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Bulk Updates On Product Pricing
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MoonwishesStore
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Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 7:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Too much extra work, so from now on, any inventory I acquire that is only worth a dollar or two goes straight to the flea market pile & only listing higher priced items here.


That is such a valuable nugget of business sense that too many on line sellers don't seem to comprehend. Taking the time to do decent photos and write a decent description and title, plus the cost of the goods, then the wait to recoup your money, and it sells and for all your work you made maybe a $1, sometimes less, isn't really worth anyone's time. I know what it is like to be poor, but there are a lot of other online places to earn that same dollar or less for a whole lot less time involved. If we don't value our time and effort in listing and pricing, no one else will either.

I've seen some prices on items that are just foolish, such as a pattern seller that for some reason decided to call themselves $XPatterns (actual number left out to protect the guilty). Then because they are trying to stay within this incredibly low amount they go and list a current MSRP $32.00 Vogue pattern for $1! I can't figure out if they do that because they have no clue what the real worth of the pattern is, or they think they will get all the buyers, or that they will come out ahead due to the S&H amount. No matter what, selling something for $1 that I just sold for $25 shows me that they don't value their time at all. I do. And for the most part, most buyers of Vogue patterns are expecting to pay a higher price, so why try to sell for bottom of the barrel bargain price? Makes no sense and they aren't making money.

I really think that once sellers get it through their heads that they need to charge an appropriate price and not assume that all on-line buyers are on welfare or so poor as to be almost homeless and instead price as if most on-line buyers have extra money to spend, their whole business will start moving into a more profitable realm. I haven't just seen this with patterns but just about everything on the internet that is for sale. And I've seen many sellers, if people don't buy quick enough, start lowering their prices and lowering them until there is basically no profit left. Instead sometimes the brighter idea is to double your prices if not more. Or just take them to the flea market so you don't have the expense of shipping materials as well.
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tigercreekgifts



Posts: 6293

PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 11:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Exactly Moon!
I do value my time. Listing an item, plus taking pics, packing the items when they sell is not something you can do in the blink of an eye. When I first started selling years ago, I was guilty of saying oh nothing is selling & I would lower my prices. I had many other sellers private message me saying you really need to raise your prices. Your photos are good, items look great so lowering prices makes it look like something is wrong that you're not telling the buyer about. So I raised prices. Then here on ecrater, again many sellers messaged me & said raise those prices even more!

It's not like I have a bunch of $1 items listed, a few things here and there for less than $3.49 but I have family members that are very OCD when it comes to cleanliness & clutter. They box up items every other spring & hand them to me. They say, go through it. Anything you want to sell is yours, everything else will be donated. So, it would be stupid to pass up free inventory even if it is only worth a buck or two but going to the flea market & saying everything is $1.00 is a quick way to make some extra cash so I can stock my stores with better inventory & clear out the other items quickly.

I'm slowly trying to phase out anything under $5 with the exception of a few toys for $4.49. In reference to prices, there really is no need to price as low as possible. I have many items listed for $5.99 to $10.99 right now. Those items sell for only $4.99 brand new but, they are not available in all stores and I know this. I figure, go ahead & price them high because even though you can buy one new for $4.99 if someone has looked all over their local area & can't find that product in any close by stores, if they want it bad enough they will pay you more for it to avoid hunting around for another 5 years to find it.

Also realized that with higher prices, even though it may take a little longer to sell something, if I target middle class buyers most place an order, leave good feedback & never complain. If I cater to bargain hunters, even though they're already getting a $15 item for $2 they almost always have something to complain about. This item had a tiny scratch. Yes it did, and I put that info in the listing to be honest with you. They don't care, they excpect bargains to be low priced & perfect all around even though they're getting a steal of a deal. I do have many items for around $10 that do sell eventually but they take up alot of space so would rather just sell them locally for a few bucks to make room for better stuff.
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MoonwishesStore
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Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 8:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I used to read books on running your own business long before the internet and selling here was born. One of the things they talked about at the time was "Who are your customers?" I was always like, how would I know? Then as I got into selling patterns I realized that I had to imagine what and who my typical customer would be and to market to them. Thus I learned to market to middle to high upper middle class women (and men) that sew, have the money to spend but not the time to go on a in person search for patterns, or these types of women with KIDS that the only way they can take their time to look through the patterns without kids yanking on them at a store, but instead can do it at night when the kids are in bed and it is 'their' time. How do I know this? Close to probably 30%+ of my sales come in during the night.

