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A Reselling Blog by Fazoom

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The Big eBay Technical Issues Thread (October 2019 Edition)

In order to try to keep track of the latest issues at eBay with item specifics, we’re posting all of the updates here in one thread for reference.

Jump to the update you want to read:

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Confirmation that eBay is Dying (GMV Takes a Dive)

We have some expected bad eBay news to report. eBay’s Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) is in the toilet.

eBay Growth Turns Negative

eBay GMV was down by $1 billion, and the sold items growth has turned negative for the first time in the company’s history. The company reported $20.4 billion in GMV in Q3, down -5% year-over-year from $21.4 billion on an as-reported basis and -2% on a foreign exchange (FX) neutral basis. Sold items growth was -3%; it hasn’t grown since 2018 Q1.

They want to blame internet taxes, but we all know that’s a scapegoat.

If organic search is broken AND the checkout is broken, how exactly do you expect to sell anything? Can we take cash & money orders again? Please?!

Not to mention eBay giving the bird to Google and announcing that they’re going to rely on social media, including our own, for marketing. Recipe for disaster.

While this confirms everything that we’ve been seeing, it also makes you feel a little helpless on the platform. It’s not us, it’s them.

https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/ebay-growth-turns-negative

eBay: Core Business Continues To Rot

With eBay also shedding non-core divisions such as StubHub, there is little room for the company to grow beyond its primary auction platform. And who, these days, really prefers auction-style buying when virtually anything can be bought from Amazon and arrive at your doorstep two days later?

As I’ve stated in the past, normal people DO NOT see eBay as a store marketplace at all. We know better, but this is the reality…many people still think that it’s an auction site or a flea market or a yard sale.

But this person inadvertently points out what could save eBay. SELLING THINGS THAT AREN’T AVAILABLE ON AMAZON. Nor via any other “normal” retailer for that matter. Amazon tried those areas and failed.

Looking over what I’ve actually sold on eBay lately, I think only one item is available on Amazon. And it’s a recently out of print item that I bought in bulk as another small business decided to clear them out. Beyond that, it’s almost all rare, vintage and antiques selling. Always buy it now.

All metrics point to the harsh reality that both buyers and sellers are defecting from eBay.

I cannot argue this point at all.

That said, Poshmark & Etsy can be good alternatives, but they’re limited. Mercari doesn’t have the audience. In my opinion, Facebook is poor for online selling but can work for local. And honestly, local may be where it’s at for those of us in larger areas.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4298586-ebay-core-business-continues-rot

Other eBay Notes

eBay Q3 2019: $310 million net.

eBay Q3 2018: $721 million net.

So in Q3 eBay’s net went down $137 million PER MONTH!

While GMV is really the number we as sellers are concerned about, take into consideration that these net numbers include promoted listings and final value fees (some of which increased).

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this really isn’t looking good at all. I can only imagine how much further it has gone down in October due to all of the glitches and an even worse search engine.

And I seriously hate seeing this. But my patience has run out. I’ll give it one more month and if November goes like October has (as of the 25th only 17 sales out of ~1,000 listings), the final store we have will be getting closed in December and we’ll just list 150 items a month (we have 3 accounts) on eBay until they get with the program or close their doors, whichever comes first.

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HOT: eBay Burner Phones

eBay recently said that they were ditching search such as Google in favor of “Social Media”.

I seriously hope that this is not their solution to selling things. And I hope that they actually understand that burner phones are not a good thing.

What’s hot right now? This Supreme burner phone.So hot it’s sold out everywhere…but you can get it here. 🔥☎️ 🔥Don’t miss the call: https://ebay.to/SupremeBurner

Posted by eBay on Wednesday, October 23, 2019

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eBay is Still Dead. But we are ALIVE!

First, my apologies for just letting this blog go dormant with any warning.

As mentioned in our last post, eBay is Dead. Long live eBay!, our eBay sales took a nosedive in February. I had hoped that things would pick back up at some point, but it has actually gotten WORSE! Last week we only sold 3 items on eBay. THREE! This is Q4, right?!

Since the last time I’ve blogged here, we’ve been hitting Poshmark pretty hard and we’ve added a handful of items to Etsy. We removed almost all of our Mercari items and will revisit that at some point down the road. And Amazon is still being pondered but isn’t in the cards right now…it’s Q4, which is no time to be messing around (someone please tell that to eBay).

eBay Says We’re Awesome!

In my frustration with eBay underperforming, I finally broke down and got ahold of them to look over our main eBay store. And here’s the takeaway from that evaluation.

Typically we have a few things we can suggest folks to help improve their business, but it’s more than apparent you work hard to optimize your listings and account. We hope things turn around soon!

~ September 24, 2019 @ 7:13 AM

It was at that point that the new game plan that I was already working on became our number one focus.

Fazoom Goes Shopify!

As a programmer, my inclination is to “roll my own” as much as possible. There’s no sense in paying for things that I can easily do myself. So when it has come down to shopping carts over the past 20+ years I have always used open-source packages. But with that comes a much bigger time commitment. And time is at a premium these days.

