It’s convenient to blame slow sales on “the economy,” but it’s also lazy. What does that even mean? Prices are shaped by supply and demand, not vague excuses.
People have never stopped buying. When you point to the economy, you give yourself permission to believe you’re doing everything right. The truth is, almost none of us are doing everything right. There’s always room to adapt.
Yes, some people cut back—but that’s only one slice of the market. The rest keep spending, just not necessarily on what you happen to be selling. Demand shifts. Buyers evolve. You can’t keep offering the same stale inventory from years ago and expect interest to magically grow. If demand changes and you don’t change with it, your sales will tank and it won’t be the economy’s fault. It’ll be your refusal to pivot.
Sellers succeed when they adjust to what people want now, not what sold well five years ago.
I love being an everything seller for this exact reason. Buyers tell me what they want through their actions, and that guides my sourcing. I follow the demand instead of fighting it. This approach forces me to adjust, improve, and evolve my business instead of blaming outside forces.
When I went out over the weekend to do some personal shopping, I ended up leaving every store I went into because of the long lines. It has been several years since I have seen brick and mortar stores around here as busy as they were in mid-November. You would have thought it was two days before Christmas. People are buying online and in brick and morter as well.
