Can these numbers be true?

[catholicemporium]

I looked at the discussion on the eBay stores board about a "featured" store and I am amazed at these numbers somebody posted:

My store was featured well before this promo and my sales and hits went WAY up when I first featured it in June. I upgraded in the middle of the month and my sales and hits literally doubled in the second part. I am averaging $800 in just store sales right now each month. August was my worst barely at $700 but this is already over $800.

They go on the post:

Having close to 800 items in my store isn't hurting either.

Just a quick run-through of the numbers, assuming NO auctions run to "drive money into eBay's bank account traffic to the store" I get:

$50 per month in "Featured store fee"
$64 per month in FVF
$24 per month in store listing fees

$138 A MONTH to sell $800? 

I am not trying to pick on this sellter, but are these the types of numbers that are considered good on eBay?  If so, WOW!  Do you realize what type of hosting package you can get for $138 a month?

Chris

[butterflykisses]

This is assuming that all 800 items sell.  Also, who is satisfied with making only under $800 a month.

[bargainbloodhound]

my sales and hits went WAY up when I first featured it in June

We had a featured store for a couple of years and the traffic increase was negligible.

$138 A MONTH to sell $800? 

I am not trying to pick on this sellter, but are these the types of numbers that are considered good on eBay?  If so, WOW!  Do you realize what type of hosting package you can get for $138 a month?

Its good compared to some of the sellers I've heard on the eBay boards who said their listing fees were more than their sales.   

For $99 a month  even sellers with limited Internet/hosting knowledge could get an easy to setup full featured hosted store like Volusion or Monster Commerce, but since many sellers start out on eBay without either a business plan or a set product line (and are just selling off stuff they have laying around the house), their web site sales would likely be very low to nonexistent in the beginning until they actually decided to treat their online sales like a real business..

[Angel]

What shocks me is that people actually post their sales numbers  :o

Why would anybody do that 


Angel 

[xppman]

Obviously some stores sellers are doing OK.
But the big catch seems to be to drive traffic to
your store you have to run auctions and / or pay for keyword ads?

$138 is more than I pay all Internet based fees combined in one month.
ISP/Cable, web hosting, advertising…
Some of these supposed successful sellers may also just be blowing smoke.

If they are out there with their store ID’s on the boards you can check their sales.
Remember this tool below is not 100% actuate and to find a real reading for one month you may have
to go in and” look” at the items as this tool has reported some items sold when in fact they are not
and reports more than one month as well.

http://www.data.emmx.com/

If they are doing well I say good for them. If they are actually paying out more to than they are making
or just breaking even.  I say very foolish indeed.

We have to remember there are many on ebay who are just week end worriers or just selling for something to
do and don’t care if they actually make a profit. I suspect many retired people who have a possible disposable income or an income from another source do dabble just to keep active.

These type further erode the market place IMO because real sellers out to make a living on ebay alone
can  not compete and sell items for next to nothing, like the dabblers do, and still survive.

[bargainbloodhound]

These type further erode the market place IMO because real sellers out to make a living on ebay alone
can  not compete and sell items for next to nothing, like the dabblers do, and still survive

I don't know if its the dabblers who are the biggest culprits when it comes to driving down prices.  There are 3 groups I consider worse:

1. Large retailers who are liquidating surplus stock and are willing to take whatever price they can get.

2. Serious sellers who are trying to get a foothold in the eBay market.  These fall into 2 groups: A. large sellers who can afford to list loss leaders in order to drive their competitors out of (eBay) business and B. smaller new sellers trying to get a foothold in the market who think low prices are the way to gain a customer base--many of these sellers don't last long before ebay costs eat them out of business.

3. Shipping gougers taking advantage of the j.andmarie 25 cents listing fees for under $0.99 items in order to avoid fees have also helped to drive down prices in many categories (...which is why I was opposed to the under $0.99 fee reduction when it was announced because I expected it to hurt the average seller more than it helped).