First month ever not turning a profit

I knew sales were slow since the announcement about the currency change, but this is the first time ever that my bill was higher than my sales.  I guess its time to nix the store or maybe just quit Ebay altogether

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First month ever not turning a profit

In the last 30 days or so I see your sales totaled about $80.  Looking at the number of transactions, it approximates your annual average of about 10 sales per month. 

 

"sales were slow since the announcement about the currency change"

 

Also most of your listings are still in US$.  So the recent policy change should not have affected you yet.

 

How much are your fees?

 

Do you have a basic or premium store?

Message 2 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit

You are listed in American dollars, CDN has nothing to do with anything.

 

Get rid of everything after and including "Check out my ....". None of that adds anything. No-one reads that.

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Message 3 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit

Just a heads up....You have about 6 listings showing that you ship only within Canada. I think those are the ones that you changed to Cdn $.  Is that what you want?

Message 4 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit

Something odd that I am seeing, is that when I go to your "View Listings" it states that there are 154 listings, but only 67 are showing.  Same result when I go to your store.  Even in your store categories, Canadian, eh? special prices states there are 17 listings, but only 8 are showing.  Stitch markers states 75 results, but only 17 are showing.

Message 5 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit


@maggiebvintage2010 wrote:

Something odd that I am seeing, is that when I go to your "View Listings" it states that there are 154 listings, but only 67 are showing.  Same result when I go to your store.  Even in your store categories, Canadian, eh? special prices states there are 17 listings, but only 8 are showing.  Stitch markers states 75 results, but only 17 are showing.


OP has Variation listings, the "number of listings" counts each variation, if you have 10 listings with 10 variations each the total listings number would appear as 100 even though there are only 10 listings showing.



"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.
Message 6 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit

Pierre I may have had $80 in sales (and btw I am used to having a comfortable $300 at this time of year) but after subtracting fees from Ebay and paypal and currency conversion, I just break even. I have to either give up auctions or give up the store. changing my listings to .ca isn't helping a bit


@pierrelebel wrote:

In the last 30 days or so I see your sales totaled about $80.  Looking at the number of transactions, it approximates your annual average of about 10 sales per month. 

 

"sales were slow since the announcement about the currency change"

 

Also most of your listings are still in US$.  So the recent policy change should not have affected you yet.

 

How much are your fees?

 

Do you have a basic or premium store?



 

Message 7 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit

I'm in the same boat. I'm currently changing all my listings to C $, but nothing sells. And eBay told us sales would improve or at least stay the same... yeah right. If it continues like this, I might have to close the store. I'm billed on the 15th. My fees have been C$36 and change on May 15, and I only sold a US $12 item including shipping. I'm currently in the red. Not to mention I need to be way up in green to pay my bills!

 

Everytime I see a message on eBay, I hope this is at least a reasonable offer on my BO items. But no, it's always some stupid message from eBay. When will they help sell my things instead of bombarding me with useless messages?

 

When will sales start up again? Will I have to change all my listings to .com to see that happen? Really borderline depressed right now 😞

Message 8 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit

It looks like we have been moved way down in search while we transfer our listings to cad.  Thats the only thing I can think of that would explain it. Pierre says I had $80 in sales in the past month but after looking at it it wasn't that much in the 'billing' month.  I am also billed on the 15th.  AND those sales were to repeat customers not new sales at all.


@lady.stark wrote:

I'm in the same boat. I'm currently changing all my listings to C $, but nothing sells. And eBay told us sales would improve or at least stay the same... yeah right. If it continues like this, I might have to close the store. I'm billed on the 15th. My fees have been C$36 and change on May 15, and I only sold a US $12 item including shipping. I'm currently in the red. Not to mention I need to be way up in green to pay my bills!

 

Everytime I see a message on eBay, I hope this is at least a reasonable offer on my BO items. But no, it's always some stupid message from eBay. When will they help sell my things instead of bombarding me with useless messages?

