Those crazy offers....killing me!!

I have come to dread the message alert on ebay. I think its another question or an offer when I don't have an offer on an item.

Now, I don't mind offers. I sold something just recently from an offer on a pair of boots. The boots were $135 and I accepted an offer of $120 and we were both happy. Now I don't consider an offer of $50 and  free shipping on a heavy  item I have listed for $99, plus shipping, a reasonable offer. I got the same offer from the same person on two different days. Did she think I didn't notice that she had the same user name? Did she forget I already responded to her offer? I don't know. But the item is still for sale at $99 and there are others the same price, some higher and some lower.

I spend quite a bit of time trying to find just the right price for what I'm selling. I don't want to overprice or underprice an item. I check sold listings and current listing and try to find a happy balance. It makes it hard when sellers routinely list items with really high prices and then take 50% or more off the original price. Now, before you start writing those harsh responses I understand everyone has the right to price items as they see fit and to discount or not. It just seems like lately that a lot of sellers are going overboard with the 50% off and its killing me. And I understand it is better to put something on sale and sell it than to pull it and re-donate it. And I simply do not like free shipping. When I go to the post office someone has to pay for the shipping...it's not free.

I need to make a sale just like everyone else but I also need to make a decent profit. I'm not talking about 1000% profit but a reasonable profit for my time and energy to get an item in front of the buyers. I know some sellers are able to get stuff at outlets and pound stores for next to nothing. I can't do that. My GW never runs sales, no color tags, no bulk sales, no discount of any kind. They had rather send it back to the warehouse than come down in price. The bulk store is 2.5 hours away, for the closest one. My GW's also don't have carts or customer bathrooms, but that's a whole other rant story. I do try and shop the local church thrifts but they are getting savvy and a lot of the bargains that I had been finding are not there anymore. You have to really look for the good stuff. Yes, I'm talking about you $2.50 Allen Edmonds shoes that sold for $100!!

Is it too much to ask sellers to price reasonably and not put everything at 50% off ? Don't get me started on free shipping. I will accept offers on items when the offer is reasonable but drop the price by 25-40% AND free shipping. Give me a break lady who wants those Disney scarves for next to nothing.

I've worked hard this past year to get educated to buy better stuff and my store is full of stuff that I think is better quality and therefore priced higher than last year at this time. Yet my sales for December are significantly lower than last December. This year I sold about 2/3 of what I sold last December. My sales for January and February were really good last year and I hope that is the case this year. I think...knock on wood... that I can get TRS back in January and if not I will get it in February.

Better merchandise should yield better sales? I don't know what else to do. Keep listing, and listing and getting things shipped as quickly as possible. I do know that losing TRS has something to do with sales being slow due to the search ranking.

But come on ebay, I'm starting to think about those theories. The dark, ebay is against me theories. I don't want to but I'm slipping to the dark side....hello Darth.