Once a week my sales drop as if a switch was hit. Anyone else with this problem???
All year I have had record sales months. I'm a TRP, I list every day, I promote all my listings, I ship daily using E-Bay labels. I'm an active store. I'm averaging $200 a day in sales. I sell books priced $10-100 dollars.
MY FRUSTRATIONS: #1. Every week, the day varies, I have a $10 to $80 day. #2. I can have a good $200 day, but sales come in groups. I might have several sales in the early morning hours and then nothing the rest of the day or perhaps not until late at night. Sometimes I have no sales all day and several in the evening. It's as if a light switch is turned on and off. Several times a month I have $300 - $500 days. when that happens, I get consistent sales every hour or so all day long.
I've heard about being 'capped' but this should not apply to me. I used to have a store with 7.500 books. Two years ago, I downsized, delisted common books, changed my business model and began promoting. I now only have 2.500 books on more desirable topics. When I call E-Bay support they say there is nothing wrong and my items are visible. IS ANYONE ELSE HAVING THIS PROBLEM???
reallynicestamps
·1 year agoI worked in retail for many years.
When I needed to have a discussion with a customer - say to plan an installation or to appraise a collection- I would try to have the appointment at 2pm on Tuesday.
No matter what I was selling 2pm on Tuesday was usually the quietest time of the week.
On eBay I rarely have a sale on Monday or on Friday, but Sundays and Wednesdays are busy.
All of which goes to say that in retail there are waves.
@slyders_finds It seems your wave is 10 days on 10 days off.
How do your sales over the past quarter compare with the same quarter in 2023? In 2022? We ignore the pandemic surge years, but sometimes also look at 2019.
This is because there are also waves within categories. When I sold woodstoves, the high period was August to November (we kept installing until January).
The same company sold patio furniture from January to May and BBQs from Easter to Father's Day. No one was buying furniture after Mothers Day nor BBQs after Fathers Day.
powell-collectibles
·1 year agoCurious how many sellers think that slowed sales days are the result of eBay flipping a switch to the off position. Might it be that your good sales days are ones where eBay is pushing buyers to your store?
isaiah53-57
·1 year agoIf it quacks like a duck...
selsa84
·1 year agoMost sellers on eBay will agree that if you have a new account and start selling you'll get a boost. Well how does eBay go about "boosting" that new sellers inventory? Wouldn't some other seller or sellers have to be suppressed or "throttled" to give those new sellers a boost? Of course they would. I've been on eBay long enough (15 years) selling what I sell now and 5 years before that to know that eBay has major server issues, rolling blackouts and regional blackouts.
powell-collectibles
·1 year agoI don’t think that most sellers agree that there is a boost for those just starting out listing. My take is that new sellers put out their best stuff first. That stuff sells really well. Maybe those new sellers don’t know how to price – maybe they’re setting things low enough so things move. When those new sellers get down to their B list inventory – or the things that are just priced way too high, sales suffer.
bricksandbamboos
·1 year agoI'm experiencing the same issue. Full time seller - listing 10-20 new items a day, promoting, ship daily using Ebay labels - Top Rated Plus seller....I've also noticed a trend of having a few great days and then a day with no sales or like you mentioned - a few sales in the morning...nothing throughout the day and then a couple at night...
Last week I had a great week - taking home about $1200 after fees over about 35 sales..Then, this week it's like crickets - a few sales over a few days so far this week for $99 after fees....It just seems to be this rollercoaster of inconsistency. My goal is to take home (after fees) $100-200 per day; but hard to stay on track with these "dips"...
Been tweaking things here and there, but only other option would be start cross listing...Anyways, cheers to more cha chings for the rest of this year/the future..
freelawnichols
·2 years agoThe tap shut off almost completely 9 days ago with 2 offers of $40 and $50 on $500 products
selsa84
·1 year agoYour sold listings tell a very different story. You've sold quite a bit more.
reallynicestamps
·1 year ago@freelawnichols
You can avoid those lowball offers by setting automatic Accept/Reject parameters when you set up Best Offer.
Rejected offers get a polite message from eBay (you never see this) telling them to try again.
I have seen lowballers made two or three low offers before hitting my sweet spot.
Also @slyders_finds When we get a sale the algorithm gives us more visibility in Search both in that location and for our similar products.
