Slow Sales

[gladsong777]

I had been doing rather well I thought selling on EBay since February.  I had two or three sales a week which made me very happy.  Two weeks ago, though it all just stopped.  I have only gotten a couple of sales and only after I sent offers to the watchers.  Is anyone else having a problem with slow sales right now?  I'm getting very depressed.

[alwaysthelowestprice]

You're not alone. I haven't sold anything since 8/14 and only have 6 sales for the month of August. I usually average 25 sales per month. I have 400 random items for sale. I don't get it.

[coolections]

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@gladsong777 wrote:

Is anyone else having a problem with slow sales right now?  

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I would guess those selling clothes and glassware are mostly in the same boat as you. Unless you can continue to source high end glassware and clothes (probably more of what you already sold), and continuously list new items daily I would not expect sales to  increase. Clothes categories is the most oversaturated of all, and most people stopped collecting glassware almost a decade ago.

[retro_entertainment_collectibles]

Over past few days I've saw some page errors happen.  Search for something, then click a category to narrow the search and sometimes it ends up at an Error Page.

[dentalsales4u]

Sales are slow across the board for most.

My sales are a hit or miss. I'll get a few small sales then nothing for days.

Then it will pick up a bit, then nothing again.

Schools started in the south the middle of August and most other schools will be starting back up in a few weeks.

People are doing final summer vacations or back to school shopping.

Hopefully, it will pick back up next month after Labor Day.

[chapeau-noir]

This is s-l-o-w time for clothing - in my experience the secondary clothing market follows the primary clothing market by about a month, and people have their warm weather clothes but are not looking for cold weather clothing yet. So August is really bleh because they're not in the market for anything. My sales are generally very regular and I'm having a real slump. Every August this happens. Every August I think I'll just close my stores for the month and take time off as I used to, but just haven't.

[baantiques]

I was doing really well this summer.  My 90 day rolling period is more than double the sales over the previous one.  What I've been doing that I think has made that happen is listing regularly, having sales, and getting rid of stale inventory.  Things were going great until last week when sales crashed.  This week is down over 50% from the previous week.  No explanation - I'm listing the same number of the same types of things.  What I usually do when this happens is go back through my listings and anything that is more than a few months old with no views the last 30 days gets ended and sold similar.  Then I review stale inventory and pull things that have no sales, put them together in auction lots and start them at 9.99.  I'm about to do that with my brochures.  I've been selling them for almost 2 years now and I have a pretty good idea what will sell and what won't.  Bronco and Mustang?  Fly off the shelves.  Taurus and Escort?  Might as well used them  for TP.

Sales usually slowly start to recover.  Hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll know.

[chapeau-noir]

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@baantiques wrote:

I was doing really well this summer.  My 90 day rolling period is more than double the sales over the previous one.  What I've been doing that I think has made that happen is listing regularly, having sales, and getting rid of stale inventory.  Things were going great until last week when sales crashed.  This week is down over 50% from the previous week.  No explanation - I'm listing the same number of the same types of things.  What I usually do when this happens is go back through my listings and anything that is more than a few months old with no views the last 30 days gets ended and sold similar.  Then I review stale inventory and pull things that have no sales, put them together in auction lots and start them at 9.99.  I'm about to do that with my brochures.  I've been selling them for almost 2 years now and I have a pretty good idea what will sell and what won't.  Bronco and Mustang?  Fly off the shelves.  Taurus and Escort?  Might as well used them  for TP.

Sales usually slowly start to recover.  Hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll know.

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Key points for selling ^^  I have sudden slumps, too - it's just the way it is around here - then sales start coming in again, but no matter what, I need to stay consistent.

[norskmediashop]

Ebay is dead. I don't know what's happened, were down to nothing. Any way to get a mod to look into this?

They have changed something. There is something wrong when you go from a fairly constant steady flow a couple weeks ago to days on end now of 0. maybe 1 if your lucky and that's it for a string of days.

Meanwhile amzn is flowing and working normal and fine. Different beast I know but still. Why are any of us continuing to pay the outrageous price of a store front per month? They either changed something here or people have up and quit buying off ebay........a slow down right now is normal, but 0 activity is not. 

[12345jamesstamps]

Weather too hot in the USA right now...buyers are looking for fans and swimsuits.....not clothing and shoes

[femmefan1946]

Usually when someone has this complaint I tell them to look at their sales in 2022/2019/2018*.

Since you are new, all I can say is late summer is often slow except for back to school stuff like computers and electronics and children's clothing.

Just relax, it will come back for the holidays.

While things are slow, take the opportunity to revisit older listings and update them with what you have learned in the past months.

Shop for new product, based on what has been successful for you.

Adjust pricing. Consider Promoted Listings**. Read up on eIS and on the MBG.

Put your bookkeeping in order. Tax time will come sooner than you think.

*Because there was a pandemic surge in online buying which was an outlier.

**Which, annoyingly, do seem to be more successful than making Offers to viewers who have already rejected your items they looked at.

[inhawaii]

Sales are not slow for everyone.

Generally people who are experiencing good sales do not come to the boards and vent.

My sales are better than normal.

I'm not saying this to brag, but to let you know that not everyone's switch has been turned OFF.

In my opinion (and lots of people disagree with me)  it all depends on what you're selling.

I hope things pick up for you.

[ed8108]

Change can & often does have consequences

Not surprisingly, eBay isn't attracting spenders as it did years ago.

[ittybitnot]

@gladsong777 

Something else for you to consider.  Since you seem to be using the Best Offer feature, you may wish to check your site preferences here: 

https://www.ebay.com/bmgt/buyerrequirements

Buyer Payment Requirements

*Require buyers to provide a payment method before they place a bid.

*Require buyers to provide a payment method before they make an offer.

Yours are set to the default of YES.  I just tried to make an offer or two and it requires that I enter a payment source to be auto billed in case you decide to accept my offer.   For me, as the potential buyer, it means there will be no more combining items for one shipment either by offers accepted or bids won.  All sales will be paid as soon as the auctions end or offers are accepted.  They will be separate transactions. It is just too expensive to pay shipping in full that way, and you pay more as well. 

Sorry, buyers are not told that combined shipping will not be available with this procedure, and the payment options available to them are limited as well.  


Good luck!  Let us know if you change your mind and would like to ENCOURAGE buyers to send multiple offers and combine shipping for same.  They might be a non-payer, but these settings turn away PAYING BUYERS as well. 

[gladsong777]

I had no idea!  Thanks for the heads up.  I'll make that change.