is ebay still running? no sales in 36 hrs at this time of the year?

[jlfnatural]

is ebay still running? no sales in 36 hrs at this time of the year?

[springyzone]

I don't know about anyone else, but I would not be buying from ebay at this time of year if the item was meant for a gift.

I would not be expecting it to arrive in time.

The big sales rush, if there was goign to be one, would have been a couple of weeks back, surely.

Christmas shopping is for the stores now.

And for items that are not Xmas related, I think now is a bad time to sell. My sister had a bedroom suite on sale but I think a lot of people are too busy to look and pick up at this time of year, so we are leaving things like that till the new year.

Maybe don't list much, give yourself a bit of a break and enjoy the holiday.

[clarry100]

By this time of day on a Monday morning we would normally have 12-15 sales locked in & paid awaiting postage.

This morning there are 2 only.

It's like someone turned the lights off.

[chameleon54]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

The family went christmas shopping at our local mega mall today. ( 2 pm. Saturday arvo, a few days before christmas )  I was amazed at how FEW people where around. It wasnt much busier than a normal Saturday arvo. In Big W we walked straight up to the checkout counter and several others where free. At a smaller suitcase and handbag retailer, we had the assistants undivided attention for 20 minutes and no-one else in the store. At my local Mitre ten this morning it was the same story. No busier than a normal Saturday. I dont know what to make of it, but it was almost surreal.

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Went to the city yesterday, JB Hi Fi at 4.00 pm. Sunday, very quiet. Had plenty of assistants ( extra staff for christmas ? ) wandering around offering us help. There where a few people in the store, but nothing like I expected.

As for ebay, I was looking forward to a quiet Mondays packing with plenty of time to catch up on some other jobs. Not to be I,m afraid. The 150 free auctions ( from a week ago ) have finished with pretty reasonable results, so although the stores are slow, people are still looking at auctions. So much so that I have listed some more auctions to finish between Christmas & New Year. I have even taken a punt and risked a few juicy items that I would expect to see some competition on. For the auction doubters, I still think auctions have their place as a very handy tool in the ebay tool box, particularly when selling collectables and one off items. With poeple sitting around home getting bored over the break ( not every one rushes away ) It might be worth taking the chance.

[clarry100]

We stopped listing auctions on our 3x auction-only IDs about a week or so back.

The less than 10% success rate was simply not worth the effort of using our 40x free listings.

So just back to our two basic stores in operation now.

And its like the lights are out on them today.

[chameleon54]

I would expect that the auctions would be pretty hard work for generic items that are readily available as buy it nows. I use the auctions to sell one off collectable items such as ephemera and vintage car parts. When I was in my twenties I used to go to wrecking yard closing auctions and swap meets and bought up huge quantities of parts for 50,s & 60,s cars. I sold a few of the best bits and stored the rest in some old sheds on a farm. These have " matured" nicely now and are worth a small fortune. Thirty years ago you could buy an FC Holden dash for $2. Now they bring $50-$100. It will take me years to clear out the piles in the shed so roll on free auctions.

[more-champagne]

Twidling my thumbs.  Shops are dead this year as well.  Went to a big shopping centre last week, could hear a pin drop.  The only place pumping was the food court.  

[retailtherapist_8]

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@more-champagne wrote:

Twidling my thumbs.  Shops are dead this year as well.  Went to a big shopping centre last week, could hear a pin drop.  The only place pumping was the food court.  

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Me too more-champagne( totally agree with your ID also lol). I went in the evening thinking I would be hammered by the volume of desperate shoppers, at one stage you could count the number of people on a whole floor in Myers on one hand!

I am off to do my last gasp shopping in the morning so will be interesting to see if it has picked up.

[outdoorhunting1]

Interesting article in the Age re decrease in on line sales due to economy.

Slow economy puts brakes on online retail

Online retailing has been belted by Australia's economic woes, with November's sales figures recording the slowest monthly and annual growth since the series was first compiled. 

And some bricks-and-mortar retailers are also doing it tough, with shares in outdoor equipment retailer Kathmandu plunging 20 per cent after poor Christmas sales forced the company to issue a profit warning.

According to National Australia Bank, not only are November's online sales down 0.2 per cent on October, they are only 3.9 per cent higher year-on-year.

These are the slowest online growth rates recorded, according to NAB.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/retail/slow-economy-puts-brakes-on-online-retail-20141222-12c1cg.html...

[clarry100]

First time in 2-years that one of our two basic stores has gone 24-hours without a single sale.

Still no sale yet, so will see what happens overnight.

The other store got around 7 sales instead of the usual 17+ in a day.

Someone has really turned off the lights.

[Anonymous]

Yep same here...

I have had my best month all year. Its been really good up until Sunday then BAM.. i think i have had 4 sales since then and now, and i have had none for about 30 hours.

I figure everyones too busy with xmas stuff to spend time on eBay especially as they have probably spent all their money already and eBay in the last 3 days isnt a place to buy xmas presents as they wont get them before xmas anyway so i was expecting the slow down this week.

Its not a bad thing... ive had alot of stuff to do myself so its been ok not having to spend alot of time packing and posting

have a great xmas everyone! im sure it will pick up again next week when people are bored