Need to Learn How To Lose Money On E-Bay..Let me Teach You!!
thedutymon
Posts: 4,323 ✭
Evening/Morning,
Well lets put this in perspective, about a month ago E-Bay announced there new Store Costs. Before I was spending $15.99 a month plus .03 to .10 cents per listing. Actually 99.95 percent were .03 cents. So at that time I was up to 1400 listings, trying to get to 2000-2500. I was spending about $50-$55.00 per month on Listing costs. My average sale was in the $5-20 dollar range with quite a few as low as .99 cents and most in the $10-15 range. I was doing about $1500-$2000 per month in Gross sales. I was putting about $200-400 dollars into E-Bays pockets courtesy of my Buyers. This is not my living, just a way to defray the costs that I spend on cards. I am sending 100-150 packages out per week.
Thankfully most of what I had at that time listed in my store was already paid for, I had bought something (A Large Lot, Ect.) and sold the bulk of it to get my money back and put something into my collection at low cost. So over the last 4-5 weeks I have purposely reduced my inventory by 700 listings, I have done this by using the Business model that supposidly is the new norm for E-Bay Sellers like me. Most of the listings I reduced (98%) went from the $3-10 dollar range to a .99 cent auction start price. If added up at my previous Fixed price Store Sale price they would have been about in the $5-7K total sales price range. They of course would not have all sold at that price, but over time I was doing quite well and would have expected to see about 50-60% of my asking price across the board using previous sales as my barometer.
With E-Bays new .99 cents, Get er Done Auctions, after Listing Fees and Final Value Fees, I have netted about $400 dollars off of the previous stated $5-7 K sitting in my Store. I have sold previously great selling PSA cards (And Raw) that were a fair profit margin of about 50-200 percent above cost now sell for .99 cents to about $2.00, only a $5-10.00 loss per card after purchase of the card and cost to have it graded. And we are not talking about some POS modern card. This is for PSA 9/10 1970/80 Baseball/Football cards.
So lets Re-cap....Bottom Line...Sales have disappeared unless you count on selling .99 cents cards as Yeehah!!
I am about to start paying $49.95 per month for the base cost for my Store, plus .05 per listing, which I am attempting to get to about 500 listings. I am moving my average Store Sales item listing from the $5-10 range up to about $15-25 range, by consolidating cards into lots and other strategy's.
Previously when I only had 300-500 listings I actually went sometimes days without a Sale, when I went to 1200-1500 I was seeing 10-15 sales per day. Over the last 6 months I had seen Sales steadily rising to the neihborhood of $2-3 K per month. In the last month they have sunk to $700 (Not counting a 10K side Off E-Bay deal I made).
So E-Bays new model is in my opinion about to give me one more year of survival, that is all I am going to commit to this venture, $1200, about what I am going to spend on Store Costs and Listing Fees. If you multiply this by the tens of thousands of small time Sellers like me across the board who are done or close to being done, are the thousands of Anchor's at $300 per month going to make up for the loss of us. I don't know the answer to this, perhaps, perhaps not.
Just the musings of a Disatisfied Customer!!!
Move on
Thanks
Neil
Well lets put this in perspective, about a month ago E-Bay announced there new Store Costs. Before I was spending $15.99 a month plus .03 to .10 cents per listing. Actually 99.95 percent were .03 cents. So at that time I was up to 1400 listings, trying to get to 2000-2500. I was spending about $50-$55.00 per month on Listing costs. My average sale was in the $5-20 dollar range with quite a few as low as .99 cents and most in the $10-15 range. I was doing about $1500-$2000 per month in Gross sales. I was putting about $200-400 dollars into E-Bays pockets courtesy of my Buyers. This is not my living, just a way to defray the costs that I spend on cards. I am sending 100-150 packages out per week.
Thankfully most of what I had at that time listed in my store was already paid for, I had bought something (A Large Lot, Ect.) and sold the bulk of it to get my money back and put something into my collection at low cost. So over the last 4-5 weeks I have purposely reduced my inventory by 700 listings, I have done this by using the Business model that supposidly is the new norm for E-Bay Sellers like me. Most of the listings I reduced (98%) went from the $3-10 dollar range to a .99 cent auction start price. If added up at my previous Fixed price Store Sale price they would have been about in the $5-7K total sales price range. They of course would not have all sold at that price, but over time I was doing quite well and would have expected to see about 50-60% of my asking price across the board using previous sales as my barometer.
