posted on November 21, 2002 09:04:09 PM new
After trying an item on eBay and it doesn't sell, naturally you relist. But if it doesn't sell again, how many times do you relist before giving up? What do you do with the item...trash it? Donate it? Yard sale it? Are there some items that just won't sell? I've got a couple of vintage plates that are by well known pottery companies but they just won't sell. One is REDWING and one is TREASURE CRAFT. My daughter looked at one auction and said, "That's ugly!". Well, back in the 60s it was considered beautiful. Now, what do I do with it? I've also listed them on another auction site and still no go. I did sell one of them twice but the buyers didn't like the high postage (pottery is heavy) and neither of them paid for it.
homestead7 (not my user name on eBay)
posted on November 21, 2002 10:22:32 PM new
You've asked a good question here! KNowing what to do next with an item that doesn't sell is an art, not a science, I think. After twice, my decision is either to donate it to the thrift shop and take a good write-off for it, or store it somewhere for a year from now (I've never done this). I've never tried to sell an item three times, usually just donating it.
The collectibles market is down a bit right now, and if you're sure it'll sell someday and have the storage space, just put it away with a note on it detailing that you tried to sell it twice on such and such a date. Otherwise, get it out of your life, I would say!
posted on November 22, 2002 12:28:56 AM new
homestead7,
1. Evolve your eBay business to where you sell only the items with market demand. When items don't sell after a few relists, learn from the experience and focus your future inventory acquisitions to what has sold well for you in the past.
2. Build a relationship with the live auction house in your area. If items don't sell after two tries, consign the items to the auction house. You will be amazed at what other eBay sellers and shop owners will pay to acquire inventory. You can box lot some things, like pottery plates, and get your cost back plus make a profit. And consignments don't have to be things that didn't sell on eBay. I consign lots of nifty things I pick up here and there, but which I don't want to package, or don't fit in with my other runs of auctions, or which won't sell for a high enough price for me to spend time on because I like my eBay sales average to be higher than $75.
3. Or - Donate and take the tax deduction.
4. Or - Utilize the items for yourself. I have stacks of antique Limoges plates, saucers and bowls with chips and nicks that I keep stored in a cabinet underneath the kitchen island. Guess how I use those dishes? Yep, I feed my cats and dogs on them. When customers come to visit me in my home and buy things, they go into shock when they see these antique dishes being used for pet dishes.
posted on November 22, 2002 02:16:20 AM new
here is a tip for selling at live auctions..most dealers buy and sell a great deal of their "smalls" items in the summer, then restock in the winter months (january & February). If you save your unsold pottery and other small items till the winter months, the dealers bid more at live auctions.
Our local high end auction house has their biggest and best sale in January, dealers come from all 48 states to restock for the winter.
posted on November 22, 2002 03:24:55 AM new
I add mine to a large plastic tub and when it gets full, I sell them to a junk store owner in town who gets his stuff from yard sales and estate sales. I buy from him and he buys my left overs. It's not feasible for me to have yard sales, so at least I get something for the stuff (approx.$30/box). I'm happy-he's happy. It works in my situation. It's mostly low priced vintage stuff. There are some good vintage items that it would be a shame to sell for $.50 at a yard sale. Some of it is given to folks I know who would like it, too.
posted on November 22, 2002 03:39:28 AM new
Sometimes I change the background I've selected for the picture. Maybe I think the item looks better w/ pastels & a buyer likes vibrant colors. I even retake pictures to get an item at a different angle or from a different perspective. Works quite often. I usually don't relist a 3rd time. If I do I drop the price dramatically just to move the stuff.
posted on November 22, 2002 04:13:18 AM new
I sell mostly jewelry. I bought a great number of rings at a really terrific price. The ones that didn't sell, get added as a "thank you" gift in some of my auctions. The customers who get one are always pleasantly surprised and have become repeat customers. I guess when you never know if you are going to get a little extra something for nothing, you bid more hoping that you do. My choice of buyers who get the gift is totally random. It's a great way to get rid of things you are tired of looking at.
"If it isn't documented, it was never done!"
posted on November 22, 2002 04:58:58 AM new
I usually list an item twice and then give up on it. Then I pack it away. Twice a year another ebay seller and I rent a building and have a large rummage sale together. Neither one of us have a good place at home to have a sale and with us splitting the rent of the building it really doesn't cost that much. We have the sales on the weekend in the spring and fall when our local town has festivals and there is a lot of traffic. It's also a good time of year for us to go through our house and add items too. But our agreement at the beginning is that nothing comes back home. As soon as the sale is over, we load up all leftovers and take them to Goodwill. Our sales are always successful and we even have people we don't know recognize us out and about and comment on how "nice" our sales are. Other dealers love snapping up the smalls. Sometimes I can't believe the stuff I leave at Goodwill, things I still believe in but I figure another dealer will come along at Goodwill and be thrilled to find it. The best part is coming home and seeing all that empty space in my Ebay "room". It doesn't take long to fill it back up though! P.S. One strange but nice thing I have noticed is that almost every time I get a non paying bidder and relist the item, it sells for more than the first time. That's SWEET.
