Dealing with a bad sales week

[sophisto81]

How often do you just have a bad week? Or is it usually for a reason you have yet to discover?
I haven't had a sale ALL WEEK! I'm by no means a large volume seller but don't recall the last time I went 5 days without a sale. I've just up graded to a store last week but in the same week of doing so sales were great, just this week they suck. So many dramas with ebay lately too; non payers, cancelled auctions, ebay glitches causing items to come up as free postage, potential buyers engaging in haggling wars over $3... Sometimes it just feels too hard!

I think this post is more of a vent than anything else. Thanks for listening.

[chameleon54]

I had a shocker of a week last week. It would be my worst week for six months. THEN YESTERDAY I had my best day in twelve months, selling more than double my total sales of previous week in the one day. My theory is that some-one at ebay forgot to turn the switch off for my visibility like they normally do after a few sales. I have to admit after the shocker last week, I spent a full day listing and made some good sales of the new items. I have noticed before that when things are slow, new listings do seem to help.

[davewil1964]

I don't do auctions - no point when you have a store.

I have had several weeks when I sold nothing, but not in the last 12 months.

I have the occasional NPB, as all sellers do, but certainly not out of the ordinary.

So far this month I have sold about 50% of my monthly average, so I only need ordinary over the next 24 days to realise expectations.

[chameleon54]

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@davewil1964 wrote:

I don't do auctions - no point when you have a store.

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Dave - I still do a few auctions through the stores. Occasionally I get an item that is hard to value. ( no recent precedents, rare or unusual. )  I have a couple of these auctions going at the moment. One item I started at what I would normally list it for and it has already recieved multiple bids and is way above my expectations and looks like going higher.  Around a year ago I had a vintage Victa lawnmower owners manual set. I new it was good but couldnt really price it. I started it at $19.95 and it ended up selling for $275.00. ( and yes they did pay for it ) . I also run a few auctions when things are slow. I list popular items with a realistic start and even if they dont sell, I find it helps drive traffic and sales through the stores. A bit like advertising or window dressing. I think auctions can be a usefull addition to the sellers tool box. Not to be used all of the time, but they have their place.

[digital*ghost]

When things are slow, I just try to take the time to focus my attention on other things - new stock, tweaking titles, updating photos, descriptions. Sometimes these things seem to help, sometimes I'm sure it's just filling time, but IMHO never a waste of time to try different things or make improvements. 

NPBs can be a nuisance, but I just try to make sure they take up as little of my time and attention as possible (which I personally do by sending one enquiry around day 4, a firmly set time-frame for extra days if they respond and ask for it, or open the UPI if no response to my enquiry after around 36-48 hours.

I have a pretty clear-cut MO - as it were - for things I am or am not prepared to do, so whenever a customer enquires about things like discounts and I'm not prepared to offer any (I am able to provide some items in bulk quantities, so will occasionally be able to offer a discount), if not, then I respond with a simple message that lets them know I am not offering any discounts on the item price, but they are welcome to take advantage of the combine postage discounts I offer.  (<<<had to edit in the wink  ).

[davewil1964]

Fair enough.

I don't do auctions as I have found them a waste of time and money. If I'm not sure of value for xxy books I usually put a best offer option on. The last xxy book I sold sold for full price, even though I had best offer on it.

Horses for courses, I suppose. But a week without any sales is still nothing to panic about.

[thecatspjs]

Auctions always get me more significantly more views and sales than buy-it-nows for particular listings.

It all depends on your markets.

I would never say that one was better than the other overall across stores or otherwise.  There is no one size fits all format.

Healthy to vent OP.  It is a most erratic time for many sellers.

[chameleon54]

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@ untill they finishdavewil1964 wrote:

Fair enough.

I don't do auctions as I have found them a waste of time and money. If I'm not sure of value for xxy books I usually put a best offer option on. The last xxy book I sold sold for full price, even though I had best offer on it.

Horses for courses, I suppose. But a week without any sales is still nothing to panic about.

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You are right about the money thing. If you are putting up 40 or 50 auctions at $1.50 each, you need to be fairly sure that some of them are going to hit a home run. I have got 17 auctions running on my private account ( from 40 monthly freebies ) that I expected to do fairly well. Currently not a single watcher or bid on any, and only one day to go until they finish. . It would hurt if I was paying $1.50 each for those.

[sophisto81]

Well whadaya know, I made my first sale for the week within the last hour! Wahoo!

I find a combination of both auctions and BIN work for me. More $ ultimately comes from BIN but occasionally I'm shocked at how high an auction goes to which evens out the smaller sales. I've now got 2 sites, one for each format. I wish the basic store catered for both.

[bamkapow]

Since I got a store a few weeks ago sales have really slowed down for me. Had 3 sales this week which is not good. Have put a bunch of new stock up so I am hoping that this brings in more eyes and sales. 

It is strange, thought sales would increase with a store but it looks like I will have to withstand this dip before that happens. In the meantime I continue to push my commerce store, social media and preparing to go into the Carrara Markets. 

Keeping busy 🙂