Does anyone have any sense of the effect of the Pandemic on sales?

[tobiasness]

     I wondered if so many working from home or having to stay at home might encourage more shopping but my small store doesn't really show a huge difference. I am sensing people may feel guilty buying stuff that isn't food, medicine or toilet paper.

     Pardon me if this post is in the wrong discussion.

 Tobiasness        Toby's Tools     https://www.ebay.com/str/tobystools

[kraftyrose]

I agree - I think people are holding their money and buying necessities.  The stock market is tanked - many are not getting paid and it will be a few weeks before they get unemployment or any money.  And this is going to go on for a while so I see a fairly long term slump in sales - especially of things they dont have to buy

[kraftyrose]

I have not sold alot and I do think they are being seen.  People are not buying.  Many have lost thousands in the stock market, they wont see unemployment for weeks and some may have no income.  I saw on a venue what was selling - toilet paper, lysol, clorox, etc. 

[kraftyrose]

That makes sense - the paper money will become worthless

[bill.purvis2012]

As an example. I usually have 10-12 orders to ship on Monday. So far I only have 1. Hurting.

[calgal19572014]

I agree 100%.  At the present I am trying to only list things that a serious collector might be interested in.  Many of my items listed are discretionary non-essential and I have seen a significant drop on those purchases.

[axiombody]

I am definitely down for the month but usually march is not good for clothing for me because the winter season is over and shorts aren't really selling yet for warmer weather.  Things were looking very up this year though and I can see right when the quarantine went into effect my sales dropped.  I still have to say my sales are up much from last year so I think I came to the game prepared as last year was my worst ever.  I am down about 18% from last month but up 45% from last year.  My biggest problem is that all the stores I source from are closed indefinitely.  I can't make more money if I can't buy new items to list.

[m60driver]

I am a shameless micro reseller who will sell anything to make some lunch money ($5 is a salad at Trader Joe's) and my sales have improved greatly over the past few weeks.  With the basically unlimited free listings I have listed just about everything I can find, one long lost item dating back to 2015.  Since I may only have two months for all these free listings I have listed many items, mostly dead stock, at rock bottom clearance prices.

[uncseniorsportsfan]

Like any other time - it depends on what you sell and how low you are willing to go with prices.  

[andrew547]

Way up for necessities. That is my sense, based on experience. 

However, as an N1 anecdote, I wouldn't put too much into it.

[tori_729]

I was wondering about this too, and wondering what to list b/c I'm NOT a store seller and have actually noticed LESS promos this month. 😞 

I've found overall sales have gone down a bit. I did sell a couple things that were definitely related to the pandemic - some home school books and a doctor teddy bear. I generally still have the bulk of my sales over the weekend but it's more like 3-4 instead of 6-8.

[chapeau-noir]

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@uncseniorsportsfan wrote:

Like any other time - it depends on what you sell and how low you are willing to go with prices.  

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I have stuff in my clearance store for like $7.99 free ship, $9.99 free ship and there are STILL just watchers clustering.  Any cheaper folks, and I'll just write it out of inventory and get rid of it as I'm not going to pay YOU to take it off my hands.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

From the comments I've been seeing on various Facebook groups, some sellers are actually seeing great sales (and not necessarily of "necessities"), some are seeing little difference, and some are taking a pretty big hit. So I don't think at this point there's a one size fits all sellers answer. So far, I haven't seen any data for ebay overall.

[nuclearomen]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

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@uncseniorsportsfan wrote:

Like any other time - it depends on what you sell and how low you are willing to go with prices.  

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I have stuff in my clearance store for like $7.99 free ship, $9.99 free ship and there are STILL just watchers clustering.  Any cheaper folks, and I'll just write it out of inventory and get rid of it as I'm not going to pay YOU to take it off my hands.

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same, I had markdown sale on hats that ended yesterday, I sold one, I then made new promotion with little bit more discount (10%) last night, nothing, I can do this up 20% as I want all hat stock gone but being the way the economy is right now who knows, all watchers no buyers, i guess at least watchers tell you the items are being seen but will they ever buy(?) ...it's all guess. 

[jaf.us.hysarja9]

Mine have been decent, but now I'm having trouble getting more product because many of my sources are shut down 😞

[tori_729]

Yeah, probs no one is buying clothing right now because who is gonna see them? 😕