[frugalmcdougal]

anyone out there sold tees on e-bay. If so any tips, I am about to take the plunge to offload some old stock. I know there are some tricks of the trade in the way you list and present the product.

Marky B

 

[photodiver]

Hello,

I have been selling t-shirts on ebay since 2000. One thing I have found is that there are a lot of others doing it as well which means there is a lot of competition out there. So I have found that you have to sell cheap......

If you are selling old stock you may want to sell them cheap anyway. We sell Custom shirts (customer emails photo etc) and find the market can't handle anymore than about $10.00us.

Hope this helps.

Dave

 

[DickTees.net]

Ouch! $10 US? I have been on a tear lately selling shirts on ebay from $12.99-23.00 US. I think it has more to do with the product you are offering. There is a bunch of competition out there... lots that are comfortable ripping off others ideas and calling it their own. I see this a lot with the tshirthell slogans. If you do something original people will patronize you. I have only recently started selling shirts on eBay, but I have not had a single auction end without a bid. Must be doing something right.

 

[photodiver]

Jay,

I would like to know what you are doing on ebay... I have been selling custom shirts (Customers email em thier photo, I place them on our shirts and ship) on ebay for 5 years and have found that the shirts only sell when the price is about 9-10 dollars. I have never sold a shirt for 23 dollars. Nor have I even seen anyone else do it either. Please send my one of your auctions. I would really like to see that...

 

[Adam]

Where is the profit in selling personalised t-shirts for $10? I used to sell them on ebay for $20ish (£10) and they sold just fine, UK market. I now just sell through the website.

 

[photodiver]

How Long ago was that. I used to sell them for about $15 at one time, but those days are gone.

 

[DickTees.net]

I would like to know what you are doing on ebay...

Really all I am doing is listing shirts that we currently have on our site. Some people feel more comfortable purchasing on eBay so I see our shirts going for $6-8 more on eBay at times. I am not saying that this is the norm, but we never let shirts go on there for less than $12. I'd say the popularity of our original designs dictate what our shirts are worth to people.

Recent Auction

That design took me in the neighborhood of 4-5 hours to do in Illustrator... it's not available anywhere else in the world so it's a popular shirt and eBayers are willing to pay top dollar.

 

[Adam]

It was late last year just before Christmas. Why do you say those days are gone? Is it because of a certain competitor in your field undercutting, or is just the ebay market in general?

I'm going to be getting back into ebay soon but if all people want is slashed prices then it's really not worth it for me.

 

[photodiver]

I think it is ebay in general. It seems to me any way that the more people sell on ebay the tougher the competition gets and the prices drop. I have heard this from other people as well. I have noticed when I do my research before Christmas each year that prices seem to be dropping.

If anything I feel that my products should be more because they are "personalized" Luckly t-shirts are my highest gross item, so have a a good margin to compete.

After reading the entries on the forum I went to ebay.com and searched for photo t-shirts. The average seems to be $9.00. I saw some as low as $6.95..

I think ebay is a great place to sell "one of a kinds" or really odd items. I think my market is more online on our web sites.... My opinion of course..

 

[Rodney]

I am not saying that this is the norm, but we never let shirts go on there for less than $12.

I noticed a few of your past auctions going for $9.99. I guess with shipping it makes up for it?

Still, there is profit to be made for consistently moving tees for $10 bucks plus $5 shipping.

I did a few eBay t-shirt auctions 2 or 3 years ago and it gave me some nice exposure for my site and I moved a few tees, but it seemed like more trouble than it was worth back then.

Now they have all kinds of fancy tools for managing multiple auctions, etc...I may revisit it again.

What's interesting is when I browse eBay listings, it seems like sometimes the "less professional" looking listings (ALL CAPS, no paragraphs, poor grammar), sometimes do better than the professional looking listings (like dicktees).

Clearly the professional listing look is working well for dicktees

 

[DickTees.net]

I noticed a few of your past auctions going for $9.99. I guess with shipping it makes up for it?

You got it. While we only make a dime off of shipping on our site, and sometimes actually have to eat shipping because we have a flat $3.95 rate to the US, we do add slightly more shipping on eBay because I know what the eBay market is like. So I stand corrected, we have never let a shirt go for less than $10.99.