It's November 2023 - How are your sales doing? Holiday sales are only going to go up- are you ready?

[rosachs]

Traffic should be picking up as buyers start paying more attention to that "days until Christmas" countdown.  How are your sales doing?  What are you doing different this year from other years?  What are you doing the same?

-Bob.

[vintagecraze50]

Starting to move this weekend. Prayers for all on here to make some great sales. Remember the Holiday season we will probably see chugging along even after Christmas as shoppers use their gift cards. Happy selling everyone.

[vintagecraze50]

Yep, right in demand inventory at a great price sell sell sell!!!!

[retro_entertainment_collectibles]

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@vintagecraze50 wrote:

Yep, right in demand inventory at a great price sell sell sell!!!!

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I know back in the day at that Flea Market her husband was bigtime into Slot Cars as I used to love looking at all the cars he'd bring.  When I was a teen had a huge HO gauge layout of three 4x8's plywood in my parents basement. Me and my best friend race for hours and hours on end listening to music havin' a time.  I guess her husband has or had a huge layout, I remember being invited to race but never did so.  I think he was a buyer for Hobby Lobby or something like that but I can't recall.  I asked her if he still raced and she said he did but I didn't ask if he still sells.  Was a pretty brief, "Hello how are ya?"

He'd probably the most professional setup I ever saw at the Flea Market, be like at least 300-400 cars in their cases all the larger scale and heaps of the older stuff.  Very very very cool all on Gondola rack sidings behind the toy tables.  They clean up, tellin' ya.  I'd not be surprised a bit if they walk away with $7-10K in their pockets for six hours work.

[mightymouse]

Kind of funny you asked that because Oct was really starting to tank and Nov was shot from a cannon and hasn't slowed down yet. Based on holiday sales in the past it should keep going for me like that till April, when tax bills start to hit.

[vintagecraze50]

I wish I had got into the Barbie stuff this year. It’s got to be hotter than she is.

[pls-consignments]

My Promoted Listing expenses were up in October. However, my sales were slightly down. My net profits were way down due to sharing it with eBay's PL.  November sales have begun to improve. Yet again, due to PL (5-10% avg), my net profits are still down.

After 7-months of being patiently optimistic that PL would eventually pay-off after all of the glitches and changes were complete, I'm sad to say that it has only been one giant profit suck. The only net profits going up are eBay's. Therefore, I've decided to stop the bleeding and liberate myself and my business from PL. PL no more!! 😊

[kensgiftshop]

As bad as sales have been this year, I just shut everything down for the rest of the year.

[empireclearance]

We did 80k in sales last year at this time.  We are down to 30k this year and we have more listings.

[nilis13]

Just checked traffic, views, etc..down 90% today. Not normal. What is going on!

[kphoto37]

Did somebody shut Ebay off Yesterday????  1 sale since yesterday afternoon. What the heck????

[ulfesharpe]

More interactions but buyers in general keep sending me offers well below my asking price. Seems like there's a culture of bargaining that comes with the framework and many people seem to think that collectibles and rare stuff should be priced as they were originally sold in stores 40 years ago and not how modern day demand sets it. I guess they also aren't aware of what it costs to ship these days and how feebay drives you to spike your prices at least 30% if you're selling from outside the US.

[blacktopautoparts]

It has been bad in terms of sales. This whole month has been a rollercoaster ride for us and usually it is not this bad. I think between the constant eBay changes to the search algorithm, the promoted listings craziness, not combining offers for international customers (this has since been redacted), not allowing us to send out invoices (this has since been redacted)  and then add that there are the economic factors (high grocery bills, student loans due, etc.) that come into play its created a whole bowl of wax. When it comes down to customers saying, do I buy groceries today and start getting holiday gifts with what I have or do I go buy X, Y, and Z off of eBay......people are probably choosing the necessities.

I honestly feel that eBay has decided to make some of the wrong and worst changes in a time where people have just plain run out of money. You want to bring in as many customers as possible, not keep chasing them away. This is some of the worst that I have seen sales in October and November. Granted we sell used auto parts which around September we start to slightly slow down, but not like this.

At this point, not only are we expected to move to PLA because PL is not what eBay wants......but they have also added another 2 layers with STORE ADS and OFF SITE ADS. Come on now, this is getting to be ridiculous and is only going to damage their business further because sellers are not going to opt into all 3 forms of promoted listings when you consider that our PL for the items we sell have hit almost a good 15-18% on some items. At that point it is like you are giving items away and with USPS shipping rates taking another price hike in January and for those that offer free shipping, you can only price things a tad bit higher to accommodate for all this. There are so many items that have turned into a race to the bottom that it hurts people and the crazy part is we get lower USPS and UPS rates for our business.

[albany_sellers]

My sales are at an all time low. I went from 3 or 4 sales a day at least, to 0 sales for days at a time. I was doing better with 20% the listings I had when I first started years and years ago.

Promoted listings have destroyed my store, and my money says that eBay is purposefully ruining sales in the hopes we give them more and more money to promote them.

[rosachs]

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@fastqualitydecals wrote:

Good Morning,

I noticed that Ebay is no longer advertising on Google like they used to months ago. Most of my buyers come after a google search. Now , ebay is nowhere to be found on google searches for products like mine, now your first options will be amazon and etsy. Ebay changed something very drastically the past weeks that is affecting my store. 

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I still see eBay listings when I'm doing pricing research for new listings - but they are not always the cheapest and not always at the top of the list.  The pricing change I like ... getting away from 'flea market' and upgrading to 'quality used goods' is a good thing.

What I have seen a lot more of are YouTube ads, streaming service ads, and even some 'broadcast' ads from eBay.  Mostly for their 'guaranteed' top-end goods, which in an odd way is good for the rest of us.  Not good because the ad spend at eBay is not focused on smaller sellers right now, but good in that these bigger ticket items generate more revenue for eBay..... meaning maybe, just maybe, they can wait a bit longer before bumping up fees again.

Sounds good to me, so I'm going cling to it until the jack-boots of reality smash my fingers and force me to put down the rose-colored lenses and view the unfiltered truth.  Bleah!

-Bob.

[bryo_3145]

Can't wait for Black Friday so I can fight the crowd and stand in line at 6 a.m. just for a pair of socks.