Need eBay help - my product won't sell!

Anyone have experience selling on eBay?

As suggested in a book I recently read, I listed a product for sale on eBay to test out the market before I put any effort into mass producing it, creating my own website to sell it, etc.

I set the auction for period for 7 days, which ends tomorrow. So far there are no bids; just 2 people who are "watching" it. If there is no new activity by the time the auction ends, is that a sign that I should give up on this product? Or does just one failed auction not mean much? Could it be that the product is great but I'm just not skilled enough at eBay selling?

Not sure if I should move on to a totally new product or business or do some sort of further testing on this one. Thoughts?

Anyone know of a good eBay forum? There doesn't seem to be much eBay discussion Digital Point.

 

Internet succes finds you, if you look for it, it will run away from you.

-James Kwanda

That is how i am amking 20k per month, a success story that involved an idea coming to me.

Basically if the current thing is not working move on. Also I may be able to help, my clients are making a few thousand per month from my business services. read my signiture for more details

 

Did you just drop an inspirational quote from yourself¿?¿?¿?¿?

LOL

By the way, success is earned - no luck involved. So your quote is wrong haha

 

eBay is losing real buyers right now and it's about to get worse. Unless you have a ton of products online there you won't really get seen. Plus if your new or your feedback isn't great you fall under the best match system which buries your listing. There are better places to list at I believe. The best places for an eBay forum is in their forums on site under seller central. I was an eBay seller for 8 years and left in Jan. Many people are seeing no results so it's not just you. One last thing is for the most part you don't get bids till the last 3 hours of an auction. The rest of the time you are just advertising that it will end in 7 days.

Perhaps the 2 that you captivated will offer something, but then again it could be your competition watching what you are doing so don't hold value on how many are watching.

 

in all selling via auctions or stores, if your product is jsut 1 in millions being sold, you have to make your product stand out more and also not everyone will search for the product you are selling because ebya is a search and find and bid or buy community.

You will have more chanc eto sell person to person sale specches as in advertising in forums for your product but then again

if your product is 1 in million or not interesting, sales will take longer.

 

Summary = the sky is falling, blame it on Ebay.

 

Thanks for your replies.

Ok, so the auction is over. I had 2 watchers and 1 bidder, who won by bidding the minimum bid ($0.99). I actually need to sell for around $7 or $8 to make a profit, but I thought I might get more bidders by starting low... so I'm taking a small loss on this sale but that's ok - it's a learning process.

So I'm not sure where to take it from here. Put up my own website to sell the product? Try selling a few more on eBay first? (although from your replies, it seems that the eBay response isn't necessarily a good indicator of how successful a product can be)

It is a unique product I have; I don't think anything exactly like it exists anywhere, although it wouldn't be too difficult to duplicate if someone wanted to.

Thanks in advance for any more advice.

 

This is the problem with unique products. You don't know if there's really a market for them or not.

 

...which is why I decided to do eBay testing - to find out.

 

in all business, patience is neccessary and you have to give time for people to search for the item you are selling or time to get know such exist.

 

PM me your listing and I'll give you a few pointers. I've been on eBay for years. Actually, currently not selling right now, though.

 

High five.

Consider sending a couple out to ebay trading assistants and see if they can sell them and at what price. If you have no experience making a good listing on Ebay then chances are you're a bad seller, you would be testing your market at a disadvantage. But in the end if there's no market it would be like selling ice to eskimos.

 

Melbel - thanks very much for your offer - I've PMed you the listing

Webwork - I had not heard of trading assistants before, but I've looked them up and I think I'll try them out - thank you.

 

Also, I think 99 cents is a good price for it, but I don't think you'll get $8 for a Christmas themed car magnet on eBay.

 

people like bid last second, so dont give your hopes up yet.. good luck

 

you product needs to attract customers. Make sure your sales title is very attrative

 

One of the keys to selling a unique product on Ebay is to find the market then hit them with the keywords in your title and description. If there are no people searching for your product yet find the related items they are looking for and hit that market. By hitting on these keywords in your titles and descriptions you not only will get more targeted traffic to your auctions but you'll possibly start a buzz about your product creating more direct searches for your unique product. You may have to do some off Ebay promotion to bring people into your Ebay store to create an awareness of your product. New products take a little time to create excitement about so hang in there, if you really believe in your product it will sell.

 

The best thing you can do on eBay is find a niche ( easier said than done ) , with this then you will start making money. In my opinion eBay is over saturated with general products, unless you can get them at a very low price !

That's just my two cents,
Pat