Sunday, October 31, 2021

Late October Selling, Postage, and Search Problems Update

My eBay and Etsy stores are now both open.

Jennifer's Series Books on eBay 

Jennifer's Series Books on Etsy

Many of my current Etsy listings expire in just a few days.  I went ahead and activated everything that had not yet reached the four-month expiration date.  My inventory will decrease once those listings expire, since some of them, like the Nancy Drew Files, will be moved to bulk lots.

I do not expect the school year to get any easier than it is at present.  This school year is far harder than last year.  We are trying to rebuild students' skills and work ethic while we continue to deal with all the assorted problems of the continuing pandemic.  We already have the mental fatigue that we usually don't reach until near the end of each school year, and we still have 6 1/2 months to go.  

For that reason, I am keeping many of my current listings inactive for now.  I want to make sure that I can handle selling before I allow all of my listings to be available.  By keeping many listings inactive, my sales will stay at a relatively low level.

I plan to reopen fully at about Thanksgiving, but that depends upon how everything goes.  I could end up changing my mind.

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eBay suddenly changed the store design last week without any notification.  This wouldn't have been a problem if they hadn't made the design less functional.  Why is it that the new version of everything is always worse?  

It doesn't look like I can set a default sort for my store.  That functionality was removed.  When buyers follow a store, they like to see what is new.  I know this because I am a buyer.  I check the new listings.  I don't want to see whichever random listings eBay thinks I should see.  For that reason, I have always had my store set to display newest first.  

Another problem, which I consider a big one, is that eBay removed the category list from the sidebar.  Presumably this was to optimize the stores for mobile devices.  Buyers must now open a drop-down menu.  In the below image, I circled where the dropdown menu is located.


The next problem is the disappearance of the category hierarchies.  Actually, that was already a problem that I wanted to fix.  The category hierarchies have never been apparent until after the top-level category has been selected.  That has always bothered me, and this change certainly isn't helping the situation.  This next image shows how hard it is for buyers to notice that subcategories exist.  I circled the symbols which are rather hard to see.


I removed the hierarchy and now have all of the subcategories as top-level categories like I do on Etsy.  It is much better.

With these changes, I now believe that Etsy has a better interface.  Etsy does have some limitations which I dislike.  Sellers can have only 20 categories and only 25 characters in each category title.  Those parameters are too restrictive for me, but I manage to do what I need in spite of the limitations.

eBay allows up to 300 categories and 30 characters in each category's title.  Having 300 categories is far more than I need and is fantastic!  But what good is having 300 categories when buyers don't know where the categories are?  

Etsy allows me to have the default sort set to newest first.  Having my newest listings first is very important to me.  eBay no longer has this option.  Not good, eBay.  

I should mention that eBay does have a place where the buyer can change the sort to whatever is desired.  My complaint is that the seller should have the option to set a default sort that the buyer can then change if desired. 
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Media mail is significantly higher in cost than it was in early August.  USPS has a holiday surcharge in place currently.  While I have not seen media mail specifically mentioned, it must be subject to the surcharge because the rates I am paying for packages are noticeably higher.  My $3.95 postage charge for one book is woefully inadequate.  My cost to mail one book is now between $5 and $6.  This includes the cost of packaging.  

My continuing offer of free shipping on orders of $35 may need to be adjusted.  I expect that I will keep it, but I may have to raise the prices of my books to cover some of the postage cost.  Everything is getting so much more expensive.
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eBay search continues to be massively screwed up.  If you sell on eBay, run a search on eBay for whatever you plan to list.  Look to see in which category eBay has placed your search results.  When a search is run for all items on eBay, the results are often restricted to one specific category.  When I run searches for most series books, eBay restricts the results to the "Antiquarian & Collectible Books" category.  I then have to select "all" to see everything else.

Many buyers will never notice the problem, so they won't see your books if they aren't in the specific category selected by eBay's search.  I have moved all of my books to the "Antiquarian & Collectible Books" category.  An added benefit is that I no longer need to fill in most of eBay's item specifics, so this is a win-win situation for me.

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