simplyuniquebargains
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posted on March 9, 2004 09:51:09 AM new
I have been selling clothing on eBay and it hasn't been great. I am noticing only 1 bid on items ( I sell QVC closeouts...nice stuff). I even tried a few 99 cent auctions and again...only 1 bid. I can't even recoup my costs if there is no bidding frenzy because the market is satuated!!!
I think when my clothes are gone I am going to sell junk. This way if I get a 99 cent bid I already make money!!!
Any philosophical thoughts out there?
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bluroks
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posted on March 9, 2004 10:11:13 AM new
Same boat here. Way too many sellers now. Down to 40% avg sell thru rate and one bid and low profit. Dont list at $0.99 though. Thats all you will get! Put the price you want on it that way if only one bid, at least you will get the price you wanted. One word: SLOW!
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mitch3
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posted on March 9, 2004 10:24:54 AM new
Slow???......Not really......Just too many sellers and no buyers......
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fluffythewondercat
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posted on March 9, 2004 10:35:41 AM new
It's not that there are too many sellers. It's that there is too little demand.
Anyone see the February 26 Wall St Journal article (front page) entitled "As eBay Grows, Site Disappoints Some Big Vendors"?
It chronicled the demise of ReturnBuy Inc. and how many large companies have abandoned eBay. There simply wasn't enough demand to support the prices these corporations needed to achieve.
Motorola abandoned eBay entirely after making a couple of attempts to sell retail and wholesale. Now they have their own private auction system set up by a Vendio competitor. (Man, would I love to have my own private auction system I could funnel people into.)
How is this relevant to smaller sellers?
If you've got 50 sellers whose Victoria's Secret auctions total 18,000, that set of 18,000 auctions is as large or larger than the number of auctions Home Depot or Motorola tried to run. The bidders don't care that they are different sellers, it might as well all be the same company. The market is glutted, prices are depressed and no one makes money.
By the bye, Motorola cited the cost of having to deal with non-paying bidders as their major reason for leaving eBay. Do you think eBay heard them?
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auctionACE
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posted on March 9, 2004 10:40:24 AM new
Supply and demand, the supply is greater than the demand.
-------------- sig file ----------- *There is no conclusive evidence that life is serious*
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stopwhining
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posted on March 9, 2004 11:00:36 AM new
it is hard to shop for clothes from individual,
-sig file -------the lobster in the boiling pot of water who tries to prevent the others from climbing out.
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simplyuniquebargains
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posted on March 9, 2004 11:17:22 AM new
So glad to hear this...
Yes,
I will stop the 99 cent auctions.
When my inventory is gone, I am seriously going to rethink auctions...
So glad to hear it is not just me!!!
So..What does sell well on eBay or are all categories down?
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AintRichYet
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posted on March 9, 2004 11:44:03 AM new
Pardon the interruption, but I was just noticing from auctionbytes newletter this morning, they list the sell thru rate percentage for all ebay categories, and I 'took notice' that clothing has one of THE highest sell thru rates of all categories on ebay!!! .... whatdya say to that?
excerpted:
eBay Average Sell-Through for Week Ending March 6, 2004
All Categories - 41%
**************************
Antiques - 34%
Art - 21%
Books - 39%
Business & Industrial - 38%
Clothing, Shoes & Accessories - 43%
Coins - 61%
Collectibles - 38%
Computers - 36%
Consumer Electronics - 29%
Dolls & Bears - 44%
Entertainment - 37%
Everything Else - 40%
Home - 38%
Jewelry & Watches - 46%
Musical Instruments - 42%
Pottery & Glass - 44%
Real Estate - 49%
Specialty Services - 17%
Sports - 43%
Stamps - 50%
Tickets - 51%
Toys & Hobbies - 47%
Travel - 39%
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fluffythewondercat
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posted on March 9, 2004 11:54:28 AM new
Uh, no, that's Clothing, Shoes and Accessories.
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reamond
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posted on March 9, 2004 12:15:46 PM new
At these sell-through rates there should be a shake out of sellers pretty soon. You might as well figure that your listing fees are actually double at a 50% sell-through rate.
The only person making any money is eBay.
