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I'm quoting Jeffweico here. So it's a copy paste from his post:


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Well, sales hsave not STOPPED, by any means, Just fewer of them and lower prices. This is a seasonal thing and it also depends on what you sell.

August is the last summer month before the klids here go back to school. Lots of people have BBQ's at this time of the year. Others are on vacation and just doing outdoor things.

For some schools, the last week of August is when the kids go back, for others it is the day after Labor Day. Sales pick up then and increase steadily until peaking during the Christmas rush. Sales slow down in January, but are still very good, and that is to be expected - not every month can be December! Sales slow down a bit in May, June and July and then really slump in August.

This has been the pattern I have noticed over several years. Of course, if you are selling swimwear, BBQ sets, or outdoors stuff, your pattern will be different.

The GOOD NEWS is that online sales increase, overall, at double digit rates each year. So, if any newbies see their sales slow down during the summer, don't worry - it does not mean that the internet is no longer a good place to sell, it is just part of the cycle. The internet is not a fad, it is not going away anytime soon.

Perfectly said

This is the first year we will be doing mainly fixed price listings rather than multiple BIN auctions... so I hope that the peak season would be just as good or better.

Any opinions?

i do fixed price and i get much higher prices however it can take a little longer to sell. worth it in my case

problem with fixed price is it gets less exposure, compared to multiple BINs.

but then again, I guess other members have to do the same... I'd think.

Best route to go, auctions are dead.

i don't think it gets any less exposure. for me i sell higher end products. i would not sell any low end on the account so when my feedback is looked at, all they see it premium sales, i think that is what got me a lot of business

Update: I got a little sale here and there right now, but still very very low.
Better than nothing surely.

Right now it is slow, but this is due to the time of year and also what your offering for sale.

LOL! No offense but I feel like some people are in denial here. It's that time of the year .. It's the holidays ... It's the freaking end of season ... There was fire down my street ... It's back to school LOLzzzz ... Just accept eBay + Economy = We are all ****ed ...

Yeah, actually it is that time of year been that way since 2000' typical trend, I can provide charts for you if you want solid information.

Nobody is denial, I am still making bank but my market is normally slow right now. I am adjusting what I sell to compensate for the slow up.

"Just accept eBay + Economy = We are all ****ed" this I can agree, we are fooked because of what is going on with the Fiat based system, but if I have to sell crack to kids I will :yar:

I was thinking the other day, maybe this is a blessing in disguise...

I see some threads where people were getting limited left and right by PP.
So if we get minimal amount of $ coming in this month, I think that chances are much lower for us to be limited.

Thus we'll have good standing accounts to go full force coming holiday season (oct-dec)

Do we really need Top Rated Seller status to sell more?
Or is powerseller status enough?

Im finding sales really hard. My items are the cheapest out of 16,000 listings and I can only pick up the odd sale here and there. Have done all the correct keywords, subtitles etc!

Must be something to do with search or people are saving for the run up to xmas

I cut Paypal out of the picture, have no issues taking a large intake of payments.

maybe you need to check how you are marketing your material, it can make a big difference, as well as keywords

Good luck Saijin

I have to disagree with that
On some of my accounts I have sold one specific item 10X more then the competition also the account making really good money, 100% feedback, Top Seller, 1 day shipping, returns accepted ...etc
Sometimes my listings drop on the 3rd page, sometimes on the first one, sometimes I can't find it at all.
Some other times my items posted in Canada are visible from Europe but not from Canada. - Everything is a mess and I gave up trying to tune it up.
I also have some items unique on Ebay selling with huge runs (10 items a day for 2 weeks followed by zero for 10 days)
Same situation on all my accounts - selling from US, Canada and Europe
To me it looks like an experiment out of control.

Very well said! This is EXACTLY my experience! Anyone says otherwise, either doesn't sell a lot on eBay or doesn't have much experience with eBay. It doesn't take much observation to notice something is terribly wrong with eBay. One week you get a lot of sales, next day nothing. one day you get hundreds of view and watchers on your auction , next day very little. Sometimes you get only international buyers for like straight 2 weeks then not one! I am not sure if they are tinkering purposefully or they screwed eBay search engine so badly, they can't find how to fix it. But whatever they do or not, it's bad news for most of us. Technically even if they do succeed to sort it out, it means they will direct traffic to whomever they want and you know very well it will be directed to either top power sellers and big brands. In meanwhile small sellers to medium will be left in the dark with occasional sales. I believe their plan is to literally get rid of 90% percent of sellers and only be left with top sellers. Why you may ask ? Because it is in their interested. It will be a much better place to shop and much more safer place. No more being sued by brand companies like Tiffany and Co etc ...

Yuuuuup!!!
 

