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What is the Average Daily Sell-Through Rate ?
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?
kh-stanley1
·2 years agoHi everyone,
Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread HERE if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.
Thank you for understanding.
dietaryconsultant
·3 years agoI watched a couple of good videos awhile ago on youtube on sell thru rate, listing/sales goals. Check out dailyrefinement or lindey glenn.
simply-the-best-for-you
·3 years agoNot a diss, but dailyrefinement is def a churn n burner, who sells stuff for $10. Which is fine, if that's what you want to do. He also manages his time in fractions of minutes. I'm not willing to do that. Even when I was his age, I wasn't willing to do that. Nothing wrong with it, but it's not the type of seller I want to be. That said, I'm sure he makes a lot mo' money than I do. And Lindey has a B&M store now, doesn't she?
I like both of those sellers, so not dissing them but IMO QC goes out the window at the kinds of numbers that are involved there, since they both sell one-offs.
simply-the-best-for-you
·3 years agoI have approx 1500 items right now, give or take. I can assure you that I do NOT sell anywhere near 15 items/day. In fact, I don't think I've EVER sold 15 items in 1 day. Of course pricing matters too & I don't turn & burn. I don't even consistently sell half of that per day. Also, there are still plenty of times when I go 2 days with no sales, sometimes 3 days.
Also, keep in mind that getting to & maintaining a certain number of listings like takes a great deal of time, esp if you're a 1 person show. It took me years to get to the 1500. In addition to keeping up with attrition, you must also keep your listings from getting stagnant (>90 days with no sale per Ebay), so a lot of your time is spent ending/relisting existing items. Stagnant items have lower visibility. Also it makes a difference if you're a one-off seller of unique items or an MQ (multi-quantity) seller of a certain number of SKUs. As you said, lots of variables. While you're right that numbers don't lie, on eBay you can't really extrapolate them to a listings/sales ratio. Even back when I doubled my listings from 100 to 200 & expected them to double, they didn't & they certainly didn't increase 10 fold when I got to 1000. You aren't considering that you must keep the SEO algorithm happy for continued high visibility. To do that, you HAVE to CONSISTENTLY list new items (not relists/sell similars). If I go 3 days without listing new items, I notice the difference, if I go a week, it's a big deal & if you have a real life outside of eBay, it's VERY easy to go a week without listing. Above all else, you have to keep listing new items. But you gotta also maintain the old items, you gotta source, you gotta ship, etc. Also, be prepared that depending on the category, you'll need to Promote your listings & either send or accept Offers.
You're expecting the ratios to extrapolate based on logic & sales theory & organic numbers. Those things are not taking eBay's SEO algorithms into account. Which is what really controls your impressions & views, conversion rate, etc. I have worked in sales in another field, where we could accurately extrapolate the numbers, but there was no SEO algorithm determining visibilty/search results. You have to keep the algorithms happy in many ways, the biggest one being consistently listings new items, but there are many other "best practices" to keep the algorithms happy.
With 1500 listings, I consistently sell 2-3/day but as mentioned, I still have dry spells. When I get up to 2000 (which I have the inventory on hand, the only issue is time), I expect that to maybe go up 1/2 to 1 per day & I still expect the dry spells. I also have to promote at fairly high rates. I do know of clothing sellers who sell 10+ per day, but their ASP is around $10 (mine is over $40), they have MANY more listings & quality control is not their strong suit. I'd rather have 2 sales a day at my ASP than 8 at $10 a pop. In fact, my goals have centered around increasing my ASP, so I don't have to list as many items. Like someone else said, if I was suddenly selling 15 items a day, I wouldn't be able to keep up with the shipping.
You have sales smarts & it's good that you're thinking in these terms, but until you experience the maintenance & feeding of the algorithm, it's all just theoretical. There are so many variables & depending on what you sell, the variables vary greatly. But it's def smart to think about how much you need to make monthly & what it takes to get there. Most sellers don't start out that way.
suitmandansellsny
OP3 years agoI appreciate the reply! Super good information.
Just to be clear, with the numbers you provided, you're saying it takes almost a year and half for you to sell out of your listed inventory?
simply-the-best-for-you
·3 years agoIDK, I don't track it that way. As I said, STR is not important to me. I care about high ASP much more than I care about STR. That sounds right-ish, though it's probably longer. I regularly sell items that are 2-5 years old (2 just this week). My oldest items right now are around 5-6 yo, but it's just a handful. That's how clothing is though, it needs to find it's right buyer. 2 years is not an unusual time period for me to sell an item in, but there are a lot of variables & price is definitely one of those. If I turned & burned at $10 a piece, I'm sure I wouldn't have 5 yo items, but I have no interest in that biz model.
ETA: Just a clarification point, I have plenty of items 2+ years or older, but I do not keep them on the site more than 6 mos at a time usually without a relist/sell similar. Like I said, a listing is stagnant at 90 days.
chapeau-noir
·3 years agoDaily STR is tough, too, when you sell seasonally as I do. What percentage of my inventory sells each month/each year, etc.? That's not static.
For me I track sell-through and profit by the month because sales are so up and down for me. I'm in between a curated seller and a churn n' burner. Also, I do consignments and that's a whole other wrinkle.