I know in my area there is one fabric store in the county other than some quilting shops. In other words if I wanted to buy a sewing pattern myself, I have a 40+ mile round trip and we all know what the price of gas has been for the past few years, so S&H is actually cheaper than a gallon of gas generally. No crabby kids to deal with either AND I have a huge selection compared to just about any B&M store at this point. Today a woman wrote and asked if I had a particular pattern. I did. I listed it. She bought it an hour later and was very happy to find it. And there was a $13 sale.

So I think you are very right. I don't market at all to the bargain hunters, they have plenty of sellers marketing to them. I must be doing something right at this point. I just signed in to check my email and found that I had just gotten my 8th order for the day! Very Happy 4 of them from ecrater and of them 2 via Pinterest Yahoo! OK I got off topic there for a second. March has just been amazing though. last time I remember orders like this was a 6 week period years ago on ebay when 'stores were in search' until Meg decreed that buyers didn't like the stores being in search and turned it off and my sales (and all the other store sellers) dropped over 50% and just kept going down. Evil or Very Mad

I know it is hard to put in those higher prices especially if you are like me, grew up poor and looking for bargains everywhere. When hubby told me years ago I had to up my prices by double, I literally had to shut my eyes when I did it. I just couldn't believe I would still get sales, but I did and without a blip. My sales actually went up. But you can't expect the higher prices unless you are willing to put some work into the listing itself. As I have pinned ecrater items, I have seen people trying to get several $100's for something when they have one photo, a 20 character or less title and less than a ten word description, or variations of that kind of mix. If you want to make money you have to work for it. Period.

Then there is the time issue as well. You can make $10 by selling something for around $12 so it will cover fees + a reasonable S&H fee. Of you can cater to the bargain hunters and sell 12-15 $1 items to 12-15 people, so that by the time the fess have been pulled out and you have paid for the packaging material, etc. you might have $10 after the end of a very busy day. Between last nights orders and today's I packaged up 11 packages as it was today and you know what that takes a lot of time! I can't imagine doing it for $10. You won't even be making half of minimum wage. These are all things that need to be thought about when deciding on prices and the value of your time.
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buystamp



Posts: 1

PostPosted: Sat Oct 19, 2019 3:17 pm    Post subject: Use the global editor to update prices Reply with quote

You can use the global editor to update prices for products in certain categories, add or subtract from your current price.
Idea
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MrsDsHandKnits



Posts: 334

PostPosted: Sun Oct 20, 2019 8:41 am    Post subject: ZOMBIE THREAD Reply with quote

ZOMBIE THREAD FROM 2015!
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SheilaDeesPostcards
moderator


Posts: 4614

PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 8:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

@ buystamp, thank you for taking the time to read the information in the community forum and for adding comments. Also, WELCOME to eCrater and to the eCrater community. Do be careful when reading older topics because some of the information may not be current. In this case, it seems most (if not all) the information was correct. If you had read the beginning of the topic, you would have noticed that the global editor was mentioned, but it didn't achieve the results the original poster wanted.

I haven't seen your store yet, but I'll visit soon. My Dad was a life long collector and I love browsing stamps even though I'm not a customer. Maybe someday I'll feel inspired to continue his collection. Very Happy
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DoYouReadMe



Posts: 167

PostPosted: Fri Oct 25, 2019 6:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

yep, and relevant to the topic today, global editing still isn't exactly fully global in functionality.

Maybe it will be one day. Would make life so much easier here.

It's good to bring these functionality issues to the forefront when they are still pertinent.

Hopefully the squeaky wheels get the grease if they keep squeaking.

squeak, squeak.
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