Growing sales beyond Ebay

[alythall]

Hi, I'm sure this question has been asked many times before!!

I have a business based mostly on Ebay and Etsy, selling various coins and collectables. It's doing quite well, over £3000 sales per month for the past year or so and that's holding up fairly consistently.

I have my own website too for direct sales; it looks fairly good but it's not doing much due to lack of traffic.

My question is what are the next steps for growth? If I could double sales I could afford to run the business full time. I feel I've done as much as I can on ebay, etc as sales have been consistent for some time.

I've tried Google Ads for my website, it cost a lot of money and didn't see any return, and for various reasons I'm not able to advertise on Facebook/Meta. I'm also not very tech-savvy so am not much good at making videos, etc. I'm not sure SEO is going to pay off as it's a crowded marketplace.

Are there alternatives? Does direct mail still work?

Any advice appreciated
Andrew

 

[WaveJumper]

As trading in a specialised market place perhaps you need to think about getting out there and attending coin and collectable events at weekends you will then be face to face with your target audience and can build up your business name within.

 

[MarkOnline]

How many listings do you have to generate that level of turnover? What is your average transaction value? Is it "one off" transactions or do you have multiple quantities of the same sku? Are you targeting international buyers with your offers?

I would try and build on the marketplaces you are already established on. There are coin sellers on etsy achieving over 700 sales per week, at £8 a transaction thats £5600 a week. There is demand there. You should have access to this information, if you havent, then you need to study the market you are selling in more. Successful competitors will tell you what to do.

Good luck.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Not sure how old your items are but we get a lot of recommendations on Antiques Atlas it is a very busy platform.

SEOING your site for your products might also help

 

[fisicx]

@alythall - how much are you prepared to invest in marketing your products outside ebay?

If you lost money using Google ads it suggests a problem with your chosen keywords, the advert or more probably the landing page. And although the market is crowded there is always room for niche marketing on google so getting your site optimised could be very lucrative.

But all these things cost money (if you don't have the skills yourself). Would you be prepared to invest an month's income? That £3000 spend could results in a doubling of your income.

 

[alythall]

Thanks all!

I've got about 50 listings; average transaction value is ~£20, several multiples. Yes I do sell quite a bit to the USA and internationally.

@fisicx you are absolutely right about Google Ads, I just gave it a punt and I probably did a poor job of it! But it cost me £100 and I got absolutely no sales from it. I wonder if there's someone at Google just clicking the link to get paid lol

I'd happily invest a month's income, it's just knowing where to start, wouldn't want to throw good money after bad...

Andrew

 

[fisicx]

First thing to do is find the right person! That’s not as easy as it looks. But there are plenty of marketing experts here.

Upgrade your membership and get a website review. That will probably indenting some easy wins.

Also sign up for Ray’s excellent SEO course:

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[antropy]

Does direct mail still work?

I got some new customers from a leaflet drop of only just under 200 leaflets, so if you scale that up it might work for you.

Paul.

 

[Adam448]

I'm with Markonline on this one, stick to the place where your already getting traction and build on that, offer more products in the same niche.

Creating a website is all well and good, then you need to get traffic to it. Traffic might be Google ads, facebook ads, tiktok ads, SEO. Also user experience and getting the traffic trust your website and to convert to paying customer is an issue it's self.

Etsy has traffic and its a trusted marketplace.

• A website might be good if your selling a consumable that people will want to keep buying each month, then you can send them there for monthly payment plan.

• A website might be good if your product is innovative and unique and you can create a brand and market on the ad networks.