Selling flight helmets on EBAY? Good idea or not

[Bluespicker]

I am trying to sell some flight helmets on EBAY and I seem to be out of step with the brave new world. I sold a few things on EBAY in the past but not much flight gear and nothing recently. I have some questions and figured I would turn to the collective minds of this forum. If this is old news or I this information is somewhere else, I would appreciate that information as well.

 

For starters, is EBAY even the proper venue to sell flight gear? Frankly, I am getting virtually no hits or page views on the items I have listed on EBAY. Several years ago I would literally get 100 plus hits on a helmet. Today, more like 20.

 

Getting no input from buyers at all: In years past, when I listed an item I would often hear from potential buyers that they were interested but the price was too high; would I ship to this place or that; was I interested in trades etc. This time around: nothing.

 

Anyone have any ideas on this?

 

 

 

 

[Sabrejet]

List them on the forum instead. A captive audience and...more to the point...no extortionate fees!!

[aef1917]

I think overall ebay has slowed down considerably over the last few years, at least for fairly common items. Exceptional things still fetch good prices though.

 

Your main problem may be that this is an exceptionally slow time of year. Lots of people are away on vacation and can't be bothered with ebay. I've picked up a few nice things for very agreeable prices recently.

[mattsmilitary]

I think overall ebay has slowed down considerably over the last few years, at least for fairly common items. Exceptional things still fetch good prices though.

 

Your main problem may be that this is an exceptionally slow time of year. Lots of people are away on vacation and can't be bothered with ebay. I've picked up a few nice things for very agreeable prices recently.

 

I completely agree with aef1917s opinion. This is a very slow time in this business. Will pick up in the next month or two to kick off the Holiday season tho.

 

[Bluespicker]

Is the lack of input from buyers normal? In the past, folks would email me and state that they liked something but wanted to pay less. Or someone would ask if I could provide an oxygen mask for the helmet or maybe a different visor etc. I even had folks ask if I was planning on selling a specific item. When I sold some books with best offer, even then I didn't get any input. Is this the norm?

[Bob Hudson]

Is the lack of input from buyers normal? In the past, folks would email me and state that they liked something but wanted to pay less. Or someone would ask if I could provide an oxygen mask for the helmet or maybe a different visor etc. I even had folks ask if I was planning on selling a specific item. When I sold some books with best offer, even then I didn't get any input. Is this the norm?

 

Yep, that sounds about normal. There are a lot more buyers perhaps then when you sold on ebay in the past, but there are also more sellers and if you're price is too high, people just buy from someone cheaper than you without bothering to ask if you'd come down. Even MAKE OFFER often doesn't bring in offers: I think that's in part because too many sellers (on ebay, in our forum FOR SALE sections and elsewhere) act like it's an affront to their character for someone to propose a low price: many buyers are imtimidated about making offers. Myself, I don't care whether someone goes silly low with their offer, because saying "No thanks" is real easy.

 

You also want to ensure your item's ebay title is going to cover as many bases as possible. Look for the highest COMPLETE sale for the kind of thing you are selling and if they have title keywords you didn't use, consider adding them. Ebay now allows much longer titles than it used to so it's too your advantage to use all of the space provided.

 

And, as mentioned above, summer is slow, and right now back-to-school is starting to take up the time and money of many families.

 

It has been suggested ebay is slowing down - not the case at all. In 2013 they had over $16 billion in revenues and you can see the trend has been always upward, especially in the past few years.

 

[Bluespicker]

Here's what started this thread: I could list an item on EBAY and a few years ago, I'd get like 300 hits. Watching my auctions now, I get maybe 30 hits. If EBAY is in fact growing then it follows I should be seeing more activity and not exponentially less. Bob is correct, EBAY's monthly revenues are going up but I think they are funneling these sales to select sellers and other sellers are suffering.

 

I am a software developer and I have some experience with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which is the techniques search companies use to search, order and then display the items to users. There is some subjectivity in the "Rules" employed in these engines which is fine when it's Google or AOL as they are getting paid huge amounts of money to STEER users to those paying for the service and we all know this is happening.

 

Theoretically, EBAY shouldn't be STEERING potential buyers to preferred listings as the whole point of EBAY is to provide small sellers with a venue and frankly, this is no longer what is happening. Look at it this way: I collect jet age helmets and when I do a search on EBAY, I want to see all of those listed and I do not want to see the spammed listings of Chinese sellers for motorcycle helmets, life preservers, flight suits and toys. Quite recently, I discovered that a number of things sold on EBAY never showed up in my search results.

Did some checking: EBAY changed its user agreement and it now states: your items may not come up in searches".

This week something happened to one (but only one) of my listings: the number of views went to over 300!

[Bebel]

I know the same problem in search results on Ebay. I don't get all items that I'm looking for and some time later, I discover that such item has been sold on Ebay.

 

Moreover, as said Sabrejet, buying from USA for overseas collectors is more and more difficult: shipping costs and customs fees have increased dramatically.

 

I believe that things have evolved on this collection market since some years. Where are all vintage helmets we could see some years ago? When you were searching flight helmets on Ebay, you got some H-, APH-, P- and HGU- series helmets. Today, it seems they are gone. Moreover, ww2 and modern jet helmets seem to be more interesting for many collectors than the 50/60s helmets.

 

I guess that another fact is that some collectors have given up this thema or are looking for less today. I must say that I'm in this group. Still and always interested in US aviation and collection but less searching and buying. As Doc?

 

Selling an item from my collection from time to time, Ebay is the last way I use for that. I first contact all collectors I personally know and then, I try on forums.

 

Franck