eBay and Etsy Update June 2020

My Etsy sales from the last two weeks are equivalent to the very best sales I ever had on Bonanza (originally Bonanzle) during the time that Bonanza was at its peak in 2009-2010.  The sales on Etsy are really astonishing.  Now I know why.

Etsy sales doubled in April thanks to homemade masks

From the above article:

The sales surge spilled out onto the rest of Etsy, too. Sales of items other than masks were up 79 percent in April... [Etsy is] currently forecasting a significant boost in sales and revenue for all of its second quarter.

I can believe it.  Some of my sales are from repeat buyers who follow me on Facebook or here, but other buyers, far more than usual, are guests.  The guests are people who are not registered on Etsy but have come to Etsy, probably from online searches, to purchase something.

I am also seeing odd patterns in the sales.  In a short amount of time, three different oval paperback Trixie Belden books sold to three different people.  During another short amount of time, Nancy Drew picture covers sold to two different people.  These patterns tell me that my listings are probably being promoted in Etsy search or in an online search.

I decided to check on my search ranking in Etsy's default search option, which is relevancy.  A search for Trixie Belden yields 24 of my books on the very first page of results, which has 48 listings on it.  Fully half of the listings on the first page are mine.  That is amazing.

Nancy Drew is a much tougher search since it has far more results.  Changing the category to "books" to weed out the handmade items, the first page of results yields seven of my books, which isn't that great.  However, I am still selling a nice number of Nancy Drew books on Etsy.

My overall Etsy sales are coming in spurts.  I can have quite a few sales, like 10 or more, in under two days, then I can go several days with no more than one sale per day.  I assume that Etsy's relevancy search is constantly changing, so I probably have a better ranking at some times rather than at others.

eBay is a different situation.  My Nancy Drew listings must be completely buried in eBay's "best match" search, since very few Nancy Drew books are selling.  I had heard that a seller's search ranking on eBay can tank after an eBay store is closed for a while.  This seems to be the case for me.

In spite of that, I am selling some books from more obscure series since the searches yield few results.  When a search has few results, eBay cannot hide my books.

During the last two weeks, my Etsy packages have greatly outnumbered my eBay packages on every trip to the post office.  I took a picture of my outgoing packages from today.  The eBay ones are easy to spot since they have eBay tape on them.

Out of 12 packages, nine were from Etsy, and three were from eBay.

Each quarter, I get a $25 coupon from eBay to use on eBay-branded shipping supplies.  This allows me to get some eBay-branded supplies for free or nearly free.  I switch between tape and boxes that measure 10" by 8" by 6".  Unfortunately, I don't really have enough eBay sales to be able to use up the supplies easily.  I really need to use them on the Etsy shipments.  However, I must be careful.

Some buyers are weird, paranoid, or easily angered.  I never know ahead of time when I am dealing with one of those people.  I do not use the eBay tape on the Etsy packages, because I don't want an Etsy buyer to freak out because they don't have anything coming from eBay.  Also, some people really hate eBay and refuse to use it.  Those people could get offended if a box shows up with eBay all over it.

At first, I didn't use any of my eBay boxes for my Etsy shipments.  I finally realized that I could just use pieces cut from brown paper grocery sacks to cover the eBay branding.  I'm not sure why I didn't think of the obvious solution a bit faster.  In the above picture, the eBay boxes are at the top right, middle left, and bottom right.  You can see the brown paper that covers the eBay branding.

The other reason that I don't have visible eBay branding on my Etsy packages is that it would be tacky.  I do try not to be tacky.

I have had to go to the post office on more days than I originally intended due to the number of packages.  Last week I went on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.  I would not have gone on Saturday if I had known that the sales would abruptly pause on Saturday and Sunday.  I feared a huge number of packages for Monday of this week, but that never materialized.

For this week, I have so far stuck to the Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, and I think I will be able to finish out the week with just the three days unless I have a large number of sales on Friday.

I have completely finished my initial run of getting listings up on both eBay and Etsy.

Jennifer's Series Books on eBay

Jennifer's Series Books on Etsy

I have listed some more of my Chalet School books on eBay.  The Chalet School series was published in the United Kingdom.  This is a rare opportunity to acquire hardcover books with dust jackets and not have to pay the high cost of international shipping.  I have priced the books at pretty much fire sale prices.  I don't want them to hang around forever, since I have more to list.

I do have more books to list, but it will likely be at least a few days or possibly next week before I get to them.