posted on November 22, 2002 06:51:08 AM new
Thanks for all the wonderful information and help. We use to send things to a live auction in a nearby town, but that auction is no longer doing business...they moved on to high class items only, like antique furniture. You would be surprised to learn how many people donate to Goodwill in good faith, but don't know that the workers there take the cream of the crop to sell themselves so your donation never sees the shelves for customers to buy. At least that is true in this area. I like the idea of renting a storage unit for having a sale but doubt that I will do that. I guess I will have a big yard sale and sell unsold items that way. I do believe I have relisted these two plates for the last time and will say goodby to them one way or another. HMMMM...I wonder how the cat will like eating off a 14" plate?
posted on November 22, 2002 09:10:01 AM new
homestead7,
Are you calling the items by the right name? A "14 inch plate" is typically a charger, or sometimes a tray that sits under the tea set, or sometimes just a tray. The reference books will direct you to the correct name for the dish.
Every day as I scroll through eBay auctions, I see numerous auctions in which sellers have not called their item by the correct name, and of course the auctions don't have any bids.
China cups and saucers are one example, in that the different sizes have different functions: demitasse, chocolate, four o'clock tea, regular tea, after dinner coffee, coffee and master coffee. Yet sellers will take a beautiful demitasse cup and saucer, call it a children's cup and place it in that category.
Another example, are the mustard pots with the attached underplates, many sellers call them childrens' tureens, and mispelling tureen in the process, thus bypassing all of the collectors who do searches for mustard pots.
Or they call a dresser tray a platter, and are ignorant of that fact that antique porcelain dresser trays have unglazed bottoms. Platters are common, dresser trays less so, and much more in demand.
At least a couple times a year I can find valuable oyster plates on eBay, to sell back on eBay, because the sellers called the plates "funny looking relish dishes."
Or the best one, and I am not making this up, but I can claim thousands of dollars in profits this year from buying "coffee" pots that are actually "chocolate" pots. I have one listed right now, the auction is not yet over, and my profit is already around $100.
posted on November 22, 2002 09:21:00 AM new
hotcupoftea, Yes, I list it as a "plate or tray". Actually I think it is a coffee table plate or display piece. Rather pretty. That's interesting about the chocolate pots. Thanks for responding.
posted on November 22, 2002 10:40:16 AM new
I do just the opposite of most.
I have my own inventory numbers on all my listings and I just let it sit on my auction service for about 90 days. Then, I relist it. Work is already done, pics are still there, and I treat it like a new item. If it doesn't sell with two tries that time then I might give up, but 90% of my items will sell by the 4th listing.
I don't start anything less than $6.95 so the $1.20 in listing fees is already built into my starting bid. Some sell right away, but many take 2nd or 3rd tries.
I use to discard after 2 tries but since all the work was done, the ad was made, etc. I decided to give relisting again a try and was pleasantly surprised.
Some of my lobby cards sell the 5 or 6th time around. It just takes that 1 person who is looking for it. I usually relist about 10 items a week so I don't risk much money and the rest are new. But, for me at least, it works.
posted on November 22, 2002 10:44:46 AM new
I list an item for auction 3 times. After the first listing I dramatically raise the starting bid, and if it still doesn't sell then for the third listing I lower the starting price below the first listing.
If after 3 listings it doesn't sell, I place the item in my eBay store.
posted on November 22, 2002 12:00:02 PM new
Hello
I list, reduce and relist using Buy it now and finally put it in inventory. About three months later I start all over again. Unless you are listing true trash it just means you have not found a buyer yet. Also as said above, relotting works, combine, break up etc with new write up new pictures. I have had items for up to two years that sold for top dollar. Watch those fees though or you will be selling (finally) for free or worse. Good luck.
posted on November 22, 2002 12:55:32 PM new
Most items, I wait three months or more before relisting because many things of mine sell in cycles so I wait until another cycle. Sometimes it's a bad ending time and I just relist the next week with a better ending time.
If worse comes to worse, I just mark the price way down or put it in a Lot, and that usually does the trick even if I take a loss or minimal profit.
posted on November 22, 2002 01:23:46 PM new
It depends on the item, but after a few relists and no sales, I either reduce the price to almost nothing (and amazingly, the item sometimes goes higher than I thought it ever could) or I put things in lots, start cheap, and they usually sell. Ebay is amazing, since the market changes all the time. One time I listed something for $4.99 and it did not sell. I reduced it the next time to $1.99 hoping to move it, and it sold for $31. You never know...
posted on November 22, 2002 11:37:40 PM new
That is why I never donate anything. I was doing that at first and then I would run across an item just like what I gave up on that was selling very well.
