mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
1 BEST ANSWER
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I historically always have a slow down in sales from about mid March to late April. Once people figure out what their tax impact is to them, then they are more comfortable to get out and spend money.
But there is something else significant going on this year that will affect sales. The Presidential election. Historically in an election year people like to hang onto their money as much as possible because of the uncertainty the election brings. Once we know who the President will be, things will typically calm down. This year is like no other with everything going on. So the closer we get to the election, the slower sales is likely to get.
@lux.ra_14 wrote:The real reason sales are slow: Unknown and unknowable.
Most "reasons" are just speculation based on the natural desire to assign causality.
Tax time? Probably not. According to CNBC, 75 percent of tax filers expect a refund this year. And 27 percent of those people expect their refund to be bigger than last year. If tax season was a relevant gauge, sales should be up instead.
You can dismiss all the posts if you like, it does not mean that nay of us are wrong. It only means you don't believe anything anyone has said.
From experience [over 25 years of active selling] tells me that Late December, January and most of February are my hottest months for sales. Summer time is really slow, August usually being my worst month of the year for sales. From March until late April, sales are slow, likely due to many concentrating on getting their taxes done. They don't start shopping again until they are comfortable about whatever their tax situation is for the year.
For me that has held true almost every one of those 25 years with the exception of the Pandemic years when my sales were fantastic year round.
Often times how sales stack up for any given seller is going to be dramatically different from category to category. They certainly are not the same across the board. That would make no sense at all. There are lots of variables.
Oh one other thing I've noticed. When we are in a presidential election year, that will typically affect sales the closer we get to November. The uncertainty of it all can be very stressful for some and make them want to hang onto their money until they have a better feel of what the future has in store.
So I just had a buyer message me saying they had a product in their cart and could not remove it at all. They apologized to me because that wasn't item they wanted and I guess they were worried it would be unavailable to others since they couldn't remove it. I told them not to worry and that they hadn't purchased it. Said it has literally taken them hours of trying to fix it and nothing is working. Something is definitely not right and it is impacting the website and shopping cart.
I got a very vague response from askebay on Twitter when I brought up the subject of buyer disruption.
I'd say not being able to add an item to your watch list is kind of a big deal which does result in issues with sales.
