Published on October 28th, 2023
Updated on October 31st, 2023
Good morning! Our online business had its first sale on ebay yesterday! It was not what we expected. How much do you think it sold for? Here are many of the things we learned from our first ebay sale.
Some background thoughts
We are fortunate enough to have our MBA and to be paying back our student loans to get one. What does an MBA stand for? A Masters in Business Administration. The MBA is supposed to help you administer someone else’s business. These businesses are probably well established, with numerous support systems, and with hundreds to hundreds of thousands of people to help. Unless you have a degree in entrepreneurship, it is most likely your MBA is not a Masters in Business Creation.
Creating a business from scratch with no prior knowledge, no family experience is a larger story. That’s where we find ourselves today. What kind of business structure do you need? What location should you set up? What’s the best place to sell? How do we market ourselves on social media? How do we post on social media? What’s our logo and business card look like? Even routine things like where to buy postage and shipping supplies needs to be investigated.
Our successes this week
We had three major successes this week.
- We discovered image optimization and took down almost all oversized images on our Shopify site. Speed has gone up from 41 to 50. Our goal is 80.
- Our first ebay sale took place (hurray!)
- We posted our first video on Instagram and Youtube (hurray!)
What we learned from our first auction
We learned so much!
- Use the selling list tool to find an auction similar to yours
- Save it as a draft. If you get a bid on an auction, ebay won’t let you change the pictures or main description.
- You want to have an optimized images to add, a descriptive title, and an accurate description (the AI is a bit wonky) to increase the selling price
- For starting price, we went with $0.99 and $1.29 shipping. That was a mistake. We should have priced it at $0.13 and free shipping.
- The reason? $0.13 is an unusual number, designed to draw interest and views. Who doesn’t love a good deal?
- Free shipping naturally generates more interest. Buyers will use the extra they save on shipping to bid more on your auction.
- That’s our observation looking at numerous products we wanted to buy
- Use the Promote it button, which allows ebay to promote you with more buyers. For us, the cost was $2.49 an auction.
- If your starting price and expected price is more than that, it makes sense to use the Promote it feature
An example.
What the Promote It button does is it unlocks the ad report.
- On our listing above, the promoted views were about 16 of 75, for about a 21% boost. We’re wondering if the boost is worth $2.49 now. Some of our auctions had very few views. Update on 10/31.
- Fill out all the popular search conditions before you list. This increases chances of views. Update on 10/31
- Shipping is expensive! Try looking into a reducing shipping platform. Update on 10/31
- Last point, we set the auction time frame for 7 days. 30 days is too long. 7 allows you to build up some momentum and keep people’s attention.
In summary:
- Watch a few auctions before selling
- When you sell, set the auction type as fixed price with a 30 day time frame.
- Use the Promote It feature when your reviews are low and item value is above $10
- When more comfortable with the listing and marketing, and after building up some reviews, switch to shorter auctions with lower starting prices.
We did everything the opposite of what we suggested. That’s why a $9 card sold for $1.05. It was a learning lesson for sure.
What lessons did you learn on ebay that could help us?
Sincerely yours,
smilingdad
Copyright © 2017-2023 smilingdad, Copyright ©2023 PokeAshVMax.com. All Rights Reserved. The content produced by this site is for entertainment purposes only. Opinions and comments published on this site may not be sanctioned by and do not necessarily represent the views of smilingdad, its owners, sponsors, affiliates, or subsidiaries.
smilingdad 