It does run in cycles and just needs the right person to look at it so waiting a few months or even longer works well for me.
As far as listing for free goes, I just treat them like new items and consider the same 30 cent fee it would cost for anything else. I don't start anything at really low prices so I never actually lose money.
The biggest part of the work here is in taking the photo's and making the ad. I just got tired of throwing all that away and found that it really does pay to give them another chance later on down the road.
There are some weeks or months when record sales are down so I list my postcards, and if the sales are down for those I just switch to movie posters. I try to limit my sales to these three areas and can keep an eye out on what seems to be selling best at any given time. You would be surprised how categories that are not selling at all this week will suddenly have a great month somewhere down the line. I'm not sure why that happens, but I have been doing this over 3 years and I know each gategory definitely has cycles.
Also, sometimes the items I sell just have too many listings out. My lobby cards will have around 300 closing any given day and last month a couple of businesses started running theirs and they had 7,000 closing daily. I backed off and will wait for this to slow down. They can't have an unlimited supply of these older cards (or at least I hope they don't).
posted on November 23, 2002 12:13:47 AM new
BTW, none of the categories I sell in are "easy" sell. And, for the most part, they don't bring in lots of money.
But, they are things I love and I have fun handling them and selling them so that is what I do.
posted on November 23, 2002 08:32:35 AM new
6+ years ago, when I started on eBay, I dealt in older pieces, one of a kind, etc. With time and experience, I found that took too much time, was too "iffy" a sales area for me, and I turned to new product.
With older, unique pieces I had those endless "What do you do with it" items which just didn't sell, regardless.
FIRST lesson we learned was to stay away from "fad" items - to stay with classic, quality pieces - or true, basic novelties.
With new items, I usually "test" the market, and if I see the item will move fairly easy, at a fair price, quickly, I get more. I keep resupplying till folks get tired of buying said item.
In some of the new "classic" items we handle, we have been selling them for at least 5 years.
I don't shop, period. From years of experience, we have wholesalers in place, we go to a once a year MAJOR convention of wholesalers, pick up a few new items, test them, and add them to our inventory if they do well.
The rest of the work is photographing a item WELL, since the picture will be used over and over and over, and constructing a good ad the first time.
The BIGGEST mistake I see on eBay, is bad, or unimaginative photographs, poor descriptions, descriptions lacking dimensions, shipping, etc. OR a long list of we don't take this, or that mode of payment, and we don't sell to such and such, basically a bunch of negatives.
To me an elegant antique vase, photographed on a kitchen table, with junk in the back ground tells me, as a buyer, that the seller holds little value to the piece themselves or they would have cared enough to at least display the item attractively. It also tells me, that the seller probably isn't too careful, and I may receive a vase in a zillion pieces. ALSO, ads which haven’t been spell checked drive me nuts...
I think it is a matter of finding your own personal “niche” and not jumping from product to product, at the mood of the market.
SOME one mentioned occasionally enclosing a little gift with a purchase – we do that on a consistent basis, for customers spending over $100.....
WE also keep a list of ALL buyers, in the category they buy in, and use a program called “GROUP MAIL,” to keep these listed in. When we get a collection of unique items which we believe, will interest lets say a group of Art Deco buyers, we e-mail all of our buyers of the items, inviting them to preview them, at one of our web sites. We have always keep extensive lists of buyers, in their given interest categories.
As far as “dumping” items, if I encounter an item which just stops moving, I put it on one of our web sites, and sooner or later it appeals to some one, and it is sold, gone, and I certainly don’t purchase more.
posted on November 24, 2002 09:33:34 PM new
After two tries, I list the item at Yahoo. Most of the items I aquire, have sold for me in the past and should in the future. But I also know not all people sit in front of their computer waiting for me to list items. They will look for items when they are damm good and ready. So that makes Yahoo a viable second option to list items. With the real cheap listing fees, you can list an item 6 times for the same price you can list it at ebay only once without a relist. With that many chances, the item is bound to sell. Then also have everything listed at a free listing fee third tier site just to have them listed. You never know. Then when the FLD's come around either at ebay or Yahoo, I list my whole inventory. This will usually produce excellent results. I have tried the clearance sale approach with no success, in fact raising prices on items usually produces better results.
The main point is to diversify your listings to include Yahoo at a second option. Use a third tier site only if you wish, but in most cases, it will be a waste of time.
Ebay #1
Yahoo #2
Nothing else worth mentioning.
