Very Quiet

[clubesquire]

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.

[chameleon54]

---

@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.

[melbourneclearance]

"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.

[davewil1964]

---

@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.

[melbourneclearance]

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.

[davewil1964]

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

[everard6920]

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