Why Not? You've Tried Everything Else Right? So...

[laststopgeneralstore]

Why not try to source better in demand, high sell thru rate, quick selling, high ASP items?

Seriously though I really want to hear from the folks that are really struggling with sales that have done everything else to try and make sales better except for making a better more diligent effort at really honing in and looking for/researching items prior to picking them up and only choose the best ones and leave the rest behind.

I know I know... Let the flak come in and all the other things that people say about me....

I know I get a lot of flak for this but I was in the same spot as most of the sellers that talk about slow sales, are in. I once had a 3k+ active item store about a year or so ago and couldn't break 10 sales/day. Finally realized what I was doing wrong and fixed it.

Now selling clothing is very saturated but when you take away all the garbage that's listed, it's not saturated at all.  So I stopped buying items that didn't fit my specific terms and left the rest behind & focused on a sell thru rate of 70% or higher and an asp of $18-$20 + shipping Changed everything, literally, went from 3k+ active items averaging 5-7 sales/day to less than 1k items averaging 12 sales/day.

So, why not try it? Why not next time your out start looking for just 1 single item that will sell in less than a week for a really good profit and build off of that? They are out their so why not try it?

[sakic92710]

I sold it for way, way, way too cheap & all it got me was 4 bags of melted gummy bears.  😛

[ajs_coins_and_alchemy]

You basically spelled out my mantra. ..

Selling starts with buying. If your buying sucks, your selling will suck.

Reminds me of the old adage, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. 

You need to be flexible and able to pivot... whether it's pivoting away from something that's failing or pivoting into a new growth potential.

[yuzuha]

I sincerely doubt most people will do this. It requires them to sit down and take a cold, hard look at what they're selling/the prices and then adjust accordingly.

It's much easier to just say that everything is somehow eBay's fault, because then YOU don't actually have to do a thing.

[ajs_coins_and_alchemy]

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@yuzuha wrote:

I sincerely doubt most people will do this. It requires them to sit down and take a cold, hard look at what they're selling/the prices and then adjust accordingly.

It's much easier to just say that everything is somehow eBay's fault, because then YOU don't actually have to do a thing.

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@yuzuha

No...no....never ... No one would ever do such a thing. EBay sellers are so much better than that, we're all above that. They wouldn't dare come to the forum to make such claims. Blasphemy

[aldelbertmatthew]

Many of my clothing items DO have high sell through rates but are simply no longer selling on eBay. They somehw sell fine on other platforms. (ie. Rothy's, LuluLemon, Keens Sandals, True Religion, Figs, Levi's Silvertab Jeans, Mizzen + Main ect) These are brands or sub-brands with 60% or higher sellthrough rates. Some were above 90% until July 17th and a noticeable slowdown in sales began on eBay. I have vintage Polo Ralph Lauren pieces that are rare and desired such as heavy flannel jackets which normally sell year round regardless of weather. These are now sitting and I'm forced to cross-list.

There's also the matter of some sellers with heavy experience and tens of thousands of listings of varied goods/items that are having days of no sales or extremely limited views. That's clearly eBays fault as that's not normal what so ever.

[sakic92710]

I used to average 15-20 sales a week for most of 20 YEARS!!   Now I have difficulty getting 20 within 3 months & it's MY fault?   LOL

[cool.jewels.by.jeff]

Try whatever you want. The business model ebay is using is failing .  There are a few that pretend its everything but ebay.  Other sites are more stable

[aldelbertmatthew]

Yeah, this is exactly what I mean.

There's multiple sellers with a decade of experience or have literally been on eBay since it's inception who are suddenly facing the slowest sales they've ever seen on the platform within the last month. The platform is also experiencing an overwhelming amount of bugs, errors and listing related problems with people providing plenty of proof.

Telling them "It's what you're selling bro!" by sellers with half the experience or less coupled with hand-waving the site issues is outright insulting. If eBay doesn't get their acts together in the next couple of months, they're sticking their neck out for Poshmark to finish them off. Poshmark's at 80 million buyers and eBay's was around 158 million and losing a million every quarter.

All eBay has to do is fix the website to win. Not add a ton of AI garbage but just make the website functional.

[ajs_coins_and_alchemy]

@sakic92710 

YMMV

Also, if you have a legitimate issue and gripe, then you are in the right, but don't tell me you believe every complainer on this forum is completely not at fault and it's all EBay?

The old adage of "Be part of the solution, not the problem" comes to mind.

It is true, if something isn't working, try pivoting. I give you a lot more credence than others, don't tell me you take every single "complainer" seriously...

[daveighsells]

Thank you so much for your advice! I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and experience with selling saturated items. This is an encouraging post for someone who is just starting out.

[adkhighker]

Good advice, OP, but really the secret to making money in any buying and selling venture is to buy it right so you can flip it quick at a lower price than most anyone else and still make a profit.  Buying it right is the hard part, and it takes a lot of leg work to find the merch that you can buy right, but it's out there, and once you find it the selling part is easy. 

(This is not my selling ID)