With E-Bays new .99 cents, Get er Done Auctions, after Listing Fees and Final Value Fees, I have netted about $400 dollars off of the previous stated $5-7 K sitting in my Store. I have sold previously great selling PSA cards (And Raw) that were a fair profit margin of about 50-200 percent above cost now sell for .99 cents to about $2.00, only a $5-10.00 loss per card after purchase of the card and cost to have it graded. And we are not talking about some POS modern card. This is for PSA 9/10 1970/80 Baseball/Football cards.
So lets Re-cap....Bottom Line...Sales have disappeared unless you count on selling .99 cents cards as Yeehah!!
I am about to start paying $49.95 per month for the base cost for my Store, plus .05 per listing, which I am attempting to get to about 500 listings. I am moving my average Store Sales item listing from the $5-10 range up to about $15-25 range, by consolidating cards into lots and other strategy's.
Previously when I only had 300-500 listings I actually went sometimes days without a Sale, when I went to 1200-1500 I was seeing 10-15 sales per day. Over the last 6 months I had seen Sales steadily rising to the neihborhood of $2-3 K per month. In the last month they have sunk to $700 (Not counting a 10K side Off E-Bay deal I made).
So E-Bays new model is in my opinion about to give me one more year of survival, that is all I am going to commit to this venture, $1200, about what I am going to spend on Store Costs and Listing Fees. If you multiply this by the tens of thousands of small time Sellers like me across the board who are done or close to being done, are the thousands of Anchor's at $300 per month going to make up for the loss of us. I don't know the answer to this, perhaps, perhaps not.
Just the musings of a Disatisfied Customer!!!
Move on
Thanks
Neil
Actually Collect Non Sport, but am just so full of myself I post all over the place !!!!!!!
0
Comments
I'm sorry to hear you story.
Adam
and the beat goes on..........
eBay Security Vulnerabilities Found by Researcher
By: Brian Prince
2010-02-17
eBay is working to patch a cross-site request forgery vulnerability recently uncovered by a security researcher. The Avnet researcher also discovered cross-site scripting and blind SQL injection bugs in eBay's online auction site, which eBay has fixed.
eBay is working on a fix for a cross-site request forgery problem that could allow an attacker to change a user's password and get access to that user's account.
The vulnerability is one of several affecting eBay that were recently uncovered and shared with eWEEK by Nir Goldshlager, a researcher with Avnet Information Security Consulting. Among the vulnerabilities are cross-site scripting bugs in the eBay Live Help support page and eBay To Go, which the company fixed by validating user input. In addition, Goldshlager uncovered a blind SQL injection problem in the eBay donations Website.
All of the vulnerabilities have been patched except the CSRF (cross-site request forgery) flaw. According to Chad Greene, eBay's senior manager of global information security, the company has pushed code to the core site to measure the impact of potential fixes for the CSRF problem on the user and will make a decision about how to address the situation in the next three weeks.
"The nature of CSRF means that there isn't a single fix that can be applied in all cases and rolling out the wrong fix could break legitimate user functionality," Greene told eWEEK in an e-mail.
According to Goldshlager, who demonstrated a proof-of-concept attack, the CSRF vulnerability can be exploited to ultimately get control of a user's account.
"When the victim visits my malicious Website I can change his password ... to any password I choose," Goldshlager explained. "I can change the user's password because I am in control of changing his primary phone and personal information details in his eBay account. An attacker can [also] change the secret question [and] answer with the cross-site request forgery vulnerability. Then he can renew the password of the user by using the 'forget password' mechanism."
In an interview, Greene said users can report any security issues they find to eBay's security center, and the site works with members of the research community to uncover any vulnerabilities.
"We work with many members of the security community as well as the security industry … we like to do community outreach and educate the user base," Greene said.
30
result in more work for the sellers to increase their supply/stock?
to save some cents?
maybe I am missing something...
but dont you want to get away from the low dollar sales and get into the $25 + sales and increase those prices slightly?
Looking for 1970 MLB Photostamps
- uncut
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As a buyer I find it just as annoying. It seems that fixed-price listings or ridiculously high buy-it-nows dominate sell listings. Few run a true auction anymore.
Maybe the good ol' fashioned card show will slowly make a return.
