topic Re: Very Quiet in Selling

Very Quiet

clubesquire — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 01:31:44 GMT

How is everyone faring during this Christmas Season? I hope you are doing well.

Its our first season and we didn't known what to expect, but it seems very quiet for this time of year, but looking at eBay stats for our particular items under the broad term of Tobacciana, it appears there is a lull until about April/May.

Wouldnt it be great to have a crystal ball that explains in detail why these trends happen?

We're happy though. It will give me a chance to get in front with a lot more listings. I think that's a good thing.

Happy selling.

Melina.

Re: Very Quiet

gutterpunkz05 — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 03:38:07 GMT

Merry Xmas. Normally dies off about now. People buying gifts get a bit worried about postage times. Then the Xmas NY week

everyone is in holiday mode. Then there is the big lull, where everyone is maxed out.

Re: Very Quiet

outback_blends — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 03:44:11 GMT

Last week and half has been the deadest I have ever experienced under this ID and 2 others. Normally Xmas time glace cherries, cinnamon quills and dried nuts and fruit walk out the door both on ebay and my website. Website is slow but not as slow as this site.

Merry Xmas .

Re: Very Quiet

chameleon54 — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 11:44:07 GMT

Still just ticking along quietly. Sales figures look pretty reasonable, so not much different to normal. I dont get the christmas rush, but I usually dont get the post christmas drop off either and have even had some reasonable selling days on Christmas day in the past.

With a few hot days forecast I,m hoping to stay indoors and get some fresh listings done this week.

Re: Very Quiet

performance_parts_clearance_centre — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 01:20:46 GMT

Dead as a door-nail at the moment - down roughly 50% on our usual tally for this time of the month. No sales at all between Tuesday and Friday of last week.

Re: Very Quiet

clarry100 — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 02:42:36 GMT

Normally during Nov - Dec we are sending out 25-30 orders each day.

This year we've had a good day if we sent out 8.

We've been selling for five years and never seen it dead like this. Very depressing.

So during the first quarter is normally our dead time so if this is a sign of things to come we think it won't be viable to continue trading past first quarter next year.

If we are still turning in a small profit we might continue to run down stock, but it looks like trading on ebay is reaching the end for us.

Re: Very Quiet

knewdoors — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 03:10:50 GMT

been terrible all year ebay is rigged hopefully amazon will force a better deal for sellers..

Re: Very Quiet

lyndal1838 — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 05:18:44 GMT

Have you done any research on Amazon?

From what I have read they are no more seller friendly than ebay and may be even worse.

Their debut into Australia has been a bit of a fizzer so far. I had a number of things that I had sourced from ebay and other online stores....I wanted to compare the prices with Amazon before buying.

There was not a single item that was cheaper and most of them were substantially more expensive.

So far Amazon is not showing any signs of being the Saviour of online shoppers in Australia....quite the opposite I would say.

Re: Very Quiet

springyzone — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 06:21:00 GMT

I forced myself to go have a look yesterday.

The one thing I did like was the way they set out kids toys by age groups.

But then, scrolling through the toys, it didn't warn me when i was moving into the next category & the prices didn't look anything amazing.

I suppose it's like anything else, you need to know your prices. But it's just a whole lot of new stuff (that i could see, anyway) that you can find at a lot of other stores. And no mark downs or specials. I'll give it a miss for now.

Re: Very Quiet

chameleon54 — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 12:28:18 GMT

A very full day spent just packing today and a rush to catch the post office before it closed. A couple of sales this evening and also negotiating a large potential order with a customer tonight, so all up its fairly busy at the moment. All stores are making sales and they are spread over a range of products.

Re: Very Quiet

chameleon54 — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 12:33:34 GMT

@knewdoors wrote:
been terrible all year ebay is rigged hopefully amazon will force a better deal for sellers..

Opening a new store which targets a different catagory of products has worked well and has helped to increase total sales when we where unable to achieve sales increases with the existing stores.

Re: Very Quiet

melbourneclearance — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 06:49:03 GMT

"Wouldnt it be great to have a crystal ball ..."

As a matter of fact, I DO sell plenty of crystal balls.

It had been very busy, but it's dying off now. There will be another boost in Jan and early Feb, then it will die off again until after March, then up up up until end of July, then drop for a couple of months, then up up up again. Same thing every year.

Re: Very Quiet

davewil1964 — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 07:47:36 GMT

@lyndal1838 wrote:
Have you done any research on Amazon?
From what I have read they are no more seller friendly than ebay and may be even worse.

Their debut into Australia has been a bit of a fizzer so far. I had a number of things that I had sourced from ebay and other online stores....I wanted to compare the prices with Amazon before buying.
There was not a single item that was cheaper and most of them were substantially more expensive.

So far Amazon is not showing any signs of being the Saviour of online shoppers in Australia....quite the opposite I would say.

They are certainly more expensive for small sellers.

I did a dummy signup. Monthly fee $49.95 + GST

Sale fees (for books) 12% + $1.

If those fees are GST inclusive, I break even compared to an eBay sale using Paypal at around $75. If GST is added to the sale fees, $700.

Plus the 'store' fee is $28.50 more than I currently pay.

I sell very few $80+ books, so this place will really have to go down the gurgler before I'm tempted.

Re: Very Quiet

melbourneclearance — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 08:09:29 GMT

Amazon's $49.95 seller fee is waived at the moment. It is free until 3 months after their launch, which is still not announced yet.

Their commission for most non-books things is 20%.

UPC numbers are mandatory, which is what holding me back. Unless you are selling items which are already on their catalogue, I wouldn't recommend it for small sellers at the moment.

Re: Very Quiet

davewil1964 — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 09:41:12 GMT

I was offered 50% off for 2 months, so books might be different.

Re: Very Quiet

everard6920 — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 20:50:49 GMT

My sales are up on the previous three years. I'm pretty happy.

April is always my horror month. Every year I try different strategies to fix it, and every year nothing works.

This year, I'm closing my store and taking my annual holiday in April