Suggestions please...

thepartystore · Posts: 91

I have started adding new items and plan on adding a ton more. But the problem is that I can't seem to find the right categories for my items. I mainly sell party supplies and everything that has to do with a party and/or event.

Even though some of my items are for various themes, like wedding and baby showers....there really isn't a good category for them.

I posted my baby shower party supplies under baby, but they get lost after awhile and I can't seem to find anything for a wedding.

I tried even the kitchen category, but nothing really fits there either. Should I just post everything under "main misc" and be done with it?

I wish there was a category for party supplies. If there is one, I can't seem to find it.

I appreciate any advice.

zickit · Posts: 21857

Sounds like your items belong in
Flowers & Gifts > Gifts By Occasion > Party Items

Do a search at www.ecrater.com for similar items and see where other sellers have them listed.

Baby Shower items ... like for the shower itself, not for the baby directly ... should not be in Baby.

thepartystore · Posts: 91

I appreciate the advice. However, the link you included comes up as an invalid link, even after many attempts.

thepartystore · Posts: 91

I did what you suggested and found that the party and wedding supplies are located under flowers and gifts. I would have never thought to look in that particular category in a million years. Anyway... Before I add any more products, I am going to spend my time adding them to the right category. Maybe I will start to see some better sales. Thanks again for that suggestion.

tigercreekgifts · Posts: 6293

thepartystore · Posts: 91

Party supplies are not flowers, nor are they gifts and should have it's own separate category. I believe sellers would be more successful if it was easier to find.

I should have a little bit better success now that my items are in the right category, but I have only had one sale since I began and that is not normal for me in any place I sell.

Ebay is my most successful experience. My party store became huge, over $200 thousand dollars worth of products listed. But I ended up with some identity theft recently with paypal and had to take the store down temporarily until everything gets fixed.

So I am struggling to try to make a living and Amazon I really don't like. Their fees are double what eBay's are and I don't remotely do as well. At best I might sell between $20-30 a week on Amazon and on eBay I was selling between $200-400 a day, just after two months owning a store.

This issue couldn't have come at a worse time. I would have really done well this Christmas, but there wasn't anything I could do, but deal with it.

I think eCrater can work if I give it time and let others know that I have a store here. I just wish it was located in a better place.

Maybe one day the administrators will make those changes. Thanks for your response.

theartsandlettersofmaggiethecat · Posts: 2099

MoonwishesStore · moderator Posts: 17389

Yeah, I want to know where ecrater could be located to be in a better place!

tigercreekgifts · Posts: 6293

Party Store, do you know that you have to promote your ecrater store to get decent sales here? Unlike ebay, you can't just list and expect the sales to get handed to you (unless you get really really lucky). Since ecrater doesn't charge a ton of fees like ebay, they don't have the money to do mass advertisements for this marketplace so you have to promote your own store through facebook, google+, twitter, pinterest, a blog, and word of mouth.

Since you sell on ebay you probably already have all those accounts or at least most of them right? Well, use your existing accounts to bring people to your ecrater store as well. It takes a long time for your shop here to get indexed by all the search engines plus you also need to submit your store URL manually to the search engines (bing, yahoo, google) so they'll pick up on even more content from your shop. There's a lot you have to do here and if you want me to be completely honest, you need to keep your store open & maintained while simultaneously promoting for at least 1 year to really start seeing the results. If you keep doing that eventually you'll start getting steady daily or every other day sales.

Too many sellers come here and give up after only a few weeks or months. Those of us that are getting steady sales here, have been here for at least a couple of years. My shop has been open since August 2010 and I get good sales but it wasn't until about 6 months ago that I finally started getting daily sales.

thepartystore · Posts: 91

Hi...

I thank you for this info, but I have been in sales my whole life and even though ebay does promote us, it took me a good 2 years before I started seeing consistent sales over there too.

Yeah... I have a lot of followers, especially on pinterest and get a lot of sales from there. Plus, twitter, facebook and I also have a few international sites that I submit my links to... My biggest sales come from international buyers.

So I am not expecting a "get rich quick" type of account, but because people know that I sell on ebay, I am already seeing lots of interest and merchandised being "pinned" and "liked" on pinterest from eCrater listings, so eventually the sales will start coming in.

The more attractive I make my store on eCrater, by offering a variety of items, the more people will want to check out what I have...

I have a lot of merchandise to enter, so it will take me a few months to get things built up like I have on ebay where merchandise is concerned, but I am patient and know in time, word will get out that I am over here and hopefully sales will be good here too one day.

Thanks again for your advice.

A-Better-Way · Posts: 3363

Just think, no DSR, no so called buyer protection, no resolution check boxes, un paids just stay listed if you want. much lower fees, no fee for a big picture, several forms of payment methods.
need I say more.

thepartystore · Posts: 91

No more listing limits... No more asking permission to list legit items because of stupid rules...

A-Better-Way · Posts: 3363

Oh but wait, the one that really gets me is they knock off DSR points for communicating with a customer ? !!! aaaaaaaaaaarg LoL
Then those points go back to paypal to hold funds.

Imagine that, talking to a customer, we used sign language for 30 years at our audio repair shop, Rolling Eyes

.

thepartystore · Posts: 91

OMG!!! You hit a nerve on that one. That is a hoot. Whoever heard of someone being penalized for giving good customer service??? When they came up with that one, I was flabbergasted. I flat out told them that there was no way that I wasn't going to talk to my customers. They can forget it. I was lucky though, because they never did anything to me when I did. But that was the dumbest new change they ever came up with!! LOL

Plus...even though we might have authentic certificates of authenticity, they now make us pay an outside source to confirm the legitimacy of the item. So we have to pay to have it shipped to them, then pay them to appraise it and authenticate it, then pay to have it shipped back. All the while we have proof right from the horses mouth in writing.

Just another way to make it harder for the sellers.

Oh...and then...to say that our 400 pixel pics were too small??? They were fine. You could see them very clear. I had to upload almost 3,000 new pics or they wouldn't let me relist my items. Talk about a lot of hard work and a waste of time. I told them that I wasn't taking new pictures, that I was just uploading them on Paint and just expanding the photos to meet their criteria. So some of the newer photos are now blurrier than the older ones I originally had up. ROFL!!!

SammysSupplies · Posts: 1631

Speaking of photo size, ecrater does prefer that your pics are at least 800 pixels on one side. It helps with placement for searches. But, for now, they won't make you do it.