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Out with the Old - In with the New

 
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BargainsByIrene



Posts: 50

PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 1:20 pm    Post subject: Out with the Old - In with the New Reply with quote

I will be removing some of my items starting tomorrow and putting some new items on instead. Hope you will check my site out one more time in case there is something you want. Thanks so much and have a great and wonderful weekend - Happy Sales
Irene
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MaggietheCatsMeows



Posts: 2853

PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 1:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just curious why you are deleting your old items? Are you changing the tone of your store?
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BargainsByIrene



Posts: 50

PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 2:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No change in the type of store, I have so many items I need to list and people have told me over the years that when there are too many items, people don't look for long. I don't understand that, but I have seen it true. I used to list two and three hundred items at a time and hardly anything sold. Then I dropped down to much less and did better. I do love it here, let me tell you, all the people have been so very nice.
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acread
moderator


Posts: 11986

PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 4:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's not true at all.

Remember this is not like other selling venues, where you have a steady stream of traffic being channelled to your place. So it is not just about having people looking to all your products but actually getting people into your pages to begin with. It is more difficult to accomplish that with smaller sites than larger sites.

The truth is the bigger the website the better the traffic. Just simply because you would have more keywords that would match more search queries.

Plus the more steadily your site grows (add new pages and text to it, the more links are built within your domain) the more frequently the search crawlers will visit it.

And the more crawlers come the more their searches will like it and place you higher in their search results. number of people visiting you and the rate your site is growing are indicators of you popularity and popularity impacts the placement in search results. Also the more pages you have with a given search word the higher your relevance and the better your placement in search results. (talking mainly about search engines here. Not about eCrater's search or even Google Shopping search)

Bigger sites get more traffic, and hence the probability of having a buyer among them is greater.

So you better not delete but steadily add listings to your site.

If you don't believe me just go aroung look at other sellers in the forum and see which ones get the most sales. It is those with 1000s of items. Not the ones with a few.
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MoonwishesStore
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Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 5:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

AC is correct. You barely have 100 items in your store. When I had that many items I was happy to see one sale a month. Currently we are at about 7000 items in our store and sold almost 200 items last month, so there is no sense to the thought that you need to delete items. That is nonsense. The more the merrier. To sell stuff you have to have stuff to sale.
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BargainsByIrene



Posts: 50

PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 6:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You see what I mean about the great people here at ecrater! I am so glad I did this post. You have really helped me decide. Okey dokey, more listings it is then. One thing though, how do you see the sales the stores have? Once an item sells, isn't it gone from the site? Mine disappeared when they sold. Thanks ahead of time for the answer to this question.
Irene
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acread
moderator


Posts: 11986

PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 6:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

BargainsByIrene wrote:
You see what I mean about the great people here at ecrater! I am so glad I did this post. You have really helped me decide. Okey dokey, more listings it is then. One thing though, how do you see the sales the stores have? Once an item sells, isn't it gone from the site?

You don't see exactly which item sold. You can see the total number of sales posted on the product pages next to the feedback number, it says "xx sales" (that is after you get a feedback. It doesn't show before that). Those are the number of order. I don't think the money order and check payments count. But it would give you an idea.
Quote:
Mine disappeared when they sold. Thanks ahead of time for the answer to this question.

You probably have your have your Inventory control on and have one of each item. So when it sells with PayPal or Google Checkout it get's hidden. Which means they don't appear in your store site (as they shouldn't because having sold out items available for sale is against eCrater's Terms Of Service). You can still see the listings in your admin in Products. They will have names written in grey. You can copy them, edit them etc. You can even unhide them if you get more of the same item to sell.
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BargainsByIrene



Posts: 50

PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 6:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I see how you find the sales. Thanks so much anyway.
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maggiethehousecat



Posts: 2457

PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 7:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Also bear in mind that what shows as a sale in feedback and even in your admin sales record are transactions, not the total number of items/listings sold.

