Slow sales, am I the only one?

joesshooze · #1 10-08-2015

I only sell 5-10 items per week but have not had one sale in over 10 days. WTF! This has not happened in 5 years of doing business. Over the summer I noticed most buyers did not do BIN but waited but NO sales for this long is unprecedented.

rsot · #2 10-08-2015

Perhaps your competition is out-running you? How popular is your item?

empirestate · #3 10-08-2015

Time to do research

aking · #4 10-08-2015

not really, seems steady here. You may need to make some adjustments, free shipping? Lower price? Better photos?

slokor · #5 10-08-2015

No change here either. Sales seem to be fairly steady. I expect things to actually start picking up quite a bit over the next month as we get closer to the holidays.

joesshooze · #6 10-09-2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by slokor

No change here either. Sales seem to be fairly steady. I expect things to actually start picking up quite a bit over the next month as we get closer to the holidays.

I hope you are right.

yankee · #7 10-09-2015

I strongly suggest looking at your listings, searching your competitors pricing, pics, listing style.

If you have good till cancelled listing and no sales for a while, ebay wont even show those items or show them at the very end of the search results.

Try new styles of selling if you find your prices are in line with competitors.

frksmth · #8 10-09-2015

My sales have slowed down to almost a standstill too just over the past two days. Until then I was doing a minimum of at least 5 per day :(

desikanjar · #9 10-09-2015

Your right sales are slow at moment

jakobrockz · #10 10-09-2015

October has always been the time of the year that my sales jump up. I'm excited for November and December. Reinvesting everything I make this month to make sure I have the good amount of stock and at least 2x the amount of shipping supplies I typically have

If sales are slow, spend your free time researching new products or maybe a cheaper supplier so you can be more competitive in pricing. Or look at buying larger quantity of stock so it'll be cheaper per pcs

martyjump · #11 10-10-2015

Sales have been steady for me this month. Hope you figure it out

jeffweico · #12 10-10-2015

My sales are down by maybe 5%. Nothing as drastic as the OP is reporting. I think you need to research your competitors, where your listings are at, whether or not your DSR's have taken a hit recently, etc. To boost you search rankings, you can offer free shipping. Being Top Rated helps, of course, but that cannot be quickly fixed.

The good news is that this is the "Golden Quarter" and sales should pick up for everybody pretty soon. Right after Halloween is when most people start seriously thinking about Christmas. That is not the actual start of the holiday season, of course, but many people start keeping an eye out for gifts at that point. One of my family members always starts buying six months in advance, whenever they find a good deal on something. She somehow manages to hide them well. She is very disciplined that way.

So cheer up, your sales should be increasing soon!

solefoodbk · #13 10-11-2015

My sales have increased ever since September...

The reality is, if your not selling now unless your niche is Christmas related, the holiday season wont boost you that much.

Yes we all benefit but sales closer to Christmas but sales should really steadily be picking up the closer it gets to Christmas. Now again everything depends on what you sell so its impossible to give you a accurate answer. Well...I guess Jeff came close.

joesshooze · #14 10-12-2015

Well broke the jinx this morning. I appreciate everybody's input. I have done most everything everybody suggested and had no DSR problems just think it was a hiccup and I also have like 2x the inventory I usually keep because I really missed out the last 2 years for Christmas sales. Happy selling!

QuickFlip · #15 10-14-2015

Yup, these 3 months are primetime baby!

rimants · #16 10-14-2015

No problems with sales. Of course it depends on what are you selling..

Chuckchamberlain12 · #17 10-14-2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by QuickFlip

Yup, these 3 months are primetime baby!

hAve · #18 10-14-2015

after VERO kicked competitor guys my sales raised from up to 7 items per day to minimum 10 per day, hehe....and yes, after couple weeks they have kicked my ass as well.

frksmth · #19 10-14-2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by hAve

after VERO kicked competitor guys my sales raised from up to 7 items per day to minimum 10 per day, hehe....and yes, after couple weeks they have kicked my ass as well.

Lol

My sales have finally picked up again.

Welbs · #20 10-14-2015

Mine are well ****e at moment - to many newbies in my once niche market ruining it by selling the items fir 50 percent less than what us few sellers were selling them for :( they cant be earning anything after eb pp fees and shipping fees - fools!!!!!

Burger Box Man · #21 10-14-2015

My sales are very poor as well but i think its to do with my listing being down the ebay search results

ploughman · #22 10-15-2015

I'm trying to diagnose causes myself, and I've got experience going back to 1999 and a fair-size inventory (250-300 on ebay, about 700 on Amazon).

Year-over-year the monthly dropoff for this September was close to 50% vs. 2014, approaching great recession levels (i.e. 2009 vs. 2008).

Competition and competitive changes are the first thing you'd suspect and I've dealt with those before, but a good chunk (like 40%) of inventory has no direct competition and it's showing the same pattern. Also the quasi-collectibles and previous strongest items (some were very strong).

Amazon is the stronger platform, but drops are consistent percentagewise across both Amazon and eBay. Usually there's a boomlet for the back-to-school period (170+ sales a week on Amazon in past years), but this year it never topped 100. October is typically slow, and then there's the holiday season.

I also notice eBay having to offer much more frequent free-listing specials, which could be a bad signal. I may just downgrade to basic store there.

It's also all puzzling in light of an improving economy overall, at least compared to 2012 and 2013 when volume was better.

I have tons of one-sie and two-sie stuff awaiting listings and enough for entire other business lines if needed, though I like doing that about as much as washing dishes by hand. The one saving grace of the business line is recyclability of listings, generally. If more work on the overhead side has to be done then the per-hour amount you're making drops, and you can only take so much of that.

I just hope it's not some kind of sea change where the platforms have "matured" and supply growth is getting chronically way ahead of demand growth overall. Wall Street seems down on eBay stock lately.