Oh my God are sales slow..................

[goldrushfinds]

I swear they ought to provide psychological counselling for distraught Ebay sellers.  Whiplash sales from 5 in an hour to zero for days.  You buy items to resell based on sell thru rate, only to them sit and sit and sit. No more buying of anything to sell at least for weeks (maybe forever) until I see where things are going. I often feel like I am totally wasting my time here. 

[sugarnspice777]

That is because there doing massive site changes right now.

After they use up Top rated sellers in there beta testing and destroy there sales

they go onto the next group.  Looks like you have joined the rolling blackout club (beta testing)

You will never get out of the testing now.  Basically you will now have sales for a couple of days, 

maybe even one, then you won't have any for a week.  Then it starts getting further and further apart.

They LOVE testing on TRS. 

CHANGES=LOST SALES.

[shado-x]

No more buying of anything to sell at least for weeks (maybe forever) until I see where things are going. I often feel like I am totally wasting my time here.

Welcome to Tax Filing Season ("unnecessarily" delayed in many areas), the end to the Joe Biden free cash (he said $2000, but it was $1400), hyper-inflation on necessary commodities (oil, gas, electricity), school vacation (this week), forced mask wearing (where people have had it), retail stores re-opening, better weather, less time on computers and devices, the usual demand at this time.

Last year because of the pan-demonic, March - June and onward toward Christmas was a record year.  Could that repeat, show me 2020 stats and compare.

[goldrushfinds]

Shado-X

Thanks, but no thanks, for your political commentary. I'm sorry, but I fall on the other end of the political spectrum. "Forced mask wearing" is a childish statement. You have many rights, but not when it may endanger the health of others. 

[fashunu4eeuh]

You may not agree with his point of view, but the last poster is correct regarding the outside factors that can affect one’s sales. 

I took a look at your completed sales, and could not find  “Whiplash sales from 5 in an hour to zero for days.” It looks like you are doing pretty well. You have had sales everyday this month except for 4/13-14. In March, you had 0 days with no sales. So what you consider slow, others would consider successful.

[goldrushfinds]

fash -

Your review only tells part of the story. My frustration comes from the fact that I have been listing like crazy items with high demand (based on previous sales history), at very competitive prices, none of which have sold. That is like 40 new listings over the past week, without a sale from these new items. Typically, when I would list a bunch of things in a day at least one would sell within 24 hours (typically more). 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

I took a very quick glance at your stuff....nice stuff, but appears to be mostly long tail? You may have unrealistic expectations about sales velocity for that type of inventory. You currently have over 200 items listed. I belong to a reseller group of experienced sellers, most of whom sell long tail stuff (as I do), and the consensus is you can't really expect anything approaching  consistent sales without having at least 1000 listings up.

As they say, for long tail, it's a numbers game----you need to have enough selection to ensure some level of consistency (and even then, there will always be ups and downs, many of them inexplicable.) 

I don't know what sort of things you do in your business, so maybe you do some of this, but maybe not: you can try running sales, sending offers, adding Best offer, using coded coupons, Promoted Listings, and social media to try to increase your sales velocity. You can also look at your Listing Quality Report to see if it can add any insights.

But the most common advice I hear in that Group. Slow sales? List more.

I have found it is good advice. I don't follow it as well as I should, but that's doesn't make it any less valuable LOL

[goldrushfinds]

Cottage -

Thanks for your response. One thing though, listing things cost money. Acquiring items is an expenditure. I can afford it, but don't want to sink money in to more inventory, that may not sell or at a sell thru rate that is not all that good. I research every item I buy. If  the sell thru rate is not good, I will not purchase it. Just listed a bunch of Vineyard Vine polos, which has a sell thru rate of 3x current listings. Still not moving, even though I photographed them well and priced competitively. Just frustrating. 

[shado-x]

 I'm sorry, but I fall on the other end of the political spectrum...."Forced mask wearing" is a childish statement.

Maybe to the children that have to be forced to wear them on that "other side".

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

I can certainly understand your frustration, but all I can say is I think you may be setting your expectations too high based on the "sell through" rate. I know there are some sellers who are really big on using that rate, but , to me, it's easy to read too much into that. I know Vineyard Vines is a good brand (although I'm not sure it's quite as popular as it had been....of course, with more people feeling more comfortable about traveling, clothing might see an uptick...) but , I don't think you can really judge the SPEED at which something is going to sell based on that rate. To me, if there's a good sell-through rate, then yeah, it's probably worth buying (if the price is right), but it has to be an exceptionally high sell through rate to suggest to me that the item will sell quickly.....and even then, it's no guarantee. 

