Coronavirus is just a topic you can’t get away from these last couple of weeks. It is definitely here and definitely having some drastic impacts. On our health care system, on grocery stores, on social life and on the economy.
Many resellers are already starting to see it’s impacts. From trouble sourcing (closed thrift stores, no garage/yard sales, no flea markets or estate sales) to less disposable income shoppers have.
So I’ve got three ways for you to maintain your sales during COVID-19.
Three Ways To Maintain Your Sales During Coronavirus COVID-19
Staying afloat during this time is going to depend on three things: increasing your search ranking, listing new items, and expanding your reach.
I’ll explain more as we continue.
1) Increase Your Search Ranking
Every selling platform uses algorithms to rank items in search results when buyers are searching for items. The basic thing to know is the higher your item ranks, the more towards the top of search results in will appear. And the higher your item appears in searches, the more views it is likely to get and in theory, the quicker it will sell.
One of the main ways to start ranking well with the algorithms is to have activity on your items. There are several ways you can increase your activity, thereby increasing your search ranking with eBay.
- Send Offers
- Accept, Counter, or Decline Offers
- Run Auctions (I like running 10-day auctions starting on Thursdays so that they end on Sundays)
- Run Sales
- Use Promoted Listings (1% is enough to double your exposure!)
- Respond to messages from buyers
Here are the articles I referred to:
Some other things to help improve your search rankings:
- Having a store subscription.
- Maintaining Top-Rated Seller Status.
- Listing new items.
You can read more in depth on how to improve your search rankings here:
So how do you list new items if you are having trouble sourcing? That is what we’re covering next!
2) List New Items
One of the best ways to keep having sales coming in, is to keep listing new items.
So hopefully you have a large pile of items that need listed. Whatever you call it – death pile, money pile, whatever – I hope you have one!
But what if you don’t? Or what if you make it through your pile? What are you supposed to do then?
There are several options. And you don’t even have to have new items for the first one!
Sell Similar
Did you know instead of relisting items, you can use the “Sell Similar” button to sort of trick eBay. Your item will get a new number associated with it and it will start ranking as if it is a new item in the system!
Sometimes this can work really well for items that have been sitting for a while. The only time you don’t want to use it is if you have:
- Watchers
- Offers
- Or any other activity.
Remember, activity on items is a good thing. If you end the item and Sell Similar, you will lose all that. Even your watchers. For these cases it is better to be patient and wait for the sale.
Be Resourceful To Get New Items
If you make it through your stockpile and are ready to bring in fresh inventory, assuming your normal method of obtaining inventory is unavailable, you will start having to be resourceful to get new items.
You’re going to have to start thinking creatively. In fact, diversifying what you are selling can be really helpful! Here’s some ideas for you:
- Don’t forget your own house! Do you have items stashed somewhere you forgot about? Do you need to do some purging? Sometimes it’s so easy to overlook what is right in front of us.
- Check for items locally on places like Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, and Craigslist. Just be sure to follow current guidelines on “social distancing.”
- Online thrift stores. If you frequent brick-and-mortar thrift stores, it’s sometimes easy to forget some like Goodwill have online stores as well. Check them out! They have some unusual items.
- Online reselling platforms. Look for “lots” you could sell as individual pieces. You can also look for items with misspelled words. Back when LuLaRoe was hot, I found (and flipped) several items this way. Just type in a common misspelling and add a hyphen to exclude the correct spelling. (For the LuLaRoe example, I searched things like: LaLaRoe, -LuLaRoe). You could use the same method for popular brands.
Here are a couple posts to give you some ideas of what might be lurking around your house that you can sell for cash:
3) Expand Your Reach
If you’ve exhausted the previous two methods to maintain your sales during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and it’s just not cutting it, it’s time to expand your reach. By expand your reach, I mean take the items you have and expand your audience of potential buyers.
If you’re currently selling on only one platform, try adding another. If you’re on two or three already, try adding a new one. This may be the perfect time to learn a new one!
There are so many selling platforms. Yes, some may be smaller than what you are already on, but the audiences are different.
If you find yourself with spare time, try experimenting with cross-listing tools like Vendoo.co. Both offer options to try them out FREE!
You can also go here to get 25% off your first month of Vendoo!
How Are You Planning To Maintain Your Sales During Coronavirus (COVID-19)?
Now that I’ve shared my plan with you, I’d love to hear what your plan is to ride this thing out!
-Lee
P.S. Here’s some other things you can check out:
- NEW – Top 20 Sales from 2019!
- Looking for other items to thrift? Check out my on-going Thrift To Sell Series here where I feature easy-to-find thrift store clothes!
- Don’t forget to check out my Revenue & Expense Reports where I share my actual income with you!!
- Be sure to check out my How-To’s.
- Read about my crazy goal to pay off more than $100,000 in mortgage debt by reselling thrifted items. Find out how I’m currently doing on meeting that goal.