BTW, always enjoys reading your thoughful posts Dutymon.....keep up the good work.
Eyebone
i would never start anything at .99 cents that i could put up as a buy it now and sell for $10. These days the risk is too high that it will sell at .99 cents.
you may end up making a bit less but doing higher priced listings will save you time in the end. it looks like you are mailing over 400-600 packages out per month for $1500-2k per month in sales. that seems to be a lot of packages fof the sales amount.
my main concern with the new system is that all listings will appear together. it will be a nightmare to sort thru items. I only do store listings and was fine with my listings appearing at the bottom with other stores. customers seemed to have no problem finding them.
There are sellers who continue to do well with auctions (klinger, apple383, waverly, etc), but they frequently put out high grade set breaks that attract a lot of attention. There are undoubtedly a lot of buyers who have their auctions bookmarked for that reason. Those sellers do get upper end prices for their cards and they get them quick, but it would take a LOT of time/work to build that kind of following.
<< <i>I sell very little on e-bay anymore. Just too many hassles (with the "process", not buyers) and getting costlier all the time, it seems.
As a buyer I find it just as annoying. It seems that fixed-price listings or ridiculously high buy-it-nows dominate sell listings. Few run a true auction anymore.
Maybe the good ol' fashioned card show will slowly make a return.
BTW, always enjoys reading your thoughful posts Dutymon.....keep up the good work.
Eyebone >>
What, you don't want to hit a $200 BIN for a PSA 9 1969 #7 league leader card that sells all day long at $12?
Edited to add - I don't see card shows making a return any time soon. I just attended the San Jose show yesterday. It was busy for autographs but for cards, it was dead as a doornail.
I just shut my store down and gave up. I had quite a few regular buyers that would buy a card or two every month and was finally starting to get a little extra traffic do to my feedback and best matches.
I have to assume there will be hundreds if not thousands of small sellers like me and Neil that will eventually close their eBay stores.
Thanks,
David (LD_Ferg)
1985 Topps Football (starting in psa 8) - #9 - started 05/21/06
<< <i>I was in about the same position as Neil. I sold a lot of items in the $10-15 range that probably would have sold for $0.99 or not at all if I listed them as regular 7-day auctions. You can afford to list a $15 card in a store for 6 months and wait on that one buyer that is looking for that particular card for the same listing fee as a $0.99 auciton. At least you could until the store prices changed.
I just shut my store down and gave up. I had quite a few regular buyers that would buy a card or two every month and was finally starting to get a little extra traffic do to my feedback and best matches.
I have to assume there will be hundreds if not thousands of small sellers like me and Neil that will eventually close their eBay stores. >>
This looks like fuzzy math by you and Neil. Let's recap: In the old system you spent $15 a month, and paid $.03 to list (and for some listings paid more). In the new system, if I understand it right, you will spend $50 a month, and $.05 to list. If you had 1500 items listed in the old system, your total fixed costs would be $15 +.03(1500), which =$60. In the new system your fixed costs would be $50 +.05(1500), or $125.
That's a $65 increase. It's substantial, but it's not (or shouldn't be) a backbreaker. And if I'm reading Neil's post correctly, he just sacrificed $6K in future sales so he could save $60 a month.
Again- I realize I might have read this wrong. But if my assessment is correct, then Neil-- and yourself, assuming you had a significant number of listings up-- have basically put 3-5K in the toilet and flushed the handle.
<< <i>Just gonna add - one of the most successful ebay card stores I've seen is vintagerookies, and it seems like every time ebay makes a change, it's a change that pushes sellers in the direction that he already took. Most everything he sells is higher end AND appeals to a wide market. His sales and turnaround are consistently better than similar sized stores who either carry lower end cards or cards that only interest a few people. (And, yeah, I know some of them are bccg graded, we've covered that enough already. He gets good prices for his psa/sgc/bvg stuff too.) >>
This is a good point, but it's also worth noting that VR carries about a six figure inventory.
<< <i>
<< <i>I was in about the same position as Neil. I sold a lot of items in the $10-15 range that probably would have sold for $0.99 or not at all if I listed them as regular 7-day auctions. You can afford to list a $15 card in a store for 6 months and wait on that one buyer that is looking for that particular card for the same listing fee as a $0.99 auciton. At least you could until the store prices changed.
