drop in sales

[lovemyjeans237]

Has anyone noticed a dramatic drop in veiws and sales in the past 7 days?

I have noticed the veiws on my items have slowed and my sales have more than halved. This has happened suddenly. 

I have also noticed my items are hard to find when I am doing a general search where as before I would find my items quite easy.

[chameleon54]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

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It was constant changes such as this that drove us to open a new ebay store with a completely different product line and business model a couple of weeks ago.  This has worked a treat with the new store outselling the two established stores in its second week in dollar terms. ( close to $1000 in sales in the last seven days ). The items we sell in the new store tend to appeal to a slightly wider audience and be much faster sellers than those we sell in the existing stores. They are also not influenced by technology changes and cheap Chinese knock-offs, which where having an impact on our existing stores.

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Well just did my November sales records for tax purposes for the three stores................ AND THE WINNER IS .....The brand new store........( cue cheerleader dancers with pom poms etc. ).     With 130 listings it just nudged out my larger established store with 1300 listings.  I have done some fresh listings on the new store this week and seen an immediate pick-up in sales. .........So it would appear ebay is not dead after all ..... If a seller, even with a new store, has products buyers want they are still out there and willing to spend money on ebay.

With the contribution from the new store and reasonable sales on the existing stores, I have just had my best ebay sales month in a very long time.   ( so yes I am a little bit excited.....    )

[kopenhagen5]

Worst month in a long time for me.

Sept - $750

Oct -   $350

Nov -  $40

[stylesilver]

Wow that's encouraging to hear!! Chameleon!!! You must be dancing round like a crazy nutter!! I'd be if I saw an increase like that!!! So maybe the limits don't apply to another store, specially if it's a different category!! I might relook at that 2nd category thing too!! I did add some 2nd category items before & it did work but the category was a not a high profit one!! Looking again at a range of things in the " collectables "- but a niche range from there that I used to have a bit of luck in!! Having restarted this thread a week ago ..... Well for me  it has picked up noticeably ... So the Christmas shopping has begun finally!! Thank goodness!! Hope it does pick up for others

  Never mind Kopenhagen ... Swings & roundabouts!!

[chameleon54]

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@stylesilver wrote:

Wow that's encouraging to hear!! Chameleon!!! You must be dancing round like a crazy nutter!! I'd be if I saw an increase like that!!! So maybe the limits don't apply to another store, specially if it's a different category!! I might relook at that 2nd category thing too!! I did add some 2nd category items before & it did work but the category was a not a high profit one!! Looking again at a range of things in the " collectables "- but a niche range from there that I used to have a bit of luck in!! Having restarted this thread a week ago ..... Well for me  it has picked up noticeably ... So the Christmas shopping has begun finally!! Thank goodness!! Hope it does pick up for others

  Never mind Kopenhagen ... Swings & roundabouts!!

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There seems to be a few things to come out of my recent store experiments.

1) The main featured store sells exactly the same amount regardless of what I do, although I havnt changed anything with that one. This store is small beer in the big scheme of things, but is a major player in its selected catagory.

2) Our second store was also a featured store, but I downgraded it to basic on July 1st.. I was concerned this might impact sales, but the opposite has occured. I hav'nt changed anything else, but the store subscription and sales have increased by around 30% from day one of the change. This store now seems to be less regulated than before with sales fluctuating more than when it was a featured store. This store only has around 350 listings, but sells into a highly specialised niche and again is one of the bigger stores in the specific catagory.

3) The new store is also a basic store and does not seem to have any kind of controls. If I list fresh new stock I get extra sales without the slowdown afterwards. If I dont do anything to the store, sales start to naturally drop away as you would expect.

4) One of the reasons for starting the new store was because I felt I could not increase sales on the existing main store. The new store is structured entirely differently to the existing stores. It sells more general interest items that appeal to a slightly broader market and are faster moving than the highly specialised products in the existing stores. This is to better integrate with ebays current stance on items that sit around without selling for extended periods of time. The products are still niche items though, so have very high profit margins. ( 500%-1500% mark ups )  They are also in a completely different catagory to what my other stores sell so spead my sales across a wider catagory base.

It is worth noting that the new store is under a completely different ownership structure and IP address to the existing stores, so is not in any way readily connected to them.

I have to admit, I am putting a bit of effort into the new store, in case I am in a honeymoon period and it eventually comes under the same controls as my larger store. I suspect the higher numbers I get right from the start, the higher sales and visibility and it should recieve in search results going forward etc.

Anyway its nice to be able to report that there are ways to work around some of the problems, long term stores confront and increase sales when this does not seem possible with existing stores..