships.
At the end of the month, the disbursement guy
has to do all of the math and dump the associates
cash into their PayPal account or send a MO. The
disbursement guy takes about 10% and once he
gets the system down, it is not very much work;
just adding and subtracting. There are many EBAY
stores using this concept, but it only works if each
person is trustworthy, which sometimes you don't
know until you try it.

storm

milbroco

I closed mine also when the fee increased. I also never really had much in it. I have not much time to get items listed. I may start one again in a few months after my move.

tennesseebanker

I closed mine this week as well, after the increase, and pretty much hiding store listings making them harder and harder to find. I got tired of having to run auctions all the time to sell things from the store.

Griffins

I closed mine. I found I had a lot more sales on cheap listing days, and realized the store items just weren't as visible. Now I just fun fixed price listings when I've got a bunch of dupes, and 50-60% sell. The rest go back in the box for next time.

storm888

Anybody have any theory about whether or not
fewer stores will increase sales at remaining stores?

I don't think it will. In fact, if too many stores close,
the place may start to become the equivalent of
a partially deserted shopping center.

I wish there was a good solution, but there isn't.
Remaining stores will just have to play it where it
lies.

storm

Boopotts

<< <i>Anybody have any theory about whether or not
fewer stores will increase sales at remaining stores?

I don't think it will. In fact, if too many stores close,
the place may start to become the equivalent of
a partially deserted shopping center.

I wish there was a good solution, but there isn't.
Remaining stores will just have to play it where it
lies.

storm >>



I think the problem boils down to the fact that too many people don't understand how to run an Ebay store, and the result ends up working against all three parties involved-- Ebay, the consumer AND the store owner.

An Ebay store works best IMO when it's a place where a consumer can find REASONABLY PRICED items that are in at least moderate demand. And by reasonable I mean no higher than 20% above what the same item would likely sell for in an auction. Ebay stores do NOT work when you cut up 80 books of Red Foley baseball stickers and put each one in your 'store' for $1.25 plus $2 shipping. Or when you decide to go fishing and put up a lot of 2 1989 Donruss boxes for $59.99 plus shipping. All this stuff does is clutter results-- none of it ever sells. You can look at the feedbck profile of some of these guys who have 2,000 useless items in their store and you'll see they average around 3-5 sales a week.

Who would have guessed? There was no way for Ebay to know that there were this many lonely masturbators hanging out in their parents' basement with 12 hrs a day to spend doing nothing but listing $.75 items in an Ebay store. If they'd known this I bet they would have drastically altered the fee schedule in the beginning. As it stands I think we'll see Ebay trending towards higher listing fees for each item and lower FVF for store items in an attempt to clear out the clutter and get people to price stuff to MOVE.

sportcardsfanatics

I just reopened mine last week and have already sold 85.00 dollars from it in the past 3 days.

storm888

Pricing really is the key to sales.

When people ask me how to get their stuff sold, the
best answer I can give is to reduce the price. There
is a buyer for most stuff, at some price.

Problem is, many folks don't want to give their stuff
away too cheap. Most probably paid more for the
stuff than they can easily and quickly get back on
EBAY.

OTOH, history has shown that if you leave stuff in
a store long enough, somebody will come along
eventually and buy it. I use the stores as "retail"
venues and have no interest in selling stuff real
cheap; although, lots of my stuff is fairly cheap and
lots of it IS NOT.

Over time, I have found that the stores are great
for moving customers to off-line sales. I do way
more sales to people who I first sold something to
on EBAY, than I do to new EBAY customers. I send
emails letting my peeps know what I have and they
either buy it or not, but there are no EBAY fees.

Private portals work well too, for getting the 75%
FVF credit. Some portals pay for themselves in the
first month, or less. You can have one built for less
than $200.00, including the first-year's hosting.

Some people ask me why I spend money to send
buyers to my EBAY outlets. If you have the buyer,
why not just send them to your own full-service
web-site? That question usually comes from folks
who do not know what it really costs to set-up
and maintain a professional site that actually
works most of the time. I am going to open a
site soon, but I have no confidence that it is
going to be cheaper/better than EBAY. I do know
that it will not be easier than EBAY.


storm

tedh111

I sell modern cards, mostly autographed inserts and rookies...I still have my store, which has grown to a bit over 1800 items... it has not been effected too much by the listing fee increase, but it does cut into my profit a bit. I still do run some auctions, and they are definatly the traffic driver for an ebay store. You will definatly get higher prices in a store over time if you are patient. There are still plenty of buyers out there who like to buy things without having to wait for the auction to end. Ebay lately has gone down hill auction-wise, unless it is something very hot or very poplular and rare. I really dont even check auction prices as much because they really don't show the true market value especially on more common items. There are many many times that i will look through the completed listings and see items sell for less then i would have paid for them to then re-sell in my sotre or at shows or to customers. I think there are now so many variables that effect the ending prices of ebay auctions and i really do not seee it as a good thing for the business side of things if customers become to used to paying these prices...

NickM

If you have items to sell where shipping isn't disproportionate to the value of the item and are in no hurry to sell (i.e., you want retail), NAXCOM is a useful venue. The selling fee is higher than ebay, but NPBs are nonexistent and there's no listing fee - and there's an automatic "make an offer" feature for prospective buyers (you're not automatically emailed the offer unless it is within 25% of your listing price, but you can look at your list of items for sale and see the offers).

Nick

sportcardsfanatics

you're not automatically emailed the offer unless it is within 25% of your listing price, but you can look at your list of items for sale and see the offers

On Ebay you can set your best offers to automatically decline offers that are under X amount.

cardpool

It takes perseverance, a little cunning, a little creativity and probably a lot of luck.

gradeddream

i have nothing but sucess in my store. my sales are up 30%