I just shut my store down and gave up. I had quite a few regular buyers that would buy a card or two every month and was finally starting to get a little extra traffic do to my feedback and best matches.
I have to assume there will be hundreds if not thousands of small sellers like me and Neil that will eventually close their eBay stores. >>
This looks like fuzzy math by you and Neil. Let's recap: In the old system you spent $15 a month, and paid $.03 to list (and for some listings paid more). In the new system, if I understand it right, you will spend $50 a month, and $.05 to list. If you had 1500 items listed in the old system, your total fixed costs would be $15 +.03(1500), which =$60. In the new system your fixed costs would be $50 +.05(1500), or $125.
That's a $65 increase. It's substantial, but it's not (or shouldn't be) a backbreaker. And if I'm reading Neil's post correctly, he just sacrificed $6K in future sales so he could save $60 a month.
Again- I realize I might have read this wrong. But if my assessment is correct, then Neil-- and yourself, assuming you had a significant number of listings up-- have basically put 3-5K in the toilet and flushed the handle. >>
That is how I perceived it as well. He stopped listing as many items to pay less up-front fees, which in turn lowered his sales. It was his decision to have less listings.
<< <i>Evening/Morning,
Well lets put this in perspective, about a month ago E-Bay announced there new Store Costs. Before I was spending $15.99 a month plus .03 to .10 cents per listing. Actually 99.95 percent were .03 cents. So at that time I was up to 1400 listings, trying to get to 2000-2500. I was spending about $50-$55.00 per month on Listing costs. My average sale was in the $5-20 dollar range with quite a few as low as .99 cents and most in the $10-15 range. I was doing about $1500-$2000 per month in Gross sales. I was putting about $200-400 dollars into E-Bays pockets courtesy of my Buyers. This is not my living, just a way to defray the costs that I spend on cards. I am sending 100-150 packages out per week.
Thankfully most of what I had at that time listed in my store was already paid for, I had bought something (A Large Lot, Ect.) and sold the bulk of it to get my money back and put something into my collection at low cost. So over the last 4-5 weeks I have purposely reduced my inventory by 700 listings, I have done this by using the Business model that supposidly is the new norm for E-Bay Sellers like me. Most of the listings I reduced (98%) went from the $3-10 dollar range to a .99 cent auction start price. If added up at my previous Fixed price Store Sale price they would have been about in the $5-7K total sales price range. They of course would not have all sold at that price, but over time I was doing quite well and would have expected to see about 50-60% of my asking price across the board using previous sales as my barometer.
With E-Bays new .99 cents, Get er Done Auctions, after Listing Fees and Final Value Fees, I have netted about $400 dollars off of the previous stated $5-7 K sitting in my Store. I have sold previously great selling PSA cards (And Raw) that were a fair profit margin of about 50-200 percent above cost now sell for .99 cents to about $2.00, only a $5-10.00 loss per card after purchase of the card and cost to have it graded. And we are not talking about some POS modern card. This is for PSA 9/10 1970/80 Baseball/Football cards.
So lets Re-cap....Bottom Line...Sales have disappeared unless you count on selling .99 cents cards as Yeehah!!
I am about to start paying $49.95 per month for the base cost for my Store, plus .05 per listing, which I am attempting to get to about 500 listings. I am moving my average Store Sales item listing from the $5-10 range up to about $15-25 range, by consolidating cards into lots and other strategy's.
Previously when I only had 300-500 listings I actually went sometimes days without a Sale, when I went to 1200-1500 I was seeing 10-15 sales per day. Over the last 6 months I had seen Sales steadily rising to the neihborhood of $2-3 K per month. In the last month they have sunk to $700 (Not counting a 10K side Off E-Bay deal I made).
So E-Bays new model is in my opinion about to give me one more year of survival, that is all I am going to commit to this venture, $1200, about what I am going to spend on Store Costs and Listing Fees. If you multiply this by the tens of thousands of small time Sellers like me across the board who are done or close to being done, are the thousands of Anchor's at $300 per month going to make up for the loss of us. I don't know the answer to this, perhaps, perhaps not.
Just the musings of a Disatisfied Customer!!!
Move on
Thanks
Neil >>
Yeah, I am right there with you in numbers and thinking for the most part. I was closing in on 1700 items. First thing I did was dropped about 250 of the lowest priced items. Last week I was combining auctions logical to combine, low graded cards in player or set lots. Without looking I think I am around 1250 in auctions now...and will likely hang around there-slight grow.
