posted on December 11, 2001 03:04:13 PM new
I don't think it matters how many listings there are...how many close with a winner, better yet, how many close at a fair price? That's what's important to me!
In my categories, we have no shortage of listings. My main category is one of the largest categories on Yahoo. Has been for almost 6 months now. Mostly due to 2 big time sellers. We had 14,000+ items listed in 1 particular sub-category at 10:00PST this morning! It was 11,000+ Sunday at the same time. What we lack is bidders willing to pay a fair price. In my categories if you have items below $25 you can sell them most of the time. If you have them above that...forget it. I have to be able to sell a new product cheaper than Wallmart!!!!
The sell-through in my largest category appears to be less than 5%! How do I determine that??? I keep track daily of number of listings. Then I check closed auctions which only show those that sell with a winner. I compare the two. It's not scientific, but I believe it is a pretty good indicator. Then I pick the hour, in what I consider the peak selling period, of 20:00-21:00PST and track auctions closing within that hour to see how many have bids. Easy enough to do. If you do that daily, you sorta have a "revelation" about what's really going on or not going on at Yahoo. You have to step back and look at the big picture: you will always have those that do very well, you will also have those that never do very well. What I'm concerned with is all those in the middle.....
On the upside: my auctions don't seem to do any worse than anybody elses in the categories I list in so it's NOT just me! That's what keeps me trying I guess...that and the fact I don't earn my living this way. For me it's a hobby I enjoy.
Besides everything else, miracles do happen....
To be fair, I have seen a similar trend on eBay. Unfortunately, if you don't sell highly sought after collectibles or have a nitch item, you may find the auction sites, all auction sites, becoming "super discount" venues dominated by "mass-merchants" or "liquidators". That's just my personal observation. I hope I am wrong.
posted on December 11, 2001 04:35:56 PM new
When yahoo had over 2 million auctions I did very well. You will not get that many buyers again until the listings go up. The more listings the more sales its that simple. It is going to take some patience on our part, but it will get better. I can list an item on yahoo 60 days for the price of one week on ebay. Hang in there it is only a matter of time before the listings go way up again......and sales too!
posted on December 11, 2001 06:30:30 PM new
I wish I could list for 60days!
Unfortunately I sell items in the $39-$100 range with the bulk at $55-$69 and due to the nature of what I sell, I must feature it or I receive 0 views. I have found without featuring high enough to get in the top 5 pages I had absolutely 0 page views!
I am apparently not the only one who has noticed this. As of today, to show up in the top 3 pages of my category I would have to bid higher than $13.86 PER DAY! There are currently 200+ items showing $13.86 as the bid price for featuring. Most are from the same seller who will do well to close 5% of their auctions with a bid and they might close with a price of $25.00!!!! I still have not figured out what's going on there except that they must not be using REAL MONEY! I don't see any "business" spending $97-138.60 (not counting listing fees) to make $25.00 ( if their lucky) ! I figure Yahoo has made them some sort of deal since they keep 300+ auctions going. I can't afford to do that and I don't think it very likely Yahoo will make me some sort of a deal for my puny 30-40 listings even though I'm paying real money not "monoply" money. Heck, I can't even get a response to my inquiries through regular channels!
I am not going to make or break Yahoo. Yahoo on the other hand, due to it's current way of doing things, will break me.
Since I only do this to have something to occupy my time, I have decided to just move to one of the free sites. Probably will sell as much as I have sold on Yahoo in the past couple of weeks ( 0 )only it won't cost me any extra over what I have already spent. It can set for free for a long time. My stuff won't rust!!!
posted on December 12, 2001 07:12:15 AM new
Hi sulyn1950
Like you I sell more or less part time to pick up a little spare change so if my stuff sits for long periods of time it's really no big loss. I sell decorative handcrafted decoys when I have them on hand and I find that on Yahoo I sell very few of them while on Ebay they have done a little better. It doesn't elevate me to power seller status but it is as I said spare change. It's those darn listing and relisting fees that get me as my items start at $9.95 and usually close not much higher. As you said to many relists at those prices and all of a sudden listing turn into deficits instead of profits. Since my little decoys don't really eat a lot and like your items they don't rust I have moved my listings from Ebay and Yahoo to several other small sites. I admit sales are few and far between but I am not feeding a big site with relisting fees all the time and I still manage to get a few sales by spreading my things out over several free listing sites.
* http://www.romahawk.com
posted on December 12, 2001 01:43:29 PM new
i listed 19 items on Yahoo. so far I have sold 3. One buyer has not responded to my email and the other two did not leave feedback. I thought my lack of sales might be due to lack of feedback, but listening to you, I think maybe not. Anyway, it is still costing me less than Ebay. Last year I did very well on Ebay. This year, the cost of lsiting what did not sell, equalized the profit from what did sell. i dropped off Ebay after they pulled the last blunder. But as youcan see, I waas not doing too well there anyway.
posted on December 30, 2001 12:16:27 PM new
I am trying Yahoo, but have no feedback. I have sold a few things, but got no feedback. I do not understand the feedback...why is it not more prominent on the site? I would not know where to look if I wanted to buy from someone. And as a seller, I do not know hwere to look.
posted on December 30, 2001 09:41:55 PM new
My secret for getting feedback from nearly every bidder is this........
Don't leave feedback the minute after they pay........
With Yahoo you get an email everytime someone leaves feedback for you so work it to your advantage.
A few days after you have shipped the items .....estimate the day of arrival.
Leave your nice feedback for them THEN.
They will get their email from yahoo and it will all make them click on it to look lol yeah it does work. At that point they will leave feedback for you at the very moment they read your feedback.
If you leave a feedback too early it gives them time to forget.....especially if they aren't auction junkies.
works like a charm.......
