What is the Average Daily Sell-Through Rate ?

[suitmandansellsny]

I'm curious what the average Daily Sell-Through rate is across the board.

Obviously, the sell through rate is heavily reliant on a ton of different factors. 

I'm just curious if there is a super broad number I can use as a base to be able to crunch some numbers and set goals for myself. If I can figure out an average sell-through rate with a goal of x profit per month, I'll have an idea on how many listings I need to have active to meet that goal. 

Example;

If I had a goal of $10,000 per month with an average profit of $18 per item, I'll need to sell 556 units a month. Using a 15% monthly sell-through rate, I'lI know I need to have around 3,700 items active at all times, which should result in around 18-19 sales per day on average.  (0.5% (0.005) Daily Sell-through rate)

• 3,700 items active
• 556 Items Sold within 30 day period
• 15% Monthly Sell-through rate
• 18-19 Items Sold Daily
• .5% (0.005) Daily Sell-Through rate
  
  *This also tells me it takes around 6.7 months to clear out inventory*

Should I use 0.5% , 1% ,  5%? Anything in between? 

[hartungcards]

Trying to predict this kind of stuff will slowly drive you insane.  You have 10 items for sale.  Your time would be better spent getting busy listing, and see how it goes.

[suitmandansellsny]

I get it, but I'm in the process of waiting for more inventory. Just want to have a baseline idea of what to expect.

[hartungcards]

You're never going to have a baseline of what to expect until you get yourself up and running.  And then when you have that baseline, it suddenly becomes a moving target.

[sakic92710]

eBay is too unpredictable & inconsistent to have a steady sell through rate.  You may get 20 sales one day & 3 the next.  15% would mean relying on SEVERAL repeat customers, as well.  I think most have difficulty hitting 5%.  Both your items & your prices would have to be exceptional and/or very popular.  Best of luck to you!   🙂

[earthdreamer]

Don't know if sell-through rate means all that much on ebay.

My sell-through rate for 90 days has consistently been around 90%.

Sales are very sluggish and unpredictable for me, so I would expect a more successful store to have a much higher rate. 

[suitmandansellsny]

Why do you think it doesn't mean much? I personally think it means everything. Obviously there are multiple variables at play, between different quarters, categories, type of year, etc... 

But you have a 1% daily sell-through rate. Seems super accurate and a great baseline to use. 

[suitmandansellsny]

Of course every day is going to be different. But there is always an average and numbers never lie. 
At a 5% monthly sell through-rate that means you have to have 600 listings to have an average of  1 sale a day or 6,000 listings to have an average of 10 sales a day.

And It'll take you almost 2 years to sell your inventory? Doesn't seem accurate unless they are all extremely long-tail items. I'm looking for a ballpark baseline. My best guess is .5% or 1% daily - 15-30% monthly. 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

No such animal, it would be WILDLY different in different categories.  If you sell clothing, you can only dream about a 90% STR in 3 months.   It's also not something I particularly focus on b/c I'm not a turn n burn seller.  I care more about ASP & profit per item, than STR.  But of course it depends on how limited your space is & other factors.  To some STR is really important, to many, it doesn't matter.   In fact, I don't have a clue what mine is right now LOL.  

ETA:  FYI, I've never ever heard of someone figuring out their daily STR.  Monthly & yearly, yes, but not daily.  You may be overestimating the level of sales the average seller has.  

[1funkydude]

Are you asking because you’re trying to formulate something that at least resembles a business plan? Is the intention to grow it large enough to sustain itself and ultimately provide a livelihood? 

[sin-n-dex]

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@suitmandansellsny wrote:

Of course every day is going to be different. But there is always an average and numbers never lie. 
At a 5% monthly sell through-rate that means you have to have 600 listings to have an average of  1 sale a day or 6,000 listings to have an average of 10 sales a day.

And It'll take you almost 2 years to sell your inventory? Doesn't seem accurate unless they are all extremely long-tail items. I'm looking for a ballpark baseline. My best guess is .5% or 1% daily - 15-30% monthly. 

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I have 12,000 items... a 1% daily sell through rate means I sell 120 items a day, and that is not happening at all. (And if it ever did happen, I would need to quit my day job to do all that shipping). I would say I sell about 15 items a day.

C.

[chapeau-noir]

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@suitmandansellsny wrote:

Why do you think it doesn't mean much? I personally think it means everything. Obviously there are multiple variables at play, between different quarters, categories, type of year, etc... 

But you have a 1% daily sell-through rate. Seems super accurate and a great baseline to use. 

---

I understand the desire for some hard data, but using a daily sell-through rate would be extremely inaccurate - as someone else said here, it's a moving target.  I look at it month by month (mine is 1.5% right now as Feb/March are typically slow months for me) and IMHO, that's a pretty short timeline as it is.  I work on averages.

ETA:  I'm very small time so don't expect heavy sales/high STR.

[inhawaii]

What's a sell-through rate?

Seriously!   I don't know!

Anyone wanna teach me in plain  English?

[suitmandansellsny]

Exactly. Yes

[1funkydude]

I thought so. I tried to do the same thing when I was building this. If you’re a numbers guy you want to have a baseline or a minimum from which to work. How many listings do you intend to maintain? 

We sell roughly 1% of our inventory daily on our main selling account. With 1000-1200 listed we average  10-12 a day, but do the math based on longer periods of time. This rate starts to drop if we don’t consistently list to keep the listings in the same range. It took some time to get there. We didn’t have a sell through rate that high with fewer listings. Its just math. 

I don’t think it’s unreasonable for you to work up your numbers on 1% a day if that frames it in a manner that works for your mind. It’s still an average over time no matter how you break it down. 1% assumes a lot of variables, so be prepared to analyze and adjust. What I did was track other sellers who were close to what I planned to do in terms of product type and listings.