posted on December 17, 2001 06:25:00 AM
I have just had 160 of my auctions end on Yahoo Auctions with NO SALES! These auctions were listed on Free Listing Day. These listings were quality glassware, porcelain, and pottery. Anybody have any better luck?
posted on December 17, 2001 07:31:03 AM
I listed 40 items on free listing day and had 1 close with a winner. This was the last of my "Holiday Auctions". I am now officially out of the auction business on Yahoo.
I have listed 110 unique auctions (no re-list) since 11/25/01 and have only sold 5 items. My listing/features fees will eat the profits I made on the 5 I sold so I didn't do too well this holiday season.
I have decided that if my auctions are just going to sit and draw dust, I'll move them to a free site and park them for awhile.
I'll keep checking the pulse on Yahoo, but I won't be paying money to list there until I see an overall improvement in auctions with bids.
I just checked the category I list in mostly. There are currently 7,989 auctions going. When sorted by "Bids", I found 126 of those auctions with at least one bid. If my math is correct that is only .015% (2% if you want to be generous) of all currently listed auctions, in this one category, even having bids.
Prices are low too. One auction has a very high number of bids showing. Upon checking, I find that they are from 5 unique bidders and it is still below $70! There is a buy price of $1,300(which is not out of line IF this is what the seller claims it is). There is still a couple of days to go, but I just watched one close at $100 top bid with multiple bids from multiple bidders. It didn't meet reserve. It had a buy price of $695, which would have been a good deal on this item.
Looks like even those buyers bidding, aren't wanting to pay anything.....
I think this pretty well shows how things are going in my usual category.
edited to add my latest BID COUNT since it's not really worth another post LOL......
[ edited by sulyn1950 on Dec 17, 2001 01:39 PM ]
posted on December 17, 2001 09:20:24 AM
I didn't do very well with the free listing day either. I did have a couple of nice sales but almost all the customers are new and I'm afraid that some might not pay. I think I had 7 Bins and 5 or 6 that had bids.
"If man were to be crossed with a cat, it would greatly improve the man, but deteriorate the cat." Mark Twain
posted on December 17, 2001 02:04:04 PM
I haven't listed on Yahoo in a while, but as a buyer, I don't even look every day. I only check out the site once or twice a week at most. Since they started charging for listing, lots of sellers went back, or to ebay where it seems more customers go. Myself included. It's a shame because I know lots of great items get listed on Yahoo, but I only have limited amount of time to go "hunting" and as a buyer I first go to ebay where there are more choices.
posted on December 18, 2001 02:01:15 PM
I was lurking the message board last nite and it seems Its just Flat out slow for everyone - There seems to be a lot of complaints of Fraudsters from Yugoslavia etc etc Selling Laptops for Low bucks and robbing honest folk blind - One user suggested that bidders are leary of new/Low feedback sellers and PO box addresses. The suggestion of building your FB rate by purchasing several items before listing. Also anything you can do to show you know the ropes such as linking to your ebay FB page via a third party or homepage might help. There are Lots of xferred ebayers treading water at the Y - Oh there were a few suggestions that us ebay expatriots kindly post at least one image on the yahoo server so there is a gallery image to look at. There are many buyers who shop by gallery image only.
Food for thought
Ed
posted on December 19, 2001 10:32:04 PM
30% sell through on free listing day. Sounds better than my average but I only made profits on three items, broke even on one, and losses on eight. I expected those results, these were "dogs". I can recoup the losses by reinvesting the money in better inventory.