If you really need feedback then BUY IT. Surf around and buy some stuff you'd want.
Look at the sellers recent feedback.......click on the ones who left it and see if that seller left it for them and how quickly they did it.
If you are desperate then make arrangements with some folks around here and trade feedbacks for 5 cents list something lame that no real bidder would buy and run it for 1-3 days. Have your friends bid.
sure its cheesy but hey
I wouldnt buy from a no feedback seller and many other auction vets wouldn't either.
posted on December 31, 2001 06:32:46 AM newlovepotions-Now, that's a good idea. I'll have to try that.
Also, aliceroad, I'm not sure if I understand your question about checking someone's FB, but it's not really different from any other auctionsite. Just click on the number behind their ID, or use the link in each auction (bottom left hand corner) to check Comments About Seller. Yahoo calls it a RATING.
Leaving FB is easy too, since there is a link on the closed auction page that says RATE BUYER. I'm sure it says RATE SELLER on the buyers closed auction page.
The suggestion about buying some stuff to get a rating is good too. When I started selling, I already had a rating of 10 from my buying spree! Be sure and use different sellers so all the comments count.
posted on January 1, 2002 08:17:08 AM new
Keep in mind, 100,000 of the increase is due to Christmas sales, and the other 100,000 increase is due to the free listing day. Yahoo will settle back to 300,000- less than 10% of ebay's total.
[ edited by quickdraw29 on Jan 1, 2002 08:18 AM ]
posted on January 4, 2002 09:52:48 PM new
I was doing VERY VERY well on Yahoo! auctions for several months until they cancelled my account over a Geocities violation, which was a minor technicality. I tried to petition them but to no avail. At that time the email they sent me said that I could open a new account if I wanted to. Well, I had to use a different credit card to do that. I finally got a different credit card and signed up. I did well for about 2 months until Yahoo! decided that the credit card I used to register the account was the same as one I had used to register another account, which it wasn't. Furthermore, if that was the case, it would have kicked me out earlier. But one day it just randomly decided that.
Here's the real kicker. They wouldn't do anything to help me. You know why? I couldn't remember my secret question. That might be b/c I just type random jibberish for secret questions, since they're so easy to guess by anyone who knows you at all, that they defeat the purpose of having a password. Since I never planned to forget my password, and that's what the question is for, I thought it was unimportant. Apparently, the secret question is for more than just when you forget the password. It sure would've been nice for them to tell me that earlier huh.
Well, I've gone back to quite successfully supporting eBay...
posted on January 5, 2002 07:16:20 AM newYahoo will settle back to 300,000- less than 10% of ebay's total.
Actually less than 5% of eBay's total as eBay sits at 6.1 million listings today.
http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND
posted on January 5, 2002 11:03:58 AM new
I do predict that listings will grow on Yahoo, but never to the level of ebay. One positive thing they did however was dropping listing fees for items under $10.00 to a nickle. That makes it feasable to at least try them for a few relists anyway if it doesn't sell right away. You can list something there 7 times for the same price of listing it once at ebay with no relists.
(Assuming that it doesn't sell on the relist at ebay). Simular pricing structures apply to items above $10 but I think you get the picture. And the Final Fees are also quite resonable, Lower than Carnaby and others. As far as people looking, there are many more page views of my auctions than all of the other "third tier sites" combined and sales have also reflected that. As more sellers get more confident with Yahoo again, by selling somewhat causiously, the sell through rate will get somewhat better, not as good as ebay, but much better than the third tier sites, because buyers will simply have more choices of items and will look through the site to find things that they may not have even been looking for in the first place.
JMHO
bp
posted on January 16, 2002 04:48:48 AM new
i have also tried yahoo,even before FLD,paid to feature etc.really disappointed with the fraud & npb (actually used it for years on & off) ..nice people on the message board if you wanna check it click on auctions community..lots of problems with scammers getting people to pay by western union..so be really careful if you buy there.
People are freaking out & not buying from new sellers because of it,for me there i have feedback,but the feedbacksite helps a lot for new people,and you can link there.
a shame i thought when they changed the structure they would do really great..
One tip, i only feature the last 24 hours doesn't cost much that way & it picks up a lot of hits..sales are slow though.
i always try to have a back up site a free one,never found one i liked till now giving oldandsold a try,,anyone tried it? small but nice they do antique & now marketplace of collectibles too..i think they could do well.
good luck everyone
posted on January 17, 2002 08:59:16 PM new
I take a fit of insanity ever so often and post on Yahoo, and then am reminded in 7 days why I no longer post on Yahoo - it is really more profitable to just give Yahoo the money and not to waste time posting, as time is money!
When Yahoo changed a year ago, we were selling like crazy on Yahoo, but after than nothing, and it is still nothing today....I went back to Ebay and have been smiling all the way to the bank.
Yes, I'd like to see the old Yahoo back, the buyers, etc., but till the buyers come back, I'll stay with eBay -
I experienced something similar to the lady who had her account canceled, then Yahoo tells you to just open another account - that is ridiculous!
Who needs the hassle?
If Yahoo ever gets the buyers back, I'll certainly try again - if I can put up with eBay I can put up with Yahoo, BUT not without buyers!
posted on January 17, 2002 11:14:15 PM new
"I take a fit of insanity ever so often and post on Yahoo, and then am reminded in 7 days why I no longer post on Yahoo - it is really more profitable to just give Yahoo the money and not to waste time posting, as time is money!"
I have items that don't sell well on ebay too. It's more expensve to keep listing on ebay until it sells. Much cheaper to post on Yahoo.
That's what keeps me trying I guess...that and the fact I don't earn my living this way. For me it's a hobby I enjoy.
