Are your eBay sales slow? It truly does happen to every ebay seller. We get content with our level of sales and then one day it all comes to a halt. For several days you’re wondering what happened. Maybe you’re even panicking. But there are a lot of different ways you can use to increase your sales when they slow down and I’m going to share today!
Take a look at the different methods for below to help with fixing slow eBay sales and decide which you want to try. My advice is to try only one or two at a time so that you can see which one helps lift your sales. Let’s dig in!
Run a sale
When sales are slow I like to run a sale. I don’t run big sales unless it’s on items that have been sitting around for a while. I try to price competitively to begin with rather than inflate prices just to mark them down.
Generally I’ll do 10% off the whole store or if something has been listed for over 6 months I might go as high as 30-40% if I really want the item to just move. Decide what you can do and go with that.
Try Promoted Listings
While a lot of sellers shy away from promoted listings, I think they’re leaving money on the table. Here’s the thing. You’re searching for something, how many pages are you going to click through while you’re searching? If your item is on page 6 they aren’t likely to get to you!
Give promoted listings a try. Even if you try it at something low like 2% and have to raise your prices 2% to make yourself feel better, I say give it a try to see if it helps bump things for you.
Remove stale items
Sell through rate is important on eBay. If you’re listing items that just aren’t selling and they’re sitting on eBay, it’s hurting your sell through rate which is hurting your visibility on eBay. This is one I struggle with because I occasionally get free items from people that aren’t worth much, but since it’s free I list it anyway. And then it sits and that brings down your whole store.
Figure out which items aren’t selling. Take them down and research them again. See if it’s something that is actually selling well by checking websites like CheckaFlip or SellHound. If not, don’t list it.
Relist items
Have a stale listing that should be selling but isn’t? Take it down and create a whole new listing. You can either use the “sell similar” link and copy over everything or you can start fresh. I like to start fresh and completely change the listing title. If I have time I’ll take photos again, if not I’ll just save them and reuse the same photos. This will give the item a bump. The longer an item is listed, the less eBay is going to show it to buyers because they think it’s not a good item.
Check your sourcing strategy
Are you actually buying things that sell well? Are you researching your items to ensure you’re buying stuff that sells and that you’re pricing the items correctly? This is something I struggled with at first too and it’s taken me a long time to come to terms with not buying everything I wanted to. You think something is a good deal or something is “cute” so you buy it and it sits. Now I look up pretty much every single item and only buy what I call “slam dunks”. Nothing that I hope will sell. Stuff that I know should sell.
Check out: 16 items I sold on ebay for $50+
Edit your items
A quick tip is to go in and look at some older items and edit them. Change the title a little bit, maybe switch the photos around, etc. Just go in, show activity in that listing and then save your changes. I do this occasionally and it’s funny how often that item will sell after I do that. I don’t know if this is just a coincidence, but it’s worth a try and takes a minute or less.
Offers to buyers
One of ebays newest features is offers to buyers and I love it! When you’re looking at all of your active listings you should see a section where you can sort out items that are eligible to make offers to buyers. Then you can go through those listings and make offers. I usually offer a significant discount, at least 20% in most cases. Sometimes I’ll go in and make offers to 20 items and by the next day half of them are sold. I especially love it for items that are older that I’m willing to let go for a lower price to move it out. I’ll send an offer they can’t resist.
List every single day
Saved the best for last. This is hands down my number one tip. No one ever likes it when I give them this tip because it’s no fun. Most sellers don’t like listing. We all love to shop, but when it comes to actually listing we’re over it before we even start. But do it. Get in the habit of listing every single day. I don’t care of it’s 3 items or 20 items, eBay wants to see you’re actively listing new items on their platform.
Want to see what listing everyday can do? May 2019 was slow for us so I started a 15 listings a day challenge. I didn’t make it to 15 everyday, but I increased my sales 70% in June 2019! See the screenshot below.
FREEBIE ALERT!
I created a handy little checklist along with a 7 day listing challenge at the bottom so that you can try to boost your sales. Print it out and keep it at your desk so you have it handy when things slow down.
What methods do you plan to try first? Or do you have a tried and true method for boosting eBay sales when they’re slow?
