January been slow

[celsportscards]

Anyone else's sports card  sales droped off  this month January... 

[myoasisjewels]

i am not selling sports cards, but my sales are very slow.... usually january picks up for me due to people expecting their tax returns and spending that money ahead of time.... this however is the worst january ever for me.

[no-plain-white-envelopes]

I have not had over 150 items sold in a month since June 30. Before that back to November 2016 I was averaging about 500-600 items a month and for the two years before that about 190 to 220. It has been very crazy. the fact that there are well over 6 million items in baseball card where just 2 years ago we had 2 million listings in the category tell a tale.

[savedfrommyspokes]

Last December was my best month in 15+ years, here is my January....I focus on offering my cards at market prices and the results have followed.

[murphy71605]

The sellers that I have seen that are killing it are offering tons of cards at hard to beat prices. Lots of $1 cards with PWE shipping available. They are also offering great deals on combined shipping that most sellers don't match. The key in this market IMO is having a stellar rating and undercutting all if not most of the competition. These sellers have built such a solid reputation that they are getting lots of repeat buyers.

I prefer selling higher dollar items with less inventory and time spent here. Very difficult to command top dollar on cards in this market unless you have something special. Many categories are experiencing a complete downfall on prices realized, and many of us just refuse to drop to rock bottom prices. As long as this trend continues we will continue to hear about slow sales.

[savedfrommyspokes]

I have stopped offering PWE's on newly listed items....I only add the PWE option on the 3rd relist.   I acutally think that this change has helped drive added sales because users are buying more items per  transaction to drive down the cost of the s/h they pay per card.   Just like with any retail store, once a customer is in the door, selling them more while they are there is the key.

Below is the avgerage number of items sold per transaction over the past few years....I picked up 1.5 items per transaction in 2017 from 2016 by not offering 99 cent s/h on newer listings.

Jan 18 9.6

2017   7.7

2016  6.2

2015  5.3

2014  5.9

2013  5.3

2012 4.8

[karmy2005]

My sales were only down slightly for January. This is due to my Pokemon card sales not what it used to be.

I sell a lot of low dollar cards and ship PWE most of the time. My reasons for selling mostly low dollar cards is because I can get the cards for very little money, and make a profit each month.  It's not a lot of money, but if you multiply it by 500, it adds up. I don't make a killing on them, it just the fact that it gives me a guaranteed profit each month that makes it enticing. I don't have to worry about a card going from hundreds of dollars to $1 within a month. I've seen and experienced that happen too many times. Yes, there is more work involved but not much more if you have lots of doubles. I'm just a one man operation here with 2 anchor stores.

[no-plain-white-envelopes]

My January sales last year were 2017 539 , this year 2018  103. and back in 2016 236. Something is broke at EBAY IMO.