The last month has been weird. More days with no sales, but overall sales about normal. It finally gave me a discount so that helped...my numbers said I should have had one for a few months. I did score several cool cards at decent prices...but that is fairly normal as well.
I am still hopeful the change will help or be a break even. Hopefully the changes I have/will make is helping.
Let's hope the coming changes are less.
Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
<< <i>
<< <i>Just gonna add - one of the most successful ebay card stores I've seen is vintagerookies, and it seems like every time ebay makes a change, it's a change that pushes sellers in the direction that he already took. Most everything he sells is higher end AND appeals to a wide market. His sales and turnaround are consistently better than similar sized stores who either carry lower end cards or cards that only interest a few people. (And, yeah, I know some of them are bccg graded, we've covered that enough already. He gets good prices for his psa/sgc/bvg stuff too.) >>
This is a good point, but it's also worth noting that VR carries about a six figure inventory. >>
but it what's inside that inventory that matters.....six figures on paper means nothing unless there is a measure of flexibility within it which allows the seller to pick and choose based on the health of the current market.....it also helps to already have a lot of good stuff at your disposal, or be one helluva smart buyer.
a good question to ask would be: How much does a seller like this need to invest in order to have a six figure inventory?
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>I was in about the same position as Neil. I sold a lot of items in the $10-15 range that probably would have sold for $0.99 or not at all if I listed them as regular 7-day auctions. You can afford to list a $15 card in a store for 6 months and wait on that one buyer that is looking for that particular card for the same listing fee as a $0.99 auciton. At least you could until the store prices changed.
I just shut my store down and gave up. I had quite a few regular buyers that would buy a card or two every month and was finally starting to get a little extra traffic do to my feedback and best matches.
I have to assume there will be hundreds if not thousands of small sellers like me and Neil that will eventually close their eBay stores. >>
This looks like fuzzy math by you and Neil. Let's recap: In the old system you spent $15 a month, and paid $.03 to list (and for some listings paid more). In the new system, if I understand it right, you will spend $50 a month, and $.05 to list. If you had 1500 items listed in the old system, your total fixed costs would be $15 +.03(1500), which =$60. In the new system your fixed costs would be $50 +.05(1500), or $125.
That's a $65 increase. It's substantial, but it's not (or shouldn't be) a backbreaker. And if I'm reading Neil's post correctly, he just sacrificed $6K in future sales so he could save $60 a month.
Again- I realize I might have read this wrong. But if my assessment is correct, then Neil-- and yourself, assuming you had a significant number of listings up-- have basically put 3-5K in the toilet and flushed the handle. >>
That is how I perceived it as well. He stopped listing as many items to pay less up-front fees, which in turn lowered his sales. It was his decision to have less listings. >>
It depends on how well the lower dollar items were selling. The 25% I cut, mostly wasnt cut out, but rearranged and most was the stuff not really moving. I did leave several low dollar auctions that sell running.
Low dolllar items that barely move have to be cut out....but other then that one should not do much changes I think...until we see more of what will be the norm. Remeber the changes just started.
Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
If we were to assume someone like Neil and myself were not new eBayers....then I think a person should have that right now. Meaning if you have been working eBay for a few years and do not, then perhaps this is a good round figure to use to say...it is not working for you.
Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
<< <i>unless your selling the same exact item your figures are going to be off according to buyers buying trends, like whos hot and whos not,,, when you get a group in to sell out individually you would literally have to decipher what each item would bring in and estimated bottom line price as opposed to putting the good stuff up this month and dribble down to the commons stuff, so unless you sell one item only you cannot say, i lost money this month , made money that month,,,,, bj >>
I disagree. I have been doing this a long time and my numbers have been very consistant the last 6 months.
Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
The more I think about it, maybe another company needs to pick up where ebay left us five years ago.
To be honest, no direction, but...
1966-69 Topps EX+
1975 minis NrMt Kelloggs PSA 9
All Topps Heritage-Master Sets
if you look at increases in cable bills, phone bills, power bills, property taxes, the sales tax in my state, price of gas - everything is much more today than it was 5 years ago. it's still a bargain to sell on ebay - even with the paypal and ebay fees.
