It’s almost the first Monday back at work and like many sellers I’ve been making some changes ready for the New Year. The lull between Christmas and New Year has been a great time for evaluating my business and getting organised for the future and the biggest tip I have for anyone else doing the same is to end all your good til cancelled listings
Good til cancelled (GTC) listings are for lazy people. They’re the worst listing format for keeping control of your business and the easiest way to lose control.
The big problem is that (unless you run out of stock) your listings will never ever end. You may or may not be getting sales and you probably don’t even know if you are. The chances are that your listings are way out of date and either the price is wrong or the product itself simply isn’t desirable to buyers any more.
The most shocking fact I ever heard regarding GTC listings was that there were some GTC listings over five years old on eBay UK, that had never had a sale. These were the old Shop Inventory Format GTC listings that have now been retired and rolled over into 30 day fixed price GTC.
When researching a new product or checking prices on eBay it’s not unusual to see competitors with pricing way above the norm. Now there’s a lot to be said for not being cheapest but if the average sale price is around £25 – £30 there’s not much point having a listing at the £90 – £100 price point that the product sold for when it was released a year ago. The price might have been competitive when the listing was created, but a year or so later they’re at the bottom of Best Match and unlikely to ever attract a sale.
30 Day Fixed Price listings force you to review your listings and pricing every month. If an item ends without a sale you’re prompted to ask yourself why before you simply relist it. Is it the price? The product? Have you got the wrong desciption or wrong picture? Have you deleted the picture from your webspace? Has eBay changed the categories or Item Specifics?
There are many reasons why a product might not be selling and almost always there’s an easy way to start it selling again. GTC listings hide this vital information and leave stock sitting idle on your shelf costing time and money instead of making money for you.
There is only one advantage that GTC listings have over 30 day listings, and that’s the ability to use Mark Down Manager to hold sales. Few sellers use Mark Down Manager though and if you’ve not used it in the last three months don’t use it as an excuse to keep GTC listings running.
To regain control of your listings bite the bullet and end all of your GTC listings. Any GTC listings that have had sales in the last 30 days can be relisted as Fixed Price 30 day listings and the remaining items need a spring clean.
Go through the GTC items without sales one at a time and research why they’re not sold. Use Terapeak to check average selling prices and sell through rates. For old stock, especially if you only have one or two items remaining, liquidate the stock using auction format.
All sellers are aware what’s selling and what products are making them money. What most sellers don’t know is what’s not selling and what products are costing them money.
Ending your GTC listings and changing to fixed price 30 day listings will force you to kick start your sales on items that might not have had a sale for many months. More importantly it will give you back control of your business for the future and ensure you know what’s not selling just as well as you know what is selling.
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