6 SIMPLE WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR EBAY SALES AND INCOME
If you are already selling and want help with ways to increase your eBay sales and income then keep reading! Today I will be sharing with you 6 simple things that I have done to increase my eBay sales and subsequently my income.
I have been selling on eBay for a long time now so I’ve learned lots of tips and tricks along the way and also made plenty of mistakes along the way too!
By following these 6 steps you can avoid making the mistakes I made and will be able to increase your eBay sales quicker!
Of all the things I have done, and do, I find selling on eBay one of the easiest ways to make money.
Here are just some of the other ways I make money on-line:
If you are just getting started on eBay and looking for ideas of what to sell, you can read my post How to Earn a Regular Income on eBay here.
When I started selling, at first I was happy to just earn £200 per month. I then started to read about people who were earning full-time incomes on eBay and it made me want to find ways to increase my own eBay sales and income.
Related: 20 Cogs Review – Can You Really Make an Easy Extra £200?
There are plenty of ways to increase your eBay sales. Here are some simple things that I have done that helped me to increase my sales and income.
1. Stop Listing Things You Like
When you start selling on eBay, it’s really tempting to just list things that you like yourself and that you THINK will sell. Very often my husband will say to me, “why don’t you sell this I like it”. My answer is always the same. “Just because YOU like something, it doesn’t mean it will sell on eBay”.
You can check what is popular and selling well on eBay and what is not selling. Simply click on ‘Advanced’ up on the top right hand side of your eBay page. There you can type in an item and see the completed listings and sold listings. This will give you an idea of the items that people are buying regularly and those that are being left on the shelf!
If you are trying to sell something that nobody is buying then change what you are selling. This can be hard if you like your product and really thought it would sell, but if they are being left on the shelf, it’s not working, change it. Your aim is to increase your sales and income on eBay and the harsh reality is that won’t happen by continuing to list items that people don’t want.
If you have a surplus of stock then you can try selling it elsewhere such as local Facebook selling pages, Craigslist or Amazon. Different products sell well on different platforms, but don’t waste your time trying to sell something that eBay customers aren’t buying.
2. Source Cheaper Products
Look at your best sellers. Ask yourself the question, could you increase your eBay sales and income on these?
- Are you getting them at the lowest price possible?
- Is there somewhere else you could source them from? (You can check out my post Where to Find Wholesalers here).
- Could you buy in bulk to save money on stock?
- When purchasing products, don’t forget to check if the supplier is on Topcashback so you earn cashback on anything you buy. If you are not already a member, you can read how Topcashback works here, it’s free to join!
3. Increase Productivity
Increasing productivity really helped me to increase my eBay sales and income because it gave me more time to sell more products. Here are some things worth looking at to see if there are ways you can improve the way you work.
- If you hand-make products, is there a way to make them quicker and cheaper?
- Do your items take too long to pack, would it be more productive to sell smaller items that you can pack and post quicker?
- Do you buy from wholesalers by visiting them, could you order on-line to save time?
- Do you have a system or could you create one to be more organised?
- Are you using your time effectively and focusing on eBay during the hours you are working or are you wasting time on other less important tasks?
4. Increase Postage and Packing Costs
There have been times during my eBay selling career that I have been guilty of posting out items too cheaply. What I mean is that if an item costs £3.30 to post, I may have listed the p&p cost at £2.80 in the hope that I would sell more. eBay can be so competitive. Sometimes it’s easy to think that you can undercut other sellers or even cut your costs to try to keep up with them. However, what I have found is if people want your product, they will pay the postage cost as long as it’s reasonable.
Don’t forget to allow some cost in there too for your time for packing and taking to the post office. As an example, if my postage is costing me 95p, I would then add on extra for the cost of the packaging material and a little for my time too! Again, you can look at what other people are charging to make sure your costs are in-line.
5. Drop Prices and Increase Prices
Do you have a particular item that isn’t selling too well? Then take a look at your price. I have found that bad pricing is a fundamental reason why items don’t sell and some simple tweaks can help you to increase your eBay sales and income fairly quickly.
Again, I use the ‘Advanced’ search button to see what items have sold and the price they sold for. If your item is priced too high, then drop it a little. Sometimes the increase in sales is worth a small drop in the price.
If your item is selling well and you think you can increase the price a little then try this too! An item that is selling well at £10.50 will probably sell just as well at £10.89 and all the extra pennies add up. This only really works with your best sellers so tread carefully but it worked for me so I recommend you give it a try.
6. List More Products
As with all sales, selling on eBay is simply a numbers game, BUT, this will only work if you have followed steps 1-5 and you are doing the following:
- Checking what items are selling well before listing
- Making sure your postage and packing costs are correct
- Sourcing your products at the best possible price
- Increasing your productivity and being better organised
- Ensuring you are selling at the right price
In my experience, the more you list, the more you sell, it’s that simple.
To increase your eBay sales and income sometimes just takes a little bit of time and as I always say, research, research, research.
Experiment a little with products and prices to see what works and what doesn’t and if something isn’t working, don’t be afraid to change it.
By taking these 6 steps, there’s no reason why this can’t work for you. I hope this has given you ways to increase your eBay sales and income today.
Why not make a plan and just do it!….and don’t forget to let me know how you get on.
Do you sell on eBay? What has helped you? Have you got any other tips to add?
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How to Earn a Regular Income on eBay
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