This happens every once in awhile but it goes away, trust me. For example, Last 3 weeks I have been getting alot of bids and many views but now some of my item has zero views and no bids. I can accept the no bids but zero views for an item that is popular, now thats just crazy. It made me think if Ebay even posted my item online for people to see which I doubt. It does happen but it goes away. To those that say Ebay is falling off and they will die off that is not true. If that was the case then why is any of us in here in the first place? I joined many other sites and trust me they have more sellers then there is buyers in my oppinion but it depends on the item that you sell. For me Ebay gets me the most money then any other site even on its slow day.

One of my accounts lost a lot of views due to clientele in NY and NJ not going online :(

I can track it - pretty noticeable

Hmmm... I was thinking that even though some of the east cost buyers are offline, I still don't see much of buyers from any part of USA.

SO I don't think that it's really the storm that's affecting an almost zero sale.
ESPECIALLY when the 9th of November is when retailers start to advertise for holiday sales. I contacted one of my friends who operates a suit store and he said that before the 9th he made a total of $2000 in 3 days. And today he made $9000 in a day.

So that says retailers have started picking up sale and we should too.

Is there anyone here whose sale volume has increased due to the holiday season yet?
Or is it way too early to count on holiday season craze?

October was excellent for me, from beginning to end. November seems to have slowed down so far. Hope it picks up in the second half.

I have moved 99% of my inventory to one account, so if the search is messed up, might be losing a few or a lot of sales. I already cut off Russia, Kazakstan and Ukraine.

Never send to Russia, EVER!

Yea october was ok. Nothing special, just enough to pay bills.

Same, Nov has slowed down and I'm hoping that 2nd week of Nov till X-mas will be when we'll be bombarded with sales. It'd be a very good problem to have.

Volume has increased, however prices are still at a very low number compared to last year. I do hope it gets better soon because its a lot of work for a smaller amount of the pie.... Plus there seems to be more competitors in the market so far.

Things have been crazy so far this month for me.... 3-4 bins of mail a day

As much as i planned, didn't order enough in july and august

I found my notes from 2011, I did exactly 5x in sales income compared to oct and nov of 2012 .

This is bull**** and I'm starting to get rather upset. I don't think Sandy has anything to do with it. I'm really starting to believe that eBay is playing "search control" results.

Another thing I've been wondering about is the change from not allowing multiple auctions and only allowing 1 fixed price listing, if that has anything to do with exposure.


Update: A lot of my items "despite the not lowest priced" are still showing up on page 1 and 2 . So doesn't look like it's the search results now that I checked.

Ebay, in my opinion, is trying to eliminate international transactions.
They elimated the option to search items located in any country/region and when you search worldwide you only get a small portion of whats actually available worldwide.
I buy and sell on ebay and produce the same searches everyday and it has all changed in the last few weeks. Way less search results show up for the exact same bookmarked search. I am fairly certain every seller is experiencing less traffic because of buyers, new limited searching ability.
This is potentially a good thing for my business as I will find better deals but I think it is a disgrace that ebay has actually done this without informing us.
any thoughts on my theory?

I don't know about international, but all of mine are domestic only North America. No international shipping.

What do you mean by buyer's limited search ability?

1. I read somewhere in an ebay forum from a retailer who claims he's been in retail for 30 years that his sales dropped to below 50% every 4 years on election year for 6 months and it's a trend for him.

2. I researched google and it's said that google's search engine update (panda) has eliminated about 90% of online merchants.

3. Another report I read from NRF is that this holiday season may start off slow.

4. Could the fiscal cliff have an effect on people's mentallity on spending?


Please share your thoughts on the above.

Well I think we can all agree that economy in the entire world is not doing well. Sure it is worse in Europe than here in Canada and USA but it has affected everyone including online sales. I don't have statistical data but I remember that just before the financial global collapse in 2007-2008 eBay was doing well. In fact eBay in the years before this global collapse probably had at least 50% more active buyers (if not more) than today. Now you know WHY eBay sales are slow.

Well this is just one aspect of course but a major one.

For my notes:

Survey Reveals Impact of Google Shopping on Merchant Sales

Attaining Top Rated Seller Status on eBay Not Worth the Stress

eBay Sellers Stores Reports Show Traffic Drop

eBay Strategies: October 2012 ChannelAdvisor Same Store Sales (SSS) and 2012 Holiday Schedule

So I was talking with another business owner who exports plastic to China.
Apparently China went into recession 6 months ago and he said that the Consumer confidence level this year is not too good as well.

THe effect is that we aren't getting the volume we used to be the past 2 years.

From what I understand Chinese economy is still shaky but recovering. It's your eurozone that is in big trouble. Canada's economy is recovering too but at a very slow pace.

I called them up once and asked them how to become top in the search they told me, it's done by randomly picking out sellers in the category, and giving everyone a shot.

But last year at this time of the year within 3 months. I had one of my auctions rank 8th in the search engine and I was selling a good 8 to 11 per day for over a month.

I did a lot of research on how to get there and it worked. Then I stopped it, (I met a girl). lol But yeah too me ebay $ is just a game really.

But yeah like they said they give everyone a chance to be in the top search. I also noticed when you are TRS you get double the sales. I went from 60 sales a month to 165 sales in a month.