It's Very Quiet

[clubesquire]

Gee! It's quiet isn't it? Or, is it just us? Our page views are way down.

And, money does seem to be a bit short. I wish politicians would stop 'gobbing off.' I'm convinced they have affect on commerce.

Are we entering a known seasonal lull?

Melina.

[twyngwyn]

Xmas is only 7 weeks away - it should be busy

[davewil1964]

Average here. As pretty much always.

[outback_blends]

If it was any slower it would be going backwards. People I have talked to wont use ebay anymore as they are sick of trolling through hundreds of Chinese sellers and buying from oz sellers who post from China.

I dont think its anything to do with ecomomy - people have lost faith and trust in Ebay. 

[clubesquire]

What is it like after Christmas. I suppose it gets really quiet?

Might be better taking a month of two out, come back and see what it's like then. I mean, it's no good maintaining listings when there's no lookers.

We had a fabulous couple of weeks, but then it stopped in the space of 24 hours. Where on a certain brand we might have got say a couple of hundred page views, that's now down as low as twenty. One is actually at eight!! It's certainly not pricing or bad feedback or anything obvious like that, I just don't think the traffic is there.

Anyway, onwards and upwards.

Melina.

[twyngwyn]

Hi Melina.....I see 12 listings.

Don't forget that every time you come on the boards people will automatically look at your items. If there is no intention to buy your ratio of clicks vs buys will increase, putting you further down the pecking order...I will try & find the link

[imastawka]

Twynnie's right about people looking at your listings every time you come to the boards.

But, personally, I think sales are down right now, because the zoom function wasn't

working.

I know I didn't buy anything if I couldn't get a good look at it.

  

[twyngwyn]

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/sell/listing-analytics.html

[digital*ghost]

---

@clubesquire wrote:

What is it like after Christmas. I suppose it gets really quiet?

---

I don't think there's really much of an average or consistent experience for any seller, to be honest (at any given time of the year, and I mean that on a general basis, not in terms of throttling / revenue limitations some sellers have spoken about recently).

eg For a couple of years I had really quiet June / July months, really busy in the lead up to Christmas, always expecting a dramatic drop after that never really came, but this year I had a quiet Jan / Feb, busy June / July, not so busy right now in terms of number of buyers, but higher than average order sizes, so it will be interesting to see how the next few months pan out. 

I'm not getting as many views as I used to on newer listings, but I think eBay's listing limits based on their new fangled inactive listings policy is starting to take shape and affect my visibility (I know that sounds like a contradiction, but I'm thinking older listings may be bogging me down, at least, I know I hang on to slow moving stock a little too long sometimes), but it's also my only source of income so I don't really have much of a choice but to keep ploughing on, listing new items, shaking things up a bit to keep it fresh, while continuing to build things up, here and elsewhere. 

[clubesquire]

Hehe!! I'll let Giorgio smoke it. 

But yes, I see what you are saying.

And I'm sure that photo enlargement  issue has also had its affect. Ours has been on-off for about two weeks I think. It seems to be okay today.

One of the things we've been watching closely lately is costs of business. I suppose we're no different to many, our margins are frighteningly low. Earlier though, we got a bit of a shock to realise we were coming out backwards. We've increased prices, but only slightly. I don't think that alone would explain the slow-down, I mean there is really no universal benchmark with pricing of what we sell other than being competitive with others, but there's many variables at play; brand, age, rarity, artisan, aesthetics and so on it goes. But irrespective, the eBay marketplace is a tough one. People do expect Rolls Royce at Hyandai prices!!

Oh well, a few new listings coming on. We'll see if things change.

Nice chatting all. Thank you.

Melina.