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This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

I will start by saying since The Fed raised interest rates and inflation was rampant, it is like a switch has been flipped. The algorithm doesn't even feel the same. I've noticed sales are down 50% percent on some items, and they're only being bought on payday intervals. EVERYTHING requires ads now on eBay, otherwise, you won't sell.

Next, the wholesale prices stay the same. I've noticed margins are razor-thin this year. Everything wants to be shipped by boat, and even then, your items are delayed or crushed.

The next issue is hot products. It seems like everything is flooded now. It is nothing like getting a list of new factory items pre-covid. I honestly feel like this "peak time" of the year will be lukewarm for us wholesalers.

How are you guys handling and experiencing the current market?

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

Same, about 50% down if we just left things as they were. Looking into expanding the product ranges to counter it. While closely watching costs.

Feel bad in the US? UK exchange rate to the dollar is horrendous.

Time to keep your head down and wait for it to pass, lol

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

Unless you're buying from the US, why does that matter tho? I've never understood that. Is it the pound losing value? Is it the dollar gaining value? Both?

All I know is, I wish i could get some refunds from payments I made in april, and resubmit them... Went from paying .74 to just last week paying .94. :uk:

Tho I don't buy that much from the UK, I have one supplier that happened to come into some inventory.

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

Just due to everything mostly being priced in dollars. Anything not made in the UK (which is most things) is now 30-40% more expensive. Anything from china is priced in dollars.

Both pound loosing value due to inflation and the dollar being the reserve currency and generally looking more robust as a currency.

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

I think this year is rather similar to 2008. From what I recalled, sales usually picks up around end of October to Christmas .

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

Booming for me. People spending money like crazy. Especially locally!

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

Exact opposite here - one sale so far this week, sales WAY down, few watchers, like everyone has disappeared at once or their discretionary spending has.....

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

it depends on the items you're selling...

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

Things are a lot worse in some countries like Iran,Lebanon,Turkey,Venezuela and AFrica.

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

Have a friend from Bham, UK. Years ago her parents were retiring and having to downsize their home for several hundred thousand when the pound was still 1.64. If her parents would have sold out then and bought a house in Florida they'd easily have close to a million-dollar home today. Blows my mind.

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

the main issue now is that a new version of 2008 is coming but they can not flood the system with money anymore due to high inflation. so be ready for mass bankruptcies and economic depression for years ahead

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

It will be rough for sometime - best to get backup plans and thrift options

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

ah yes. If other people have it worse, that means everyone else needs to just shut up.

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

do you know why 2008 happened? overvalued homes. mortgages and HELOC's to people, with zero income verification or credit score. 100-120% loans, and balloon mortgages. So when housing prices started dropping, and interest rates went up, and people had no actual liquid capital, boom. Foreclosure city. I was in the industry. I tried to convince people to pay off their damn debts. But no, they bought new trucks and went on vacation. The only thing like that that we have now, are auto loans. So I don't really see 2008 happening again just yet. We still have time and chance.

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

I don’t think eBays algorithm has changed. But with inflation in the U.K. stock now cost more because the US dollar to £ has dropped.

So if your selling cheap items with small margins then your business will be hit because of this.

I think no matter what category your in it’s always going to be overcrowded. Sometimes it worth changing your auctions. So if buy it nows are not making sales maybe do online auctions instead or best offers. It’s important to keep switching things up.

November December should be the busiest time of the year with Christmas coming up.

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

Would love more people to post in this thread. I've seen a downturn as well but so far it's looking 50/50 between people saying it's going good for themselves and others not. Come on, users. We're in this together... share your findings.

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

Sort of - yes and no in various aspects :sleepy:

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

My 2 cents.

Consumable and everyday items will continue to sell and all good if you can navigate price increases. Lower priced budget items will probably sell more due to richer people who used to buy 'luxury' options going more for the budget options.

Lower sales in optional purchases - the luxuries. Also the higher end stuff as people scale back a bit.

Probably no difference in the really high end stuff. The rich 1% won't even notice the s**t storm coming.

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

No doubt 2008 was the housing bubble. No bubble as such this time....

This time it will be simply fueled by interest rates going up like no tomorrow.

Going from 1% mortgage to probably 7%-10% over next few years is going to hurt A LOT.

1. First time buyers not able to afford anything will make the new builds and lower end of the market put down prices.Pulls the rest of the market with it.

2. Remortage and your borrowing goes up too much your forced to sell. Forced sales will bring down prices too.

All this with inflation in general.

As you say....pay off debt now.

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

no , it started because of high debt , real estate was just a weak point where the system started breaking. now the debt is a lot higher , the weak point may be anywhere

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

but the thing is, the interest rates will either price people out of the market, or lower the cost of housing. But that won't affect CURRENT owners, unless they got an ARM. Like what happened in 2008.

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

Mortgages were literally the highest debt most people had. I don't think that would count at a weak point or what caused the break.

We are talking about people getting mortgages and helocs for houses that cost 2-3 times what they were actually worth, cost 2-3 times what that persons income could actually afford. And people who had no savings, nor paid off their actual expensive debt ( cards and cars). That was a HUGE problem. Without that, 2008 would NOT have happened. Banks were forced to give out these loans with essentially threats from the government. When your houses value gets cut in half, and your mortgage payment doubles, I'd say that is a MAIN cause, not a weak point in the system.


which debt are we talking about now tho? Because cars are the main issue today, just the way houses were before. Tho obviously not in the same price range. And having your car repoed isn't as bad as having your HOUSE foreclosed.

So what exactly do you see happening? It's not like we are short on jobs. We have more than enough jobs. Too many, in fact. People are struggling to find workers. Rent payments are still high as ****. My rent just went up 27%. But that's down from the 35% it was up just a couple months ago. If you look at rentals, the price is dropping 2-4% every single week. So how long until they are back to normal? I mean hell, how many people didn't pay rent for a year, while also getting $4000 a month in unemployement. And how many of those people also worked uber and other stuff. So where the hell did that money go? Yeah, things cost more now. Everyone complains about gas, as if the extra $50-100 is going to destroy them. It's the cost of goods that are the problem.


Corporations are still buying houses for now. But once they realize they can't get as much rent as they thought they were... They will sell. And yeah interest rates will be high to buy, but housing prices will drop along with it. And anyone dumb enough to buy at the high, as an investment, will see their house worth much less.

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

What is the catalyst for 2022 you think?
We did also have an overbloated housing market this year and it looks like prices are starting to drop?

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

Home buyers are cancelling their orders left and right,retail stores have cancelled billions of orders from suppliers,layoffs are mostly office workers,finance,IT,personnel,communications workers.
Auto,medical,homeowner insurance permiums have gone up,ditto with food prices .
Biden is releasing 1 million barrels of oil per day from strategic reserve..
If this is not enough,stock market is tanking so dont get your hope up too high this Xmas

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

the system was propped up with new debt after 2007 that is why it did not collapse back then. now they can not do it anymore , real estate is not decisive here , there is a lot of debt everywhere

Re: This year is looking rough for the holidays
 

How are you coping agent006140?