Has Anyone Else Experienced Low Sales Since The Beginning of the Year?

My sales are at an all time low.  Is it just me or is everyone experiencing this?  I sell, new, nearly new brands and designer and vintage women's clothing but have found since Christmas sales are REALLY LOW!  I can't afford to offer free postage, and my prices are very low as it is!  Can anyone suggest something?

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Re: Has Anyone Else Experienced Low Sales Since The Beginning of the Year?

I think there are quite a few sellers who have been experiencing declining sales, some long-term, others quite recently. eBay are campaigning full-force at the moment for promoted listings (where they place additional ads in various other places on the site, as well as twice in search results, one at normal ranking and another at a different rank with "sponsered" on it, and you pay a nominated additional percentage of the sale if someone buys as a result of the sponsered ads - they determine this by whether or not someone ultimately buys an item within 30 days of clicking on an ad). I can't attest as to how well they work, as I refuse to even potentially pay eBay any more money that I already do, not even 1%, which is the lowest percentage you can set them at...

 

More info about that is here, though: http://sellercentre.ebay.com.au/content/promoted-listings

 

I know you said that discounting is not really viable, but I would personally be more inclined to use the promotions manager tools, if I wanted to try and boost sales via promotions etc anyway, where you can set up things like Buy X items, get X% off (I've seen promos like buy 8 items, get 5% off, so you don't necessarily have to offer deep discounts etc) - I find a lot of these promos don't usually work to increase traffic to your store, but rather they provide greater incentive to those who are already looking and deciding whether or not to make a purchase. 

 

Other than that, the only thing I can really suggest is a few cosmetic changes to the listing description layout, as well as maybe adding in a few more descriptive details - you have all the key info there, but I'd probably separate and enlarge it a bit, so that things like the measurements stand out from the rest of the description and can be easily located.

 

I haven't sold clothing in a few years, so I don't know how relevant or useful my practices are now, but I always repeated all of the info in the item specifics and added in a few extra things (material, feel (eg whether it was silky smooth, textured etc), plus the total weight, and whether or not the fabric had any stretch, to hopefully give people as much chance as possible of being able to envisage things that can't be determined by sight alone. 

 

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Re: Has Anyone Else Experienced Low Sales Since The Beginning of the Year?

I think there are quite a few sellers who have been experiencing declining sales, some long-term, others quite recently. eBay are campaigning full-force at the moment for promoted listings (where they place additional ads in various other places on the site, as well as twice in search results, one at normal ranking and another at a different rank with "sponsered" on it, and you pay a nominated additional percentage of the sale if someone buys as a result of the sponsered ads - they determine this by whether or not someone ultimately buys an item within 30 days of clicking on an ad). I can't attest as to how well they work, as I refuse to even potentially pay eBay any more money that I already do, not even 1%, which is the lowest percentage you can set them at...

 

More info about that is here, though: http://sellercentre.ebay.com.au/content/promoted-listings

 

I know you said that discounting is not really viable, but I would personally be more inclined to use the promotions manager tools, if I wanted to try and boost sales via promotions etc anyway, where you can set up things like Buy X items, get X% off (I've seen promos like buy 8 items, get 5% off, so you don't necessarily have to offer deep discounts etc) - I find a lot of these promos don't usually work to increase traffic to your store, but rather they provide greater incentive to those who are already looking and deciding whether or not to make a purchase. 

 

Other than that, the only thing I can really suggest is a few cosmetic changes to the listing description layout, as well as maybe adding in a few more descriptive details - you have all the key info there, but I'd probably separate and enlarge it a bit, so that things like the measurements stand out from the rest of the description and can be easily located.

 

I haven't sold clothing in a few years, so I don't know how relevant or useful my practices are now, but I always repeated all of the info in the item specifics and added in a few extra things (material, feel (eg whether it was silky smooth, textured etc), plus the total weight, and whether or not the fabric had any stretch, to hopefully give people as much chance as possible of being able to envisage things that can't be determined by sight alone. 