If you sell a variety of products you may notice that the sale of a Purple Wigglewag to Idaho leads to sales of Pink and Green Wigglewags elsewhere and another Purple Wigglewag in Idaho.
slyders_finds
·2 years agoIt's been happening for years. Have you also noticed you get sales in the same 8-10 States? I know California is one for me. My worry is, what if Ebay is pushing my visibility in CA when they are sleeping. Basically broadcasting to nobody. EBay has been broken for as long as I can remember. EBay will say they want every seller to have a fair chance at making a sale(personally I think Ebay doesnt have enough servers). Sorry, but I have been selling for 19 years. Why should a horrible seller with a minefield of negs and neutrals be getting the same exposure as a 100% feedback seller who gives top notch service at all times?
yuzuha
·2 years agoCalifornia has the largest population out of all the US states. It should not come as a surprise to get more sales to CA than to other states simply because there are more potential buyers there.
slyders_finds
·2 years agoThe patterns are very obvious that there issues going on in the background whether purposely or not. Not one sale for 10 days! Then 1 or 2 sales a day for 8 days. Now back to no sales for 9 days. "Rockstars" 🤣 save your breath. You are just delushional fan boys.
reallynicestamps
·2 years agoMy dead days online are Tuesdays and Saturdays. Consistently.
When I worked retail, we would tell customers with complex orders to come in around 2pm and preferably on Tuesdays because that was a consistently slow period.
I usually have enough incomplete listings to complete and upload, or new inventory to purchase, or shelves to tidy that those low sales days are a mercy.
richard1rst
·2 years agoWell, truth is, I don't see it as a "problem". The occasional down days give me extra time to work on My Door. Another couple of weeks. Wait'll you see it. It will knock your eyes for a loop. I'll give you a hint. It's done in bas relief and made out of Lacewood.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoI have had "this problem" for years but have never considered it to be a problem as others mentioned retail is cyclical. I focus on the bigger picture generally by quarter for tax purposes. I don't have the time or inclination to look at a day by day trend.
thriftntree
·2 years agoI started listing about a year ago, and quickly noticed this. I get excited when I see a lot of sales, then Quickly sad when all of a sudden nothing. A lot of sales for me is definitely a small amount for others here, but keeps me motivated. 😆
inhawaii
·2 years agoI should go in to business supplying ebay with switches.
Their switches seem to get a lot of use.
Lots of wear and tear. 😉
rugerskick
·2 years agoIts more than once a week for me.
dbfolks166mt
·2 years agoAs long as you have been selling this is the first you have noticed up and down swings in sales? I have been selling on eBay for a long time and I also sell on other venues/forums and I have never had anything that resembled flat-line sales on any of them.
The same applies to most business enterprises. I worked in multiple business environments from retail to service and there were always ups and downs it's just the nature of the environment and I never really considered it a problem.
reallynicestamps
·2 years agoI sell on Friday (almost annoying since I can't mail until Monday) Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
I have no idea why.
But it gives me time to list new stuff.
psfhobbies
·2 years agoI get it all the time anymore just replied to another post about it as well.
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 years agoI do not look at my daily sales totals. I do look at my monthly totals and average sale and number of sales.
I have targets for each of the numbers I look at, and history of which months of the year are the best months.
July and August felt slow. A comparison of with history shows that they were slower than the previous months of the year and ahead of the same months last year. Amazing how we get used to better numbers.
My average sale amount is dropping. I have years of online sales under my belt and this is troublesome. In the past my average sale dropped precipitously when the economy went into recession. When my average sale drops, Ebay fees and shipping costs take a much larger percentage of the sale price.
My average sale has not hit the level at which I panic, but I find myself adding more lower priced items to my listings to keep the order volume up.
Fortunately, I am not desperate for cash, but one never knows when that might change.
hurryagain
·2 years agoSee...it might just be an internet sales thing...
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoI've never, in over 20 years of selling on probably (by now) 7 or 8 different sites, had even sales come in at a regular rate. Clumps and bumps - that's the way it is, and I would not think twice about it, but look at the longer picture, how your sales are staking up over a longer term. Don't worry about when they come in, just that they DO come in.
ETA: Fat finger topys
hurryagain
·2 years agoI've been in the retail business for over 30 years and there are slow months but overall day to day/week to week sales are smooth and predictable for the most part. I do B&M and open markets and this is always the case.
The B&M store and the open market are completely different in what is sold and it's customers and STILL, overall sales are smooth and the slow months are predictable. September through October are slow months...kids back in school and everyone had to buy all of those back to school supplies and clothing and that gets expensive especially if you have more than one child, and again in April probably because all of the people who owe the IRS gotta pay so they tend to slow their purchases.
