@stylesilver wrote:
Yes... I'm not one of those๐.... I'm usually quite positive about sales here.... & grateful that we can come here to sell things without too much rigmarole.....but never had a Xmas like this ... Where I'm about 50% down on this Oct & I'm now about 75% down on this time last year... I was thinking my account was having a glitch like yrs was a few months ago... Where you contacted EBay & they saw there was a problem.. I thought that could be happening to me now. But no!... They couldn't find a problem. But I know this is not normal... You don't go from normal sales to less than half (if you sell jewellery) just before Christmas ๐...So I'm believing it's something to do with the promoted listings... My nickname for you Chameleon is Even Stephen!!!....with yr sales clipping along at their usual pace...Meanwhile most of us are riding a see saw!
Thats about it. I dont usually get a Christmas rush as my items are not really presi material, but I do pick up a few extra sales from blokes who are on holidays tinkering in their sheds. This usually makes up for the business customers who close down for a few weeks at this time of year. Sales are generally firm and responding quickly to new listings.
I am fairly sure that ebay has changed its algorythms recently to provide greater visibility to new, fresh listings and those with recent sales history at the expense of older listings. This is reinforced by the rethoric in announcements coming from the company. I,m not sure where that leaves my business model long term as I often sell unusual items that have a limited market and regularly just sit there for a year or two before they sell.
I may need to move to faster selling collectables as this market is still very strong.
It is quite noticable that international sales are stronger than the Australian market at the moment and this is definately having an impact on sales. If I was just relying on the Australian market I would almost certianly be seeing a slow down. One stratedy that has worked recently is to open more listings up to international clients, even if postage costs are very high as there are buyers out there somewhere that are willing to pay the extra costs if the items are rare.
I recently sold a $90 item to the U.S.A that cost nearly $150 extra in postage. Description and photos ( noting faults ) have to be spot on if using this stratedgy as buyers become very picky if they are shelling out large postage costs on top of the item price. I have had a few sales like this recently ( international postage costs much higher than item price ) and so far, so good, but it is definately not for the faint hearted.
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