<< <i>if you look at increases in cable bills, phone bills, power bills, property taxes, the sales tax in my state, price of gas - everything is much more today than it was 5 years ago. it's still a bargain to sell on ebay - even with the paypal and ebay fees. >>
interesting perspective....my health insurance premium rates are potentially headed up another 39%.....i guess eBay/PayPal appears to be a bargain.
Listing Counts
February 21, 2010 1:00 pm
eBay 39,644,038 +377299
eCrater 2,985,994 +20709
Bonanzle 2,721,604 +18070
.....................
..............................
When the "change" is fully implemented, EBAY's listing counts should
be over 100,000,000+ at all times. (The counting method will change
to include items that were previously listed in stores.)
In the time it takes to refresh your screen - in many categories - page
one will be on page TEN.
Titles and Item-Specifics will be more critical than ever.
............
It's a good time to start your own website AND invest in YOUR biznez
instead of EBAY's.
..
The Challenge of Attracting Shoppers to Your Online Store
By Jeff Gawronski
AuctionBytes.com
February 21, 2010
The Challenge of Attracting Shoppers to Your Online Store......
I have a retail website, but where are all the customers?
For online merchants that have made the leap from eBay, Amazon, Etsy and other marketplaces to having their own online storefront, the potential can seem limitless. And it is! Whether you make the world your marketplace or you decide to focus on domestic customers, having your own online retail store is exciting. By having your own store, your business feels real, and you've turned a major entrepreneurial corner. You may still sell your products on other sites, but with your own web site comes a pride of ownership, business cards, and customers who come specifically to browse and shop for your stuff.
But once the opening day excitement of a new store dwindles, almost all independent online merchants ask the same questions. Where are all the visitors? Customers? Shoppers?
This brief panic is completely normal. Even the most seasoned of online entrepreneurs launch their website with an over-sized amount of optimism. With dreams of customers waiting to beat down your online doors, the disappointment when it doesn't happen immediately can be a great deflator. Your optimism is what helped propel you to create your own website in the first place, and without it, your storefront may not have come to fruition. Because this initial excitement and optimism was needed to get you this far, don't be too hard on yourself when your sales are far lower than you expected. Instead of feeling hopeless, turn yourself into an online marketing expert.
Marketing Your Online Retail Store
The nice thing about being a small online retailer is that your marketing options are limited. This is a positive fact because it truly allows you to focus. Your focus will be critical in gaining customers and increasing sales.
The top 5 budget-minded ways to get noticed are:
Search engine pay-per-click & organic clicks
PR and Media-generated publicity (Blogs, Newspapers, TV, etc)
Social networking (Twitter, Facebook etc)
Affiliates and paid ads (Links on other websites)
Content & products (Creates return customers and viral referrals)
Focus on Search Engines First
There are two different ways to get located within a search engine. These ways are known as "organic" and "paid."
Organic is free, and search engines place your website according to the words and content on your site. The computerized scan of your site determines your store's relevance and where you should be listed within a given search word or phrase. On what search engine page your site is listed can be manipulated and worked on through a process known as search engine optimization. This can be a long process, and even seasoned professionals can't guarantee your website top placement. It should be on your long-term marketing plan, but the need for immediate sales will demand that you focus on "paid search."
Without a doubt, the most instant and most self-controllable way to gain customers is through paid search, which is also known as Search Engine PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns. Almost everyone uses search engines to locate what they are looking for, and a paid search campaign can get your web store accessible to thousands of potential customers daily. Paid search places your store's ads either in the top 1-3 positions or in the right-hand side column. Creating a campaign to appear on page one of search results will be paramount to your online success.
How to Create?
If terms like PPC are foreign to you, it is easy to feel that creating a paid search campaign is too hard or too difficult to create yourself. Although honing your search campaign to create optimal sales (highest sales at the lowest cost) may take a professional's assistance, the fact is, starting a campaign can be done by anybody and should first be attempted on your own.
Start with Google, as they hold the largest search market share. Go to adwords.google.com and follow the prompts. Google literally walks you through the entire process. You can create your own ads, create keywords and select the amount you are willing to spend per click and per day. There is no limit to the number of ads you can create or the keywords you can use.
Trial and error costs you nothing, and if you dedicate enough time and energy, paid search can be a sure fire way to increase customers and sales.
