SHOULD be prime Christmas sale time right now BUT im down 60 % on sales from same period last year..... How are you all going now that we should be in the middle of Christmas mayhem??
USA and UK are my most reliable destinations, either or both would be fine. parcel post to USA is cheaper than UK, so if you do free or fixed postage, USA is the better choice.
Might take the plunge & try OS sales... but might just start with maybe England 1st as they def have a OK postal system... ??
Things are slowing down a bit now in the run up to Christmas, but just had an interesting one. Just finishing packing for one selling id. 4 parcels for 5 days, not great, but the interesting thing............every sale was to OS buyers. If I took those out it would be dead as a dodo.
On another selling id it is pretty quiet except that I listed a couple of unusual collectables for auction along with a multi qty. BIN. Seven bids on one auction, three on the other and all from OS clients. Prices achieved where 40% above expectation, so still some life left in ebay auctions. One of the winning auction bidders is negotiating the purchase of ten of the multi qty. Bin items. All up it will be enough to keep sales averages reasonably firm over the Christmas period, but it would be frightning if I was waiting around for Australian sales.
OS sales are definately worth considering if you can sell unusual items that are not readily available..
USA and UK are my most reliable destinations, either or both would be fine. parcel post to USA is cheaper than UK, so if you do free or fixed postage, USA is the better choice.
Japans post is excellent too. China seems to be very good, as are most well developed European countries ( France Germany etc. ) . I dont block any countries but shudder when things sell to Chile, Spain, Mexico or other South American Countries. Canada is also a bit dodgy with slow customs and the current mail workers strike not encouraging.
I am slowing improving my sales, though I was away from 22 Dec to 2 Jan and was on holiday mode (but items still visible). I've still got some watchers but the general views are still very down.
Oh, and yes, my drop in December was almost 2 tiered - sales suddenly seemed to drop from a few each day to some days with none, and then a week later they just stopped for those few days I mentioned in my original post.
AND weird things are happening. I tried to find one of my items and used several keywords I knew were in the title listing. Couldn't find it. At all. So this I presume means no one else could either? I could find some other items I checked.
And another thing - I looked at some items I had sold last week (my search was just in normal Ebay, not within my shop) to see what it said. I searched for the item, in sold / completed listings, and there they were BUT, they all said the item had not sold! BUT THEY DID!!! I was paid for them and posted them on Friday!!!
I don't want people thinking my stuff isn't selling!!!
USA and UK are my most reliable destinations, either or both would be fine. parcel post to USA is cheaper than UK, so if you do free or fixed postage, USA is the better choice.
Japans post is excellent too. China seems to be very good, as are most well developed European countries ( France Germany etc. ) . I dont block any countries but shudder when things sell to Chile, Spain, Mexico or other South American Countries. Canada is also a bit dodgy with slow customs and the current mail workers strike not encouraging.
I know exactly what you mean. I think the worst problem is how slow it is to countries like that. Lately I have been sending a message to every one of those sales telling them that delivery to their country takes 4-6 weeks to try to head off the almost inveitable INR. I got a message from someone in South Africa last week who told me that their item finally arrived more than 3 months later! I have long since refunded that customer. sigh.
Seven items mailed today, five where to OS clients. Not sure how to explain that one but ebay seems to be really pushing the international visibility and sales at the moment.
Perhaps its because they get 10% commission on those high postage fees ???
Our international sales have been noticeably higher for a while now, and my explanation is that the Aussie dollar is down, so the exchange rate is giving them a good discount.
What I noticed is that our sales started going up at the same time as I started to see news stories about the dollar being down.
So it might be worthwhile re-visiting your international settings and options if you have not done so in a while.
Just thought it was worth bumping this thread as our overseas sales are still going gang busters compared to Australian sales. ( currently 40-50% of total sales ) If you have items that might intrest international buyers, now might be a great time to try a few international listings.
I think purplemon18 has hit the nail on the head. The low Aussie dollar is making Australian listings very attractive to international clients. We are offering larger, heavier, more expensive items that would normally work out too costly and risky to post to international buyers and are getting a lot of succesful sales as a result.
The expensive stuff is sent with tracking. ( sometimes we are wearing the tracking costs ) . The only thing to bear in mind is the bill at the PO counter is going to really hurt, so make allowances for this. ( its not hard to spend $200 in postage for several heavy OS parcels )
If your Aussie sales are a bit flat, it might be worth a try.
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