A sale might be for 2 or many items. It gets one feedback and one spot in your admin order file.

If you have a mishmash of items listed and to list, you might consider having more than one store, for instance one for children's clothing/toys and one for china/knick-knacks and one for books/media. Having too many very different categories to promote is more difficult than promoting a store concentrated in one area.

That said I have one store dedicated to Cat themed items of all kinds. It is the smallest of my stores and has about 250 items in several categories. It does have sales but no where near as many as my Lives and Loves store that has well over 1000 items.

Looking at your store, I see a definite division between jewelry and decorative objects/china. They are not so diverse as to require separate stores but if you have a lot of items still to list, like a couple hundred more or so, then I'd move the decorative items to a different store.

Also if you reduce the price of your items, just lower the price, don't say what price it was before as that gives the impression you are trying to get rid of it. People don't want to think they are buying junk. If it is junk jewelry sell it as that so crafters will buy it, but if it is a nice vintage piece assign value to it and stick to it. I have sold a lot of items after I raised the price. None because I lowered it.
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MoonwishesStore
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Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 8:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not only can you see somewhat the number of sales you have had with your feedback percent, and your orders tell you what sold and then you can hide them or delete, you ALSO need to be doing your own bookkeeping in a spreadsheet. I keep track of how much I sell on amazon and ecrater. I also break it down into what types of patterns I sell and how many of each of them each month. Thus at the end of each month I can tell how many items I have sold. I keep track of many numbers that aren't necessary for taxes but are vitally necessary to the health of our store. I can see trends and slow downs and speed ups of sales because I'm tracking them month by month and have been for years. This is one of the reasons that I knew I had to completely leave ebay and was ready to come here. Because my numbers told me so. Those numbers also tell you if you are making a profit or wasting your time. They tell you if you should concentrate on a different area in stocking your store. No one can tell you exactly what you have to keep track of, you have to figure that out. It is part of running a business. If you aren't doing something of the sort you aren't running a business, you are playing games. Those games could be wasting lots of time and not making you any money, and actually you could be losing money. But maybe you enjoy that (not necessarily you, the you of whoever might be reading this who isn't keeping track of things)

For instance: Several years ago a woman desperate for extra money asked on a board that I visited what she was doing wrong as she wasn't making money and couldn't figure out why. When she told us what she was doing it was obvious but she was still determined to keep doing it as if failure would someday turn to success. She was selling (or attempting to sell) via auction on ebay high dollar value coupons for around $1. She only had about $4-5 worth of coupons in each lot. Besides the fact it is illegal to sell coupons, the problem was: she was paying a listing fee, if they had sold she would have paid a FVF, then she would have had to pay a PP fee of at least 30 cents+, then she had to pay for a stamp and envelope to send the coupons. This wasn't a hard math problem, figure it out. Between all the fees, etc. she would have been paying the customer to take the coupons off her hands! This comes for getting an idea and not calculating the costs. If she had been tracking numbers like I do, just one time of selling those coupons would have told her it was a losing proposition even if she hadn't noticed ahead of time. The reason she hadn't noticed ahead of time as she hadn't done any research and was not aware of the fees she would have to pay.

Numbers are our friend. It is nice to know how much we sell each month and even better to know if we made a profit and whether it was a healthy profit or an anemic one and which way to direct our sales.
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zickit



Posts: 21857

PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 4:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
people have told me over the years that when there are too many items, people don't look for long.

You ever been in a store?
If they have just a few items you walk in and you walk out.
They have bunchs you look around ... at least
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bookbatches



Posts: 23

PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 4:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

eCrater is the best free "long-tail" opportunity on the internet.
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AntiquesAttic



Posts: 80

PostPosted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:01 am    Post subject: Never too many Reply with quote

I don't believe there can be too many. You never knbow when someone will need one of those shelf sitters.

Use categories, then, people need not view them all, but, only those that interest them.

Although, it's nice to just scroll & browse a Store, too.
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