What Are You Waiting For?
Go get started! Customers are trying to search for your products on Google, Yahoo and Bing right now! Get your campaign started so they know you exist and shop with you instead of your competitor.
Once you get started check back in with AuctionBytes as there will be a follow up article, "Two Tips for a More Profitable Google Adwords Campaign." But before you need the tips of the best tweaks for a solid paid search campaign, you first need to get started, so get out there and create your campaigns!
30
<< <i> I just attended the San Jose show yesterday. It was busy for autographs but for cards, it was dead as a doornail. >>
If you think that was slow, you should have been there Friday night. It was an empty airplane hangar.
http://www.unisquare.com/store/brick/
Ralph
<< <i>
<< <i>I was in about the same position as Neil. I sold a lot of items in the $10-15 range that probably would have sold for $0.99 or not at all if I listed them as regular 7-day auctions. You can afford to list a $15 card in a store for 6 months and wait on that one buyer that is looking for that particular card for the same listing fee as a $0.99 auciton. At least you could until the store prices changed.
I just shut my store down and gave up. I had quite a few regular buyers that would buy a card or two every month and was finally starting to get a little extra traffic do to my feedback and best matches.
I have to assume there will be hundreds if not thousands of small sellers like me and Neil that will eventually close their eBay stores. >>
This looks like fuzzy math by you and Neil. Let's recap: In the old system you spent $15 a month, and paid $.03 to list (and for some listings paid more). In the new system, if I understand it right, you will spend $50 a month, and $.05 to list. If you had 1500 items listed in the old system, your total fixed costs would be $15 +.03(1500), which =$60. In the new system your fixed costs would be $50 +.05(1500), or $125.
That's a $65 increase. It's substantial, but it's not (or shouldn't be) a backbreaker. And if I'm reading Neil's post correctly, he just sacrificed $6K in future sales so he could save $60 a month.
Again- I realize I might have read this wrong. But if my assessment is correct, then Neil-- and yourself, assuming you had a significant number of listings up-- have basically put 3-5K in the toilet and flushed the handle. >>
Boo,
Right and Wrong,
Sure I did sacrafice a lot of stuff just to clear Inventory. But basically it was forced on me. And I used the excuse to clear out all the stuff that hadn't moved in a year or so, so those 200 or so items needed to go anyway, this was just the motivation. I had a lot of items that sold in the $1-4 dollar range say, and when a customer won an aucttion, they would shop and find several other items to buy. I was getting to where a lot of my regulars were buying 3-8 items at once to combine on shipping. But now I don't want to pay .05 cents per month for hundreds and hundreds (Closer to 1000) low dollar items that aren't selling. In a small sense it is forcing on me a step up in the business plan over time. I always knew that when I started this Store thing that in time (3-5 years) I would have to move out of the low low dollar stuff and get onto the more $10-$100 dollar range. Now it appears if I am to succeed I will need to accelerate that pace.
I think, at least for myself, part of the problem right now is of course the economy, and I am just seeing way to many auctions selling for the .99 cent sarting bids. And I am pissed about several other changes that this will affect with my stuff. My Wife and I had just come to an agreement a couple of months ago to get rid of my 10,000-15,000 volume paperback book collection over time (A hold over from my Comic Book Business). I refused to just dump them, but agreed if I could sell it through my store I would get a couple of thosuand listed and take it from there. So of course just two weeks before the E-Bay changes I start listing them, get the first couple of hundred up and start selling them and Bam...E-Bay changes. It really makes no sense to list Books at $1.00-$2.00 each and pay .05 cents per month per book. Just won't do it, so that is down the toilet. Checked into the Amazon thing, and they are just way too expensive, charging over $1-$1.35 for each paperback sold.
So I am not saying that I am folding and walking away, I am going to give this the old college try. I will be right at about 500 listings on Mar 30th, am going to continue to clear out inventory, even when I get massacred, some stuff just doesn't combine, or makes less sense when combined, ect. And of course there is always the E-Bay variable of no matter what, you can never figure what will sell and when or why!!
Bottom line with something like this is, that for most of us this is not a Livelyhood, but some of us miss what E-bay began as, a venue for people to connect to transfer ownership of Used, Collectible, Not Needed, stuff sitting around. The on-line Garage sale. That's how I got sucked in 12 years ago and what I used it for until my store about a year and a half ago, so I am part of the natural progression that I don't much care for
YeeHah
Thanks all for the answers!!
