Tell me about ebay shops...................please...........

[fannyannie]

I have loads of books (fiction, non-fiction and music) which I want to sell - I have been putting them on ebay with normal auctions with varying degrees of success (most that do sell are selling on their 'relisting'). However I'm wondering if it's worth setting up an ebay shop.

I know there's 3 different 'levels' you can subscribe to - (or whatever it's called) but I can only (realistically) stretch to the £6 a month one.

Does anyone here use them, how quickly do things 'move' out of your shop and do you at least recoup back your subscription costs each month?

Also how do you 'price' your items???

And anything else you can tell me about ebay shops - good or bad.

Can't help specifically, fanny. I've toyed with the idea of a shop myself (I sell womens' clothing), but just lately, the changes eBay have made with regard to reduced visibility have made it nigh-on impossible for me to make a profit.

Books can be difficult because of the weight. If your postage costs are going to be £4/£5, this will deter a buyer from bidding much above a couple of pounds per item (unless the item is much in demand).

I started keeping proper spread sheets a couple of months back, and was astonished at how much money I was losing, in re-listing fees, Paypal fees, Final Balance Fees, etc.

Sorry to sound negative. On the plus side, the items you want to sell don't stand you in anything (in other words, you haven't bought them in order to re-sell for a profit). It's dead money, and therefore all profit. So keep a spreadsheet, marking down the eBay fees, etc. This will help you decide what to sell the books for if they don't sell first time round.

Sometimes I put the price of my clothes UP because they owe me so much in fees. Sometimes .. it works!

Sorry for the long, rambling post. It's tough times on eBay at present for clothing and books, so just keep focussed on your margins, and try to resist constantly re-listing items. That will cost you a fortune.

I know, even with relisting that I have made a profit on the stuff I've sold - many of my books are quite light, and I've sold some of the music as 'job lots' so more expensive postage (£7-8) but they've been getting 20+ books/sheet music for their money.

I'd keep selling my other bits and pieces as normal ebay auctions too - its just the books which I'd put in the shop - possibly.....shall wait to see what others think.

I use a shop because its so much cheaper to list (3p). I suspect I'm not making much though (partly my fault for not keeping up with listing). I'm looking at opening a shop to provide autism products and am trying to decide whether its worth expanding the ebay one, or setting one up elsewhere, so will watch this with interest.

gess, what am I doing wrong, it costs me far more than 3p to list in my ebay shop?

I had an ebay shop and I ended up closing it recently. I sold craft supplies and card making stuff.
Shops are a good idea if you have plenty of auctions. The cost for listing auction items in a shop is the same as ordinary listing.
Buy it now listings work out cheaply, from 3p per listing, but as one poster has already said, reduced visibility of these listings does hamper sales.
I found that people bought auction items abd also used the visit sellers shop link or sellers other items link to browse and possibly buy from my shop.
hth.

I sell books and 95% are sold from the shop. i have over 500 in the shop at the mo. In the years Ive been selling I've had more success from the shop than the auctions. Its much cheaper to list in the shop than to list in auction. You don't have to worry about end times from a shop.

Here's what i do.
get a book in your hand. Look to see how many others are already on ebay. If there are loads shop items won't get included in search. If there are loads the chances are they aren't selling and the odd one that does will be for peanuts. Either a. give it to charity shop or B. see if you can put together a job lot either by category or author.

If that book is only on a few times and there appear to be numerous people bidding for that title then put it in auction.

For the rest Look to see what others are asking in their shops. an example - go search investigators silver spider. You will see 4 in auction - with no bids, therefore its prob not popular enough to pull in multiple bidders, but there is one in a shop for £9.99. List yours for under £9.99 and it will sell before too long.

Every so often go through your shop items and pull out the ones that don't appear to have had much interest. List them on cheap listing days - you'd be surprised that a few do sell and the rest give to teh charity shop.

By listing every so often in auction you will pull a few people into your shop.

Listing in your shop on .com means you get gallery pic for 1p!

Give it a go - you get the first month free.

oh, and have a look at bookfinder.com if you need more guidence in value.

Good luck!

thanks lostmonkeys - that's really helpful I think I may give it a go once I've got some more of the office tidied up and I can actually see properly what I've got (I just know there's lots LOL).

wiith 500 books listed how much do you sell per week?

gess - At the mo I probably sell about 30 per week. Things did slow down a lot when ebay reduced the UK visibility. I'm working around that now so hopefully things will pick up.

There is still a lot of tweaking to be done in my shop. For eg I have too many categories. I have only recently discovered you can have sub- categories. Once I organize it all a bit better I reckon I will achieve more success. I often get buyers buying more than one book so if i make the shop more user friendly...etc.

One way I look at it is: If I were to list 500 books in auction it would cost me at least £50 in insertion fees (this being less for books than other items) but by having them in the shop it costs me £21 for the month.

I often browse around other people's shops and I've definitly noticed a trend of a higher ratio of sales:listed items if there are loads in the shop iyswim

I must get into gear. The idea behind opening a shop is that I have lots of low cost things that I wouldn't risk on auction as I don't think they'd sell, but they will sell in a shop eventually. have cocked up though and listed used nappies not knowing they were now banned

well I subscribed to the £6 a month shop yesterday - this afternoon's task is to start getting some stuff into it LOL.

hi
an I ask sixlostmonkeys a question [minor hijack]

If an old book is in upside down but otherwise in good condition will it impove its value?

Fannyannie I have opened an ebay shop -just need to get more in it putting stuff up for ninety days and then trying to list popular? stuff that might get more hits I have a bundle on that I have featured and a couple of things that have been listed before have sold so we will wait and see , good luck with yours btw

Hi snowball

It probably could!
If it's a collectable book anyway this could probably add to the value.
It's the kind of thing where you need to wait for the collector to come along, which is one of the reasons why shops are a good idea. Promote it well on the listing, ask a high price with the option to make an offer.

Any 'oddity' can add value and the books don't need to be old. If for example it is known that a batch of Harry Potters went through print with green text on the cover rather than blue then people will want one of those copies for their collection.

It's the same with vinyl records. Some old records has mis-spellings on the label and they are quite collectable.

hehe I love the chance to talk books - you wouldn't believe how much I can ramble on and on....I wonder why i don't have any friends?
...ever since the guy in the bookshop showed me a book worth £500 and then put the jacket on it which made it worth £17,000 I've been fascinated.
I'll shut up now

me too I have lots of old ladybird to sell after I sold an old vegetable gang on a carboot for 20p and later saw it on ebay for £16 lol

I have a drawing cats book and trie to look up its value onbookfinder but it all chinese to me
the upside down one is enid blyton book of fairies red h/b no dust cover writing n the front and iniials on the side worth putting on ebay
sorry for hijack

maybe we shoud start a different thread

I've started a new thread