That said, over the summer I began devising a plan to incorporate Shopify into blogs. Similar to what we did with e-junkie (a Javascript embeddable shopping cart) years ago. The gist is that you post an item and embed a purchase link so it could be purchased right there without even leaving the blog post. I’ll add some of these in future posts here so you can see what I’m talking about.

As I got more into what Shopify was capable of, everything started clicking. With this one powerful tool we could sell things anywhere we wanted to, including in person, and it only cost $29 a month. Sign us up!

Bye, Bye, eBay! (Sorta)

With the switch to Shopify, we imported all 3 of our eBay stores into Shopify as well as our old shopping cart. Then we closed 2 eBay stores and switched our other eBay store to a monthly Premium (1,000 items level) store.

The cool thing with Shopify is that eBay (currently) integrates with Shopify. We can push any listings we wish from Shopify to eBay with a few clicks. AND all of our customer information gets stored in Shopify. One place to control them both.

After Q4 the plan right now is to downgrade the remaining store to a monthly Starter (100 items level) or Basic (250 items level) store. Until eBay starts selling things again, there’s no point in curating thousands of items there.  We’re a business, not a museum nor a warehouse.

Hello Shopify, WordPress & MailerLite!

Fast forward to this week and we’re officially up and running with a combination of WordPress (https://fazoom.com/), Shopify (https://shop.fazoom.com/) and MailerLite (https://fazoom.com/subscribe/).

Over the coming weeks we’ll be rolling out a lot of new features, so stay tuned, and please sign up for updates.

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eBay is Dead. Long live eBay! April 26-May 5, 2019 Sales Update

eBay is Dead(ish)

There’s no way to sugar coat this one. EBAY WAS DEAD for us last week.

In the span of 10 days, we had a total of eight sales on eBay. Last week (Week 18) we only had three eBay sales. I think that has to be a new record low for us when we’ve had an eBay store in place. And we have THREE eBay stores at the moment. All 3 sales were on one account. For reference, 3-4 sales PER DAY had been an average day for us last year. We should have shipped out somewhere in the 30-40 range. But other than January, the rest of 2019 has been brutal on eBay.

But making up theories and whining about it will do no good. It’s merely a reminder that we should never put all of our reselling eggs in one basket because you never know what might happen. Next week Amazon servers might crash and eBay sales go through the roof.

That said, I decided to give Poshmark another try a few weeks ago and we sold 3 items there last week. I’ll put those in a separate post.

I was also introduced to another Poshmark-like site a few days ago and will be giving that a try as well. Stay tuned.

What Sold on eBay

Without further ado, here’s what sold on eBay. The typical trend of hats & stuff. No clothing sales.

Labatt Blue Beer Cobalt Blue Pint Glass

I sold a Labatt Blue Beer Cobalt Blue Pint Glass via Best Offer and Promoted Listings at 8.3%.

This was listed on June 10, 2018, and purchased at a yard sale.

VERDICT: Toss up. Pint glasses don’t sell like they used to. But when they do the profit is good.

Canon MAXIFY PGI-2200 CMY (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) 3 Ink Value Pack

I sold a Canon MAXIFY PGI-2200 CMY (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) 3 Ink Value Pack via Best Offer.

This was listed on April 10, 2019, and purchased at a thrift store.

VERDICT: Buy most ink but look it up.

Playstation Buzz x4 Controllers

I sold Playstation Buzz x4 Controllers via Best Offer.

This was listed on March 14, 2019, and purchased at a thrift store.

VERDICT: Toss Up. It sold fairly quickly, but it topped the 1 pound threshold, thus shipping eats into the profit potential.

Norman Rockwell Collectible Marble Champion Tin The Saturday Evening Post

I sold Norman Rockwell Collectible Marble Champion Tin The Saturday Evening Post via Best Offer and Promoted Listings at 6.4%.

This was listed on July 2, 2018, and has something my mom had sitting around for YEARS.

VERDICT: I wouldn’t buy it to resell, but if you’re clearing things out you’ll eventually make a few dollars on it.

Som-Her Western Purple Bull Hat

I sold a Som-Her Western Purple Bull Hat at the full asking price and Promoted Listings at 9.8%.

This was listed on February 14, 2019, and purchased at a thrift store.

VERDICT: Buy hats!

Ganz Cottage Collectibles Tillie Carol Kirby Plush Teddy Bear 1998

I sold a Ganz Cottage Collectibles Tillie Carol Kirby Plush Teddy Bear 1998  at the full asking price.

This was listed on March 14, 2019, and was in an auction lot that I bought for something else. Selling the “extras” is a common theme in this business.

VERDICT: Buy if you can get it cheap enough. It sells fairly quickly.

Sunoco Pipeline 811 Dig Baseball Hat

I sold a Sunoco Pipeline 811 Dig Baseball Hat via Best Offer and Promoted Listings at 9%.

This was listed on March 15, 2019, and purchased at a thrift store.

VERDICT: Buy hats!

Legrand-Pass & Seymour White Plastic Despard Wall Plate

I sold another Legrand-Pass & Seymour White Plastic Despard Wall Plate at the full asking price.

VERDICT: Buy if you stumble across them in bulk for cheap. But be prepared to sell them over YEARS. I’ve been selling these since 2017.

What’s Selling?

What did you sell yesterday and on what platforms? How are your sales going?