Markdown manager shuts down my sales

[markej67]

For the last year I have been having problems with Markdown manager.  I make about $200 a day on non-sale days.   I have run one day, two-day, three day and weeklong sales.  I have run 30% - 50% sales to get rid of old merchandise.  I have run  10% to 30% sales on store categories I want to thin out.   On most of those sales I have 200-500 items included.  I usually sell 0-4 books per sale.    20% Off the entire store sale.  I have run five of those the last three months. I run the sale 2-3 days.   For each sale I made around $200 per day.   $200 a day is my average day of sales.  I expect a 20% off sale to generate a lot more sales. 

I ran 20% off Labor Day weekend.  I started my sale at 10pm on Labor Day and had no more sales the rest of the night.  I had $120 in sales Tuesday Sept 5th and $62 Wednesday Sept 6th    I called E-Bay and they could not explain.   

Does anyone else have problems like this with Markdown Manager??? 

[heckofagame]

Labor Day? The day when everyone is off and OUTSIDE doing stuff? That Labor Day?

[lakefor94]

I have no issues with MM.

Labor Day weekend was slow for a lot of us.

You have 886 sales for the last 90 days. Carry on.

[wastingtime101]

2-3 day sales probably work for many. I found they don't work for me.

- It causes listings to reindex multiple times at start/end of sale which reduces visibility in search. Better to space that out with a longer sale.

- eBay sends interested shoppers (item in cart, on watch list, etc) alerts when the price drops, but those operate on a delay.

I typically go with a week long sale. Sometimes 5 days, occasionally 2 weeks.

Have you experimented with shorter and longer sales to find your sweet spot @markej67 ?

[markej67]

You did not read what I said.    I started my Labor Day Sale at 10pm on Labor Day.  The sale went on for the two days following when all the cookouts and yardwork were done.  

[robbie31415]

"I called E-Bay and they could not explain. "

Do you have a special line to someone who would actually know this type of stuff. If you do I would love that #.

If you are calling customer support. Yeah, they aren't going to be able to help at all with questions like this.

[markej67]

Perhaps....  Was Christmas 2022 slow too?  I ran a 20% Off Everything Mark Down sale; 6am December 23 until 1130pm December 29th.   The best week of the year!  Pre X-Mas and the week everyone had money and E-Bay Gift Cards to burn.  After 7 days I made $918.  Thats about $110 a day.  I made $5.378 for the month of December.  Counting the poor week I averaged $173 a day in sales. 

[lakefor94]

"- It causes listings to reindex multiple times at start/end of sale which reduces visibility in search. Better to space that out with a longer sale."

I was not aware that a MM sale causes the listings to reindex. Good to know. I have been running 4 day sales lately. Going to try a couple of weeks next time.

[wastingtime101]

Yeah, any edit to the listing can cause reindexing. Sometimes it's pretty much instant and other times it can take a while. Ever notice the warning on markdowns and promotions that you should wait at least a few hours before starting/ending promos on the same item?

[lakefor94]

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@markej67 wrote:

Perhaps....  Was Christmas 2022 slow too?  I ran a 20% Off Everything Mark Down sale; 6am December 23 until 1130pm December 29th.   The best week of the year!  Pre X-Mas and the week everyone had money and E-Bay Gift Cards to burn.  After 7 days I made $918.  Thats about $110 a day.  I made $5.378 for the month of December.  Counting the poor week I averaged $173 a day in sales. 

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That is nice, glad to hear of the success.

[lakefor94]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

Yeah, any edit to the listing can cause reindexing. Sometimes it's pretty much instant and other times it can take a while. Ever notice the warning on markdowns and promotions that you should wait at least a few hours before starting/ending promos on the same item?

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Have seen that.

I have 590 items categorized from 10 to 60 percent off.

Was thinking buyers might see that the sale is ending and buy. Thus the 4 day sales. That has not been working that great, lol.

I like the idea of the buyer seeing the strikethru as making it standout against other listings. I might just go for the gusto and make it a month sale next time....

[wastingtime101]

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@lakefor94 wrote:

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I might just go for the gusto and make it a month sale next time....

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Interested to hear your results. The longest I've gone is a 3 week sale on a specific category. My testing method for that category:

Ran 3 weeks on, approx 3-4 weeks off for a full calendar year, and strategically timed around holidays.

Ran 2 weeks on, approx 3-4 weeks off for a full calendar year, made sure to use same timing around holidays as year prior, and same discounts.

Found that category performed better with 2 week sales. Ran similar experiments and found other categories performed better with 1 week sales. Only one of my categories responds well to 5 day sales. None of my categories perform well with flash sales (1-3 days with steeper discounts).

I still run the occasional 3 day sale with discounts ranging from moderate to steep. So far that 3 day sale has proved to be fruitless for me. Might work better if I was selling new model iPhones.

[lakefor94]

Thanks for taking the time to present this information. The more I have to chew on, the better.   

[markej67]

Ended

Save up to 15.0% 20230630231818171

Sale + Markdown

Jul 1, 2023 at 12:30am PDT

Jul 6, 2023 at 11:30pm PDT

3141

912.90

I just checked  I ran a five day sale on 4th Of July Week   People are outside then!   15% off everything  Five Days  made $912  

[markej67]

Ended

Save up to 10.0% 20230428113641378

Sale + Markdown

Apr 28, 2023 at 5:00am PDT

Apr 30, 2023 at 11:30pm PDT

2933

368.10

Another weekend sale.  10% off everything   Three days  $368.  Way under my average for a regular non-sale day.  Puzzling.     People commented that E-Bay reindexes.  Not sure what that is???    Years ago I would run 45 day sales.  I did ok.  People told me not to run long sales, that people would not be in a hurry to buy when they saw how time was left.  Made sense to me.   Don't let them shop around!   The idea was short sales to prompt people to buy right then.  That made sense to me.