Neil
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>I was in about the same position as Neil. I sold a lot of items in the $10-15 range that probably would have sold for $0.99 or not at all if I listed them as regular 7-day auctions. You can afford to list a $15 card in a store for 6 months and wait on that one buyer that is looking for that particular card for the same listing fee as a $0.99 auciton. At least you could until the store prices changed.
I just shut my store down and gave up. I had quite a few regular buyers that would buy a card or two every month and was finally starting to get a little extra traffic do to my feedback and best matches.
I have to assume there will be hundreds if not thousands of small sellers like me and Neil that will eventually close their eBay stores. >>
This looks like fuzzy math by you and Neil. Let's recap: In the old system you spent $15 a month, and paid $.03 to list (and for some listings paid more). In the new system, if I understand it right, you will spend $50 a month, and $.05 to list. If you had 1500 items listed in the old system, your total fixed costs would be $15 +.03(1500), which =$60. In the new system your fixed costs would be $50 +.05(1500), or $125.
That's a $65 increase. It's substantial, but it's not (or shouldn't be) a backbreaker. And if I'm reading Neil's post correctly, he just sacrificed $6K in future sales so he could save $60 a month.
Again- I realize I might have read this wrong. But if my assessment is correct, then Neil-- and yourself, assuming you had a significant number of listings up-- have basically put 3-5K in the toilet and flushed the handle. >>
Boo,
Right and Wrong,
Sure I did sacrafice a lot of stuff just to clear Inventory. But basically it was forced on me. And I used the excuse to clear out all the stuff that hadn't moved in a year or so, so those 200 or so items needed to go anyway, this was just the motivation. I had a lot of items that sold in the $1-4 dollar range say, and when a customer won an aucttion, they would shop and find several other items to buy. I was getting to where a lot of my regulars were buying 3-8 items at once to combine on shipping. But now I don't want to pay .05 cents per month for hundreds and hundreds (Closer to 1000) low dollar items that aren't selling. In a small sense it is forcing on me a step up in the business plan over time. I always knew that when I started this Store thing that in time (3-5 years) I would have to move out of the low low dollar stuff and get onto the more $10-$100 dollar range. Now it appears if I am to succeed I will need to accelerate that pace.
I think, at least for myself, part of the problem right now is of course the economy, and I am just seeing way to many auctions selling for the .99 cent sarting bids. And I am pissed about several other changes that this will affect with my stuff. My Wife and I had just come to an agreement a couple of months ago to get rid of my 10,000-15,000 volume paperback book collection over time (A hold over from my Comic Book Business). I refused to just dump them, but agreed if I could sell it through my store I would get a couple of thosuand listed and take it from there. So of course just two weeks before the E-Bay changes I start listing them, get the first couple of hundred up and start selling them and Bam...E-Bay changes. It really makes no sense to list Books at $1.00-$2.00 each and pay .05 cents per month per book. Just won't do it, so that is down the toilet. Checked into the Amazon thing, and they are just way too expensive, charging over $1-$1.35 for each paperback sold.
So I am not saying that I am folding and walking away, I am going to give this the old college try. I will be right at about 500 listings on Mar 30th, am going to continue to clear out inventory, even when I get massacred, some stuff just doesn't combine, or makes less sense when combined, ect. And of course there is always the E-Bay variable of no matter what, you can never figure what will sell and when or why!!
Bottom line with something like this is, that for most of us this is not a Livelyhood, but some of us miss what E-bay began as, a venue for people to connect to transfer ownership of Used, Collectible, Not Needed, stuff sitting around. The on-line Garage sale. That's how I got sucked in 12 years ago and what I used it for until my store about a year and a half ago, so I am part of the natural progression that I don't much care for
YeeHah
Thanks all for the answers!!
Neil >>
Neil, I think you've totally overestimated the effect that an extra $.02 in a monthly listing fee for a particular item will have on your profit margin.
For your books, have you tried listing them on Amazon or half.com? I don't sell books but I now that it is free to list them on half and all you have to do is enter the isdn number and the condition and your price. Simple as that. If you go the Amazon route, you can actually ship all your books to Amazon and they store them for you, and ship them as you sell them. They charge an inventory fee but I think it was pretty reasonable.
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