Other than that it's very predictable more or less... yeah you get the OCCASIONAL weird slow day.
It seems that whether it's Internet sales in general or "just eBay" that seems to have these weird spikes and deep gorges all in a week's timeframe or whatever. I seem to see a lot of people complain about this type of thing happening here so there must be something to it.
Cycling or throttling??? Or is this how internet sales roll???...who knows except eBay and I doubt that they are in the sharing mood regarding this. 😂
nilis13
·2 years agoYes, all the time.
angelno9
·2 years agoI've heard about being 'capped' but this should not apply to m
Just because you've heard about it does not mean it is real. eBay cant stop buyers from clicking the BUY button.
byrd69er
·2 years agoHaving sales just abruptly stop is not uncommon at all. Sometimes it's followed by a spike that outweighs the drop. It's been that way for many years. The thing to do is take a vacation from Ebay until things seem to be somewhat back to normal again....and then flood your account with listings. List list list. You want to be ready to ride the wave that will come. Seriously.
That's my experience. Your results may vary, maybe even be better than mine.
bonjourami
·2 years agoEbay has always been cyclical, but many sellers wont believe that.
markej67
OP2 years agoI've been on E-Bay for 20 years. I have not experienced drastic drops during the week, that's why it is troubling. My drops were by season. I sell war books so my sales dropped during the summer when the majority of my buyers were camping, fishing, playing baseball, yardwork etc etc. In the Fall and Winter these guys would start shopping on E-Bay again. In the Spring sales would start to drop. That was the cycle I experienced.
yuzuha
·2 years agoAs someone who has worked retail sales for more than 10 years, that's completely normal. You can have a $15,000 day followed by a $3,000 day in retail. The running joke in my store is that as soon as the supervisor says "I'm going on break" because things have been slow for the past hour, we'll suddenly have 15 people walk into the store at once. Things can be dead all day and then suddenly you get a crazy rush at the end of the day.
Anyone who expects any sort of consistency in sales doesn't actually know anything about sales.
byrd69er
·2 years agoI know well how that goes. I visit a friend weekly at his brick and mortar store just to catch up on things, see what's new, complain about events, have a cigarette...blah blah blah. There's dead days, and days when I step in and help customers when the traffic gets knee deep.
yuzuha
·2 years agoExactly. One of my friends runs a liquor store and I always go over on Friday nights for the free wine tasting and just to hang out.
Some Fridays it's just me, him, and his assistant manager sitting around talking and drinking wine. Some Fridays I have to take over pouring for the tasting because there's a line six people deep at the register.
markej67
OP2 years agoThis week I so far have made $1000. One day I had one sale $13. Today (8pm) only one sale $35. That seems a little drastic to me for a site with millions of buyers. I've been on E-Bay 20 years. Sales were always up n down to a degree. The differences were much closer. $200 $120 $225 $189 $160 etc Not $200 $289 $350 $32 $400 etc.
reallynicestamps
·2 years agoThat seems a little drastic to me for a site with millions of buyers.
EBay has millions of buyers.
I don't have millions of buyers and you don't have millions of buyers.
Not all of those millions are philatelists.
Many don't read. Or don't read English.
By the way, have you considered that flat things like books can be scanned and to show the cover and title better than photos?
markej67
OP2 years agoI take pictures at an agnel, so buyers know if it is a hardcover or softcover instantly with one picture. Flat scanned pictures do not show the edges. I used to scan when I sold military patches.
12345jamesstamps
·2 years agoI have the same problem. Its strange. I'll have no sales for a day or two....then a few days with only International buyers and then the rest of the days with only domestic buyers.
And of course, the fee is higher on an International sale vs. a domestic sale.
I had a great August.....but the last week of August like 2 sales. So strange.
Thankfully, I have repeat buyers who keep buying from me.
And yea, not promoting anything lately. I know if I promoted more would sell but then my profit margin would be rather low. So, I up to listing all the time.
markej67
OP2 years agoI hear you, I have 700 repeat buyers and they keep me going. I send them offers and that helps a lot with sales. I promote at 4% I have few international sales. This week I saw on YouTube a Canadian guy said he paid all the international fees at purchase but when he went to get his items they made him pay the duty fees again. It's a hassle to get reimbursed so he stopped buying on e-bay.
selsa84
·2 years agoJust wanna say kudos on your listings. You have some great books. Excellent pics and fair prices. I buy books and am glad I ran across your posting here. Hope things get better for you.
markej67
OP2 years agoThanks, my repeat buyers save me on bad sales days!!!