I do think @suitmandansellsny is smart to be thinking along these lines, definitely, but caution against getting too granular right at the outset. I would instead spend my brain power on inventory selection and presentation with an eye to tracking things monthly - it's a reality of life that nothing here really is static, one is always adjusting, sometimes making big adjustments. I've changed my line-up of inventory several times just in the last five years, a lot depending on what I can source, and what is consigned.
treasureserial
·2 years agoTY so much for taking the time to share these thoughts. I'm an avid part-time Dasher, looking to transition my side-hustle to eBay. This post makes tons of sense to me ("It is what it is." LOL). You've probably saved me months of frustration in trying to find the moving goal post. Much appreciated!
dbfolks166mt
·3 years agoThere are all kinds of business metrics and it depends on what your "goals" are. From a broad perspective a good sell through rate is in the 80% range but it is not something you use to make projections it is a metric you use for inventory management or production if you are a manufacturer. Even at that it is generally not tracked on a "daily" basis but over longer periods of time: monthly, quarterly, yearly.
While it can be related to profit the two are loosely connected. For example assuming both represent 100% sell through rates, you can sell one item a day with a profit of $100 or you can sell 10 items a day with each having a $1 profit. One has a profit of $100 and the other a profit of $10, which is better?
luckythewinner
·3 years agoI'm curious what the average Daily Sell-Through rate is across the board.
You would have to give a precise definition for "daily sell through rate". If I have one item that is listed for 1 month and sells on day 30, is that a 1/30 = 3.3% sell-through rate?
1funkydude
·3 years agoHe’s thinking in terms of what percentage of his total listings he can expect to sell each day, on average. So if he has 1,000 listed and keeps it at 1,000 he’d be selling 1% of his inventory daily with 10 sales.
suitmandansellsny
OP3 years agoIf you have 200 items listed and you sell 1 item per day. You have a .5% daily sell-through rate. or 0.005.
Which translates to 30 items per month - 15% monthly sell-through rate.
200 items listed with 2 sales per day will double those numbers. = 1% daily sell-through rate.
dbfolks166mt
·3 years agoIf you have 200 items listed and you sell 1 item per day. You have a .5% daily sell-through rate. or 0.005.
Which translates to 30 items per month - 15% monthly sell-through rate.
200 items listed with 2 sales per day will double those numbers. = 1% daily sell-through rate.
You are doing the math wrong. A sell through rate is calculated by dividing the number of items SOLD during a period by the number of items RECEIVED during a given period.
For example if over a 30 day period you SOLD 20 shirts and in the same 30 day period you RECEIVED 40 shirts your sell through rate is 50%.
Conversely if you SOLD 40 shirts in a 30 day period and you RECEIVED 20 in the same 30 day period your sell through rate is 200%.
The first example represents an increase to inventory while the second represents a decrease in inventory.
You can use the metric to measure a single item/product line you stock or you can look at it from a bigger perspective with regards to the total items you have listed and the total items you acquire and list in a given period.
inhawaii
·3 years agoWhat's a sell-through rate?
Seriously! I don't know!
Anyone wanna teach me in plain English?
slippinjimmy
·3 years agoWhich of the 158 standard definitions would you like to learn about?
1funkydude
·3 years agoAre 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?
suitmandansellsny
OP3 years agoExactly. Yes
1funkydude
·3 years agoI 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.
dirk12955
·3 years agoRegarding score keeping, Number of listings or the dollar amount? I have an idea how many listings I have and the total value of those listings on a day to day basis.
I calculate my sales daily. I don't pay any attention to how many items I sold. I'm more interested in
maintaining a dollar amount per day.
To me, 10 items at $100.00 total is equal to 15 items at $100.00 total, Or 5 items at $100.00 total
If I had 3300 listings and every listing was the exact same price, Then keeping track of the
number of listings per day-week-quarter-year would simplify the book keeping.
But, I have items for $2.99, $3.99 $4.99 $50.00 $100.00 so how many numbers of listings
I've sold is sort of meaningless. Plus one listing is for 1 item and the next listing is for 46 of an item
There's no tried and true method. Your mileage will vary on this issue.
I maintain a certain $$$ amount of listings on ebay from one year to the next. My sell thru rate is this.
I sold about 90% of the $$$ amount I have listed on ebay for each of the last 3 years.
suitmandansellsny
OP3 years agoExactly. Whether it's based on 10 years, 5 years or 6 months. Numbers are numbers. And the further out you go, the more accurate those numbers become. Obviously some months are hotter than others, and some years are better than others.
I want to work backwards to figure out how many listings I want to post, vs working down from a set number to list. I want to set a monthly figure goal and figure out how many listings I need to maintain to achieve that goal.
I was going to use .5% as a base to be super conservative, but it seems like a lot of sellers aren't even reaching that. Most of whom seem to be in clothing, which makes sense. I'm 90% sure I'm steering towards Skin-Care products. Maybe in that category .5% is a safe number to use?
simply-the-best-for-you
·3 years agoNo 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.
earthdreamer
·3 years agoDon'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
OP3 years agoWhy 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.
chapeau-noir
·3 years agoI 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.
sakic92710
·3 years agoeBay 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! 🙂
suitmandansellsny
OP3 years agoOf 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.
sin-n-dex
·3 years agoI 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.
greenthreads23
·3 years agoI have a store of 1500
15 new items a day.
420 a month
We typically sell 140 a month
Which is 33% sell through.
We started 9 months ago.
hartungcards
·3 years agoTrying 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
OP3 years agoI 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
·3 years agoYou'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.
luckythewinner
·3 years agoThere are sellers with have an item in quantity who sell dozens of them a day.
There are sellers like me with 1,000 listings who get a handful of sales per day.
Relying on an average as a "baseline idea of what to expect" is a waste of time IMHO.