 

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Re: Has Anyone Else Experienced Low Sales Since The Beginning of the Year?

Our two ebay stores have been on a steady decline in sales for the past 12-months, frequently setting new low point records.

 

Like this past weekend just gone, not a single ebay sale the entire weekend on either store.

Now whilst weekends are normally slower than weekdays for us this has never happened before.

 

We alo have our own website and Etsy and just as well we do as those two are helping although sales on both are down as well, but not as much as ebay.

 

We are getting a new venture under way and that is looking more promising each month.

So if that continues on the trends exhibited so far we should be in a position to totally close down our ebay stores by about the end of this year. It will no longer be a viable proposition to continue with them.

Barely worth the hassles dished out to sellers by ebay and the kind of clientele (buyers) they seem to attract these days.

So we are now running down our stock and the plan is to try and have most of it gone by the end of the year.

What's left at the end will go via the Facebook craft destash pages for what we paid hopefully.

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Re: Has Anyone Else Experienced Low Sales Since The Beginning of the Year?

Yep!

i found that when eBay offered to free 100 listings etc I would do ok, but since they stopped offering them, sales are poor! I find I'm selling more on FB so much better! And no fees!

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Re: Has Anyone Else Experienced Low Sales Since The Beginning of the Year?

My sales are also at an all-time low & have been steadily declining for 3 1/2 years. I've been selling for here for 15 years and for the first 11 my sales increased every year. Now they are decreasing at an alarming rate and I'm setting new records records too (most days without a sale, lowest month on record etc).

At this rate, I too, won't be selling on eBay for much longer (as it is becoming not viable in terms of time versus profit) unless things change dramatically .

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Re: Has Anyone Else Experienced Low Sales Since The Beginning of the Year?

Very low here, the decline started just before Xmas 2015.  Averaging one or two sales a day.  I used to bring 20 to 30 parcels to the post office each week, now it's down to about 10 to 15, sometimes less.  Prior to Xmas 2015, the income from my posters was almost the same as my regular job - life was truly wonderful!

 

Last week I relisted all my international stuff (approx. 110 items) at 66% of the usual price and it didn't make a difference.  Plenty of views and watchers, just no sales.

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Re: Has Anyone Else Experienced Low Sales Since The Beginning of the Year?

Yes steady decline for at least the last two years for me.  I do not put much effort into it anymore as it does not make much of a difference what you do.  Some weeks I get a few sales all at once, then nothing for a while.  I am also using FB, Gumtree and occasionally quicksales.

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Re: Has Anyone Else Experienced Low Sales Since The Beginning of the Year?

My Paypal account is nearly empty as I have bought stuff on eBay and there is other stuff I would like to buy but without sales

 

that wont be happening.

 

No sales means no buying and I presume that I'm not the only one who does it that way.

 

I've added a few more listings as three sales in 90 days wasn't that bad,(from 4 listings).

 

I wasn't listing much as I seemed to have lost interest in the last few months due to only 5 sales in the last 3 months of last year.

 

Might be time to try a different approach?

 

I've dropped from 106 sales for the year down to 58 in the last 4 months going by my dashboard,(yet I'm still a Power seller?).

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Re: Has Anyone Else Experienced Low Sales Since The Beginning of the Year?

I have no sales (due to being terminated 18 months ago) but I am still buying big time so therefor I'm still

making ebay wads of money on my purchases lol.

Imagine what ebay could be earning off me if I could sell lol.

And you're still a Power seller because 106 sales for the year is less than 58 in the last 4 months because if you times that over the 

next year then you could potentially have 174 sales lol which is 68 more sales so cheer up and look to the future. Woman Happy

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Re: Has Anyone Else Experienced Low Sales Since The Beginning of the Year?

Thank you. I already do all of this, as I am a dressmaker I try to be as descriptive as possible with measurements, fabric etc. I will take on board your suggestions though. Purely out of curiosity, most of my sales (like a good 80% have been to Queensland)! I wonder why this is?
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