What to do when items don’t sell (and why optimisation isn’t the answer)

When items don’t sell, the instinct is to fix the listing.

Change the photos.
Rewrite the description.
Adjust the price.
Wait a bit longer.

I did this for years. It felt productive. It felt responsible.

Most of the time, it was the wrong response.

Over time, I realised that unsold items are rarely a technical problem. They’re usually a decision problem that’s been deferred, softened, or disguised as work.

This series exists to make those decisions visible again.

The mistake most people make first

The default assumption is that if something doesn’t sell, it hasn’t been presented correctly yet.

That assumption is comforting.

It suggests there’s still something to do.
Something to tweak.
Something to improve.

The harder possibility is that the item is being seen clearly and still not wanted.

Once you accept that possibility, the entire problem changes shape.

Start by diagnosing the real problem

Before you touch the listing, you need to answer one question.

Does demand exist, or does it not?

If demand exists and your item is being skipped, you may have a listing problem. Those are real, but they’re narrower and rarer than people think.

If demand doesn’t exist, no amount of optimisation fixes that. All it does is keep the decision open longer than it deserves to be.

The first supporting post in this series deals with that distinction directly:
How to tell if you have a demand problem or a listing problem

Everything else depends on getting that call right.

Waiting is still a decision

Once demand is unclear or weak, most people default to waiting.

The item stays listed. Time passes. Nothing changes.

Waiting feels neutral, but it isn’t. It ties up capital, space, and attention.

It also postpones admitting that the original decision might have been wrong or incomplete.

If you’re going to wait, there needs to be a reason attached to that waiting. Otherwise, it’s just avoidance with a nicer name.

This is explored more fully in:
Why waiting longer is usually a decision you didn’t mean to make

Stopping is not failure

Stopping is the decision people resist the most.

It feels final.
It feels like admitting a mistake.
It feels like closing a door that might still open.

In reality, stopping is often the most responsible move available. The original cost is already incurred. The only question left is how long you continue paying for it.

When demand is absent, waiting has no rationale, and the item creates friction, stopping is not dramatic. It’s obvious.

I break down how I think about that decision in:
When stopping is the correct move (and how I decide)

Reframing is different from rescuing

Sometimes stopping isn’t the right move, but optimisation still isn’t the answer.

In those cases, bundling can work. Not because it’s clever, but because it changes the question being asked.

Instead of asking whether one specific item is worth buying, the buyer evaluates a group, a lot, or a collection.

The decision becomes looser and easier.

Used properly, bundling isn’t an attempt to extract more value. It’s an acknowledgement that the item needs to become something else.

That distinction matters, and it’s covered in:
Bundling as reframing, not optimisation

Ads are for learning, not forcing outcomes

Ads are usually framed as a growth lever.

I don’t use them that way.

For me, ads exist to answer one narrow question: if visibility is no longer the excuse, does engagement appear?

They’re useful precisely because they remove ambiguity quickly. They’re not a rescue mechanism and they’re not a substitute for judgement.

Once the signal is clear, they should stop.

That way of thinking is outlined in:
Why ads are a diagnostic tool, not a growth lever

What all of this is really about

This series isn’t about selling faster.

It’s about reducing the number of unresolved decisions you’re carrying.

Unsold items become a problem when they’re allowed to linger without a clear status.

Are they being tested?
Waited on?
Reframed?
Exited?

Optimisation keeps things open. Judgement closes loops.

Once you start closing loops deliberately, everything else becomes calmer.

You spend less time revisiting the same items.
You make fewer defensive decisions.
You get better at deciding what deserves attention in the first place.

That’s the work.

How to use this series

These posts aren’t meant to be read once and forgotten.

They’re meant to give you a small set of lenses you can reuse:

Is this demand or visibility?
Am I waiting for a reason, or avoiding a decision?
Is stopping the cleanest move?
Does this need to become something else?
What information am I actually missing?

If you answer those questions honestly, optimisation becomes mostly irrelevant.

And when optimisation stops being the focus, judgement gets better.

Series index

This post anchors the full series:

Each post handles one decision. This page exists to show how those decisions relate.

What this replaces

If you’ve been reselling for any length of time, you’ve probably accumulated habits that feel like diligence but function like avoidance.

Tweaking listings.
Refreshing prices.
Letting things sit.

Those actions feel active, but they rarely resolve anything.

This series replaces that pattern with a smaller set of deliberate moves. Not more effort. Better judgement.

What not to do with this

This isn’t a checklist.
It’s not a workflow.
It’s not something to apply mechanically.

If you turn these ideas into rules, you’ll miss the point.

They’re lenses, not instructions.

The quiet outcome

When you stop trying to fix unsold items and start deciding what they actually represent, a few things happen naturally.

You carry less inventory forward.
You spend less time revisiting the same problems.
You become more selective without trying to be.

None of that looks like optimisation. It just feels calmer.

That’s the real signal that it’s working.

About The Author

Steve King writes about building small, resilient online income systems and the operational decisions that determine whether they work. His experience comes from running resale and digital catalogue businesses in the UK. When he’s not working, he’s usually playing golf or re-watching favourite films and box sets.