I am still looking for the first bona fide millionaire that earned it exclusively by selling on eBay. Thus far the only millionaires were the executives and stock optioned employees at eBay.
I am trying to think of any other business venue that didn't produce millionaires and had a long term success and can't think of one.
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parklane64
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posted on March 9, 2004 12:17:44 PM new
I understand the problem and believe I understand PART of the solution. Go suck eggs, eBay! This is just tooooo delish.
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auctionACE
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posted on March 9, 2004 12:18:13 PM new
Also, the categories selling rates look worse than they really are because 28% of all goods sold on ebay are sold with fixed prices so those items disappear when purchased except for the completed auction searches.
-------------- sig file ----------- *There is no conclusive evidence that life is serious*
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reamond
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posted on March 9, 2004 12:42:53 PM new
Are you sure the BINs aren't included ? The stats are compiled from closed auctions.
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reamond
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posted on March 9, 2004 12:50:29 PM new
The stats aren't from closed auctions. BINs will not show up.
"The sell-through statistics are calculated by sampling the "Going, going, gone..." pages for each category. The statistics currently do not account for auctions with no bids that are snapped at the last moment or for items that are bought with the "Buy It Now" option. Thus the numbers may be a little low."
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Roadsmith
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posted on March 9, 2004 12:56:01 PM new
How are selling rates affected when there are double listings? I almost always list in more than one category. So, if my two category sell-through rates are, say 30% and 40%. . . . would some mathematician please step in and help out here?
Fluffy: A friend sent me that same Wall Street Journal article, and I was thinking of posting it here in condensed form but didn't have the time to condense it. Thanks for mentioning it. I think it's very significant.
___________________________________
Have you noticed since everyone has a Camcorder these days no one talks
about seeing UFOs like they used to?
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reamond
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posted on March 9, 2004 02:40:34 PM new
It would appear that multi-category listings will appear in the stats from each category.
If the item sold and was listed in two categories, it would be show up as two sales, and if it didn't sell, it would show as two no sales.
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nharmon
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posted on March 9, 2004 04:14:33 PM new
say what ever happened to those ladies who sold high end clothing and shoes that were featured on Dateline or 20/20 or something like that and they had so much money in Ebay profits they bought matching houses...are they still selling I can't remember their user id's.
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stopwhining
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posted on March 9, 2004 04:21:42 PM new
2 years ago there is this lady who posted on this board looking for other sellers of high end designer clothes ,they sold to high bidders in eastern europe via billpoint and ate big time chargebacks in 4-5 figures.
she is looking for others to sue billpoint.
-sig file -------the lobster in the boiling pot of water who tries to prevent the others from climbing out.
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bob9585
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posted on March 11, 2004 10:46:03 PM new
I had to throw in my thoughts on this...
I dont think there are 2 many clothing sellers -I think there are too many sellers period AND too many crappy sellers. Bad pictures, no measurements, bad shipping terms, etc.
I sell a wide variety of stuff but all of it false loosely into the area of collectibles (despite the category it gets listed in)and I sold thru 75% of my last batch and EVERYTHING over $25 start. I sometimes take flyers on things and know going in that some of it may not sell- but I give it a shot at a $9.95 start. If I sell one, I'm even on 10, if I sell 2 I'm ahead and I usually sell 3 or 4 of the 10 "maybes".
Finally, I research things- it keeps me from making any big money because it takes time, but it amazes me how many people start with "I don't know anything aboout these.." don't describe them well and price them totally out of thin air, 3 or 4 times the going market, then wonder why they don't sell.
Of course, this also leads occasionally to a bargain, just bought a $35 Fenton bowl for $8 because it was described poorly, categorized wrong and had a picture that
gave just info to ID it if you knew what it was.
I guess it really means the sellers are as bad as the buyers....
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kiara
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posted on March 11, 2004 11:16:13 PM new
Hi nharmon,
The lady that was profiled on that show is now also selling Chihuahua/Yorkie dog sweaters (or trying to).
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neroter12
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posted on March 12, 2004 03:06:51 AM new
Kiara, that dog clothing catagory does great!! Have you seen the activity in it??
I always thought if I could sew, that would be a very promising enterprise.
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