Did you try looking at the Listing Quality Report I mentioned?

Different sellers have different business models. I will sometimes look at sell through rate before I buy, but I've been doing this for a long time, and I usually trust my gut. But I rarely buy anything with the expectation that the item will sell quickly....yes, there are some things my experience tells me will likely sell pretty quickly, especially if I price it to move quickly. But I mostly agree with the quantity idea.....with long tail, you still want to list good quality stuff, but your sales velocity and sales consistency are achieved by scaling up (and to some extent, by marketing.....using some of the tools I mentioned.

I'm not saying what you are doing can't work.....being highly selective is not a bad thing....but volume can matter. Again, I don't know any details about your business. You mention listing cost. I have a basic store, so I pay a monthly store fee, but I almost never pay listing fees because I get so man free listings with a store....As to cost of acquisition, again, we may be far apart on that. For a nice Vineyard Vines polo shirt (used, but like new condition... I rarely buy new stuff) I probably would pay 2 or 3 bucks. I might go higher, but that's average. I have no idea what you are paying. If you are paying 10 or 15, then (obviously) costs are a much bigger factor. As the saying goes, "You make your money when you buy, not when you sell". 

[luckythewinner]

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@goldrushfinds wrote:

Your review only tells part of the story. My frustration comes from the fact that I have been listing like crazy items with high demand (based on previous sales history), at very competitive prices, none of which have sold. That is like 40 new listings over the past week, without a sale from these new items. Typically, when I would list a bunch of things in a day at least one would sell within 24 hours (typically more). 

---

Some might argue you were the one only telling part of the story. 

When you posted "Whiplash sales from 5 in an hour to zero for days" I don't think anyone realized you were just talking about specific items and not your entire store. 

[vintagecraze50]

It’s a roller coaster here some times. It was mostly WAY WAY up when the pandemic started. Many many many more people shopping online. Now, that the vaccine is out, maybe more and more going to the stores. They better watch out though because we got a really bad butt variant of this virus circulating.

[clemowbooks]

FWIW - a couple of years ago, every month I started a thread for those complaining that their sales were dead and that eBay was going out of business, after specifically targetting and throttling their sales.

Unfortunately I did not use my sarcasm font.

I've been on eBay since 1998, and there has been at least one similar thread every single week since I started watching the Boards since the turn of the millennium.

 It was the economy, or Billpoint being replaced by Paypal, or not being allowed to accept checks anymore, or Chinese sellers, or Stores being allowed in Search, or ...or....or......

Retail comes and goes.

Look at your sales at this time last year. And possibly more importantly in 2019 and 2018.  Is this usually a slow period?

Have you changed your stock? Should you change your stock? Are you using all the Item Specifics eBay encourages? (That last may be the only useful suggestion eBay has ever made.)

If selling is slow, would this be a good time to review your stock and see what moves and what is deadstock? Are your prices too low? Are you shipping promptly? Can you downgrade your Store to reduce your costs?

When I worked for DH in his shop, he would get stressed when he had not made any high value sales for a few days.

I started keeping track of all sales, by the whole staff, because he really only handled the high rollers.

I was able to show him that the meat and potatoes of our business was in the $10-$50 sales much of it in supplies which he never saw.
As well, those records showed us that we always did poorly in December and having discounts on our stock did not lead to more sales, just to lower profits. We learned our strongest sales were from Boxing Day through May (which is also true for all our accounts here on eBay, btw) . And that in the summer, we were covering the rent from sales of maps and postcards to tourists while our real business languished.

It was a useful exercise.

BTW- something else I learned. If you are shopping in a B&M shop for something that required sales staff advice, go at 2pm on a weekday. There is always a lull then, no matter what they are selling.

[yuzuha]

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@clemowbooks wrote:

BTW- something else I learned. If you are shopping in a B&M shop for something that required sales staff advice, go at 2pm on a weekday. There is always a lull then, no matter what they are selling.

---

As a B&M worker, absolutely. 2-4 PM on a weekday is the best window of time for anything like that because it will always be slow at that time-- it's after lunch hour but before people leave work for the day.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Agree, and reviewing my sales history etc is something I don't do as often as I should. But I have found that my perception of how I'm doing is often at odds with reality. And other sellers have said the same thing: "I thought I did lousy last month, but the numbers show it was actually a good month" (or visa versa).