Hello --- How is February so far

[vintagemelrose2009]

Hello everyone - We don't sell any Valentine's day items so we have a very slow February so far.  No sale on Feb 1st  and then we have a good day -- nothing to brag about -- then back to no sale.  Not sure if it is the lull --- winter is not so much in CA --- our sales of snowboard gear is down this year --- usually people stop buying unless we are getting so much snow in the mountains and then we will see sales for snow gear pick up.  no one seems to be buying regular stuff - t-shirts and tops and hoodies -- we sell all throughout the year.  

We are kind of taking a break from lising too much.  We used to list as much as we sell --- about 200 to 250 items but last couple of months, we have been reducing old inventory and slowing down on listing.  That may explain slow sales.  When new listings, there are sales of new items.  

How are you guys doing?  I have been talking with owner to find some interesting items to sell.  clothing is ok and it sells but there are so much out there.  We need to find some new category to sell.

We are working on it.  Any suggestion?  Of course, e-bay comes up with inventory suggestions.  We don't want to sell health and beauty.  It is too specific and people have such wide taste and interest.

Love to hear how you guys are faring in February so far.   We are down to selling half as much weekly

compared to Jan & Dec.  Neither month were great by any means.  Best wishes.  Happy Spring.  Just around the corner.  Cheers.

[tofu107]

Returns after Xmas for onlines sales is always a big event,most stores deal with returns by either marking them down or sell to liquidators or auctioneers or simply trashing them.

Consumers are still paying off their XMas binge buying,it does not help when rent and food and gas prices are going up,average auto loan is now 69 months,talk about upside down loan?

Ebay is rotating our listings,there are just too many sellers and resellers and not enough buyers,and dept stores are stepping up their online sites to combat AMZN.

Small sellers are getting squeezed.

Spend $35 and you get free shipping from jet.com and a host of other dept stores and websites.  

[tofu107]

not to mention some folks are using their credit cards to trade crytocurrencies.
When these coins lose their value,they just dont pay their cc bills,
Now major cc issuers are banning cardholders to use credit card to speculate on such activities.

[femmefan1946]

Spend $35 and you get free shipping from jet.com and a host of other dept stores and websites.  

"Free" shipping is never free.

Even small sellers here who offer it know that the cost of shipping is included in the cost of the item.

For a small seller it may be fairly straightforward. Which is cheaper, a $10 item with $5 shipping or a  $15 item with Free Shipping?

With a larger company, those shipping costs are part of overhead and less direct.

It may mean that they charge $5 for an item that could cost $4.75 and $115 for an item that could cost $100, based on their other costs.

But buyers love 'free' shipping. And most don't stop to think it through.

In the long run, if a business is profitable, the buyer pays for everything.

[professor-t]

The problem with free shipping is that when you variable pricing (either auction or BIN/BO) the price of the item is variable, but your shipping cost is fixed.  So if the selling price is lower than planned for, your shipping cost and eBay fees will both be a larger part of your sale than you expected.  So if eBay did away with Best Offer, you would be able to offer the item at your best price, with free shipping calculated as part of your cost.

[where*you*crowin]

Hello --- How is February so far  

Is there a level of sales below zero?  Of course that is only on this site that it is a concern.

[mallontown]

sales have been bad compared to last year for me but February has been extremely slow as compared to last February. 

Has ebay told anyone of glitches with payments in the last week?

[us.robu]

Sales are horrible.  I get a few sales in a hour, than nothing for days. Trying to understand how This Cassini search engine works, its just so technical now. Back in the day it was so much simpler to sell on ebay, **bleep** happend? I Call support they dont even know what a cassini search engine is,  Its hard to just give up on ebay, but its more of a hassle now than its ever been.  1 day at a time. 

[us.robu]

They bleeped my  W          T              F         happend . ? I just dont get it. Snowflakes must run the ebay parade. 

[pickydigs]

I have had no sales in 30 days either, very very strange!

[vintagemelrose2009]

That sounds good.  depletion of inventory by selling more is a good thing.  hope your accounts do well in March now that we are almost at Spring.  With clothing we can never tell --- our business dropped 40%  from Dec & Jan.  == down $2000 - of course, short month but there were about 7 or 8 days we just sold one item.   I guess that is better than selling nothing.  We used to have those days.  Couple of days last week it picked up a bit but here we are at month end so we can do nothing for Feb anymore.

Let's hope March is better for all of us.   

Good luck with your new account and collectibles are always good, I think.  Good luck.

[vintagemelrose2009]

that is a cool idea, Tulips.  I never heard of that.  we have so many t-shirts that are 4 and 5 year old -- never sold --- sometimes the owner removes them after two years but if they are good -- he keeps them and list off and on.   I should get a group of those same size shirts and sell them.   Of course, i can do that in promotions or the new marketing manager --- where you do the sale.

thanks for that idea and good luck to you, tulips.

[vintagemelrose2009]

You are right -- except for the owner i work for.  I can't convince him that with the last postage increase in Jan 2018, we can't offer free shipping or we have to up the price.  We used to ship our average weight 8 oz t-shirt on USPS first class for $2.77 and everything under was $2.77 till you got down to 4 oz which was 2.66.  Now it costs over $3 to ship 8 oz and almost $5 to ship 16 oz.  That is a big increase and we can't offer free shipping with his already low prices.  But he won't listen to me and still offer free shipping without increasing the price.  We pretty much either break even or lose money on most items.

Make no sense so lately I have been upping the prices so i can get in the a.m. and do some work without thinking all this is so pointless. The longer the owner takes, the harder it would be to train the buyers shipping is a big part of purchasing an item anymore.   And when items get heavier -- the same thing --- much higher shipping costs.    YOur point on the dot --- so true.

[vintagemelrose2009]

I was thinking the same thing.  Jan continued fine even if not great but Feb started so bad.  We had no sales on Feb 1st -- nothing and many days just one sale with hardly any funds coming in after fees shipping.   we only had two good days when sale went over 200 dollars -- otherwise it was not worth to even turn the computer on.  

[vintagemelrose2009]

maybe bad words get caught in the bot scan --- something like that.  one time one responder said something politics --- right away his/her comment went away and my response mentioning that we should not talk politcs got adjusted.  We have to be on topic and not say words that might offend others here, I suppose.  They do moderate these boards closely for words and comments I think.  

We got what you meant.  At least they left your message and not remove in total.   Cheers.

[vintagemelrose2009]

That is tough.  I should be thankful that it only dropped 40% from dec and jan.  

Good luck in March --- 30 days wow.  you should call e-bay to make sure there are no hold on your 

account.  one time the seller i work for called and sales improved --- as if our site was offline and they 

put it back --- the next day sales picked up --- not sure if e-bay did anything to improve sales but we needed some or any activity and it happened day after he called.  

Good luck -- do something different and see if it makes any difference.  cheers