Are sales down?

[rio1953]

Is anybody else having problems with sales lately or is only me.

Thinking of downgrading my store before the 30th of April.

Any thoughts?

[marnotom!]

What are you comparing your sales to? Last month? Last year? Last week?

[reallynicestamps]

The first complaint about declining sales was posted in October 1995.

The free Promotional Listings have disappeared, for the most part. They may have been related to the introduction of Managed Payments, just as we got free promotional listings when doCA listings were no longer allowed to be in USD.

In addition to the comps marnotom mentions, remember that we now have more listings including in our subscription cost.

https://www.ebay.ca/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/store-selling-fees?id=4809

And of course, we can also list on dotCOM at no further cost, doubling the number of "free" listings.

More important, do you have a monthly or annual subscription? There is a charge for ending an annual subscription early.

[ricarmic]

IMO here are the current forces at work for those of us in the collectibles world where we live or die by discretionary money spending for the most part:

Positive:

We are still in "blow your income tax refund" season.

Not so Positive:

COVID restrictions are lessening meaning folks are reinvigorated to do things like travel, restaurants etc that they weren't as able/willing to do before, spending discretionary money there

Inflation is eating away at discretionary dollars, those extra 50c per litre folks are spending on gas is 50c per litre they don't have to spend on other stuff, and the extra 10% or whatever it is on a given day at the grocery store does the same thing.

I don't know exact %% but I know a significant portion of my buyer base are on fixed incomes (retirement).

In my minds eye, I think over the next few months, year I at least (stamp world) will be returning to something like what it was before COVID came, more work for less $$, but then again I never foresaw how strong the demand would be during COVID and it will be up in the air how long it takes for the newly invigorated buyers to dwindle back down to the regulars again....

[rio1953]

My question was mostly directed to hear the different views that we all have about this topic and see if there was a communality between the many perspectives  that we have.

By the way I am on a yearly subscription for a Premium store but until the 30th of April we have, if I am correct, the choice to downgrade the store subscription without paying a penalty. My only concern is if the basic store ( 1000 free listings + extra 10.000) is  going to keep those extra listings over time or is only a gimmick.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@rio1953 wrote:

My question was mostly directed to hear the different views that we all have about this topic and see if there was a communality between the many perspectives  that we have.

By the way I am on a yearly subscription for a Premium store but until the 30th of April we have, if I am correct, the choice to downgrade the store subscription without paying a penalty. My only concern is if the basic store ( 1000 free listings + extra 10.000) is  going to keep those extra listings over time or is only a gimmick.

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In a recent memo/note/addendum the suggestion was to add Promoted to your listings to boost sales and traffic. 

Just received the following:

 https://pages.ebay.ca/sell/pl/termsofservice.html

Because Canadian get such a major ding for shipping this is going to be another challenge for us after June 1 if you choose to promote your listings.

-Lotz 

[femmefan1946]

My only concern is if the basic store ( 1000 free listings + extra 10.000) is going to keep those extra listings over time or is only a gimmick.

It's more than that.

If you have a Store on dotCA, you can,without further charge, also list on dot COM.

Obviously there are quirks.

• If you list on dotCOM, you must ship to the USA, which is not really a problem
• You must list in US dollars, not a problem, and your MP transfers will be in loonies, which means currency exchange.
• At the moment , my Basic Store gets 1000 Canadian listings plus 10K promotional listings AND 1000 US listings and 10K US listings.  But I have had months when the number of promotional listings available differed between the two sites.  Nonetheless, that means I could list 22,000 different items this month if I had the stock and the ambition.
  
  
• Another advantage of listing on dotCOM, is that Americans, with the largest economy in the world, don't really understand any other currency, while the rest of the world, which might be confused by our loonie, understand exactly where they are with US dollars.