 

When will sales start up again? Will I have to change all my listings to .com to see that happen? Really borderline depressed right now 😞


 

Message 9 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit


@pjcdn2005 wrote:

Just a heads up....You have about 6 listings showing that you ship only within Canada. I think those are the ones that you changed to Cdn $.  Is that what you want?


yes thats exactly what I want but thats only 6 listings.  It doesn't explain the drop in new sales. My latest sales are all from regular customers. Nothing new

Message 10 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit


@sheepgal54 wrote:

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

Just a heads up....You have about 6 listings showing that you ship only within Canada. I think those are the ones that you changed to Cdn $.  Is that what you want?


yes thats exactly what I want but thats only 6 listings.  It doesn't explain the drop in new sales. My latest sales are all from regular customers. Nothing new


When I checked your listings the other day, I believe that those were the only listings that had been changed to Canadian dollars. Why do you think the change in currency has affected your sales when you haven't actually changed the currency for most of your listings?  You may have changed more since I last looked.  

 

My sales are slow too and the majority of my listings have been on .com in US dollars for years so I'm not sure why they are slow but I know that the Cdn dollar has nothing to do with it in my case.

Message 11 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit


@pjcdn2005 wrote:

@sheepgal54 wrote:

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

Just a heads up....You have about 6 listings showing that you ship only within Canada. I think those are the ones that you changed to Cdn $.  Is that what you want?


yes thats exactly what I want but thats only 6 listings.  It doesn't explain the drop in new sales. My latest sales are all from regular customers. Nothing new


When I checked your listings the other day, I believe that those were the only listings that had been changed to Canadian dollars. Why do you think the change in currency has affected your sales when you haven't actually changed the currency for most of your listings?  You may have changed more since I last looked.  

 

My sales are slow too and the majority of my listings have been on .com in US dollars for years so I'm not sure why they are slow but I know that the Cdn dollar has nothing to do with it in my case.


Since the only sales I have had were in CAD and only one sale from US all the others are Canadian, I would begin to think it has something to do with SEO and since there was 28 days between sales that seems like proof to me that search has been turned off or turned down for .ca during this changeover

 

Message 12 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit

I don't think that it would make sense for them to do that.   i don't know why your sales are slow but mine were slow for most of May and I list mainly on .com.  There are also many posts on the US boards complaining about slow sales and those are from Americans that have never listed on .ca

Message 13 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit

tobyshitzu
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Never been a time the entire time I've been on ebay there weren't posts complaining about slow sales.  Usually with a theory about search/hiding listings since best match started almost 10 years ago (doesnt seem like 10 years!!)

Message 14 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit

I changed my listings to CAD on May 25th. I immediately had a massive surge in Canadian orders, then a few days later a bunch of US orders with no Canadian orders, then 10 days later a bunch of US and a bunch of overseas (which I hadn't been getting my usual share). After that came a bunch of US with one Canadian, then this week it's been almost all International with one Canadian.

 

I'm also helping a friend get started selling, he is listing in CAD and getting only US sales.

 

My take on all of this....any talk of the currency affecting sales is spurious at best. What I'm seeing is the standard ebb and flow that I've seen here for 17 years (and 20 years before that).

 

 



"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.
Message 15 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit

"any talk of the currency affecting sales is spurious at best"

 

I totally agree with you.

Message 16 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit

My USD sales on dotCOM are off, but my CDN and USD sales on dotCA are a tiny tad better than usual.

And Australia all of a sudden.

 

Sheepgal, since most of your items must be shipped Parcel and those rates change with destination, you pretty well have to use eBayCANADA for those bulky items.

But you also have a lot of Free Shipping items that I think would ship in an envelope. Have you considered moving those to dotCOM and putting them in USD?

 

Remember too that your US customer searching on dotCOM sees your prices in USD no matter what currency you listed in.

 

 

 

 

 

And OT-- are those dryer balls available undyed? I would worry about colour transfer to my clean wet clothes.

Message 17 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit


@reallynicestamps wrote:

My USD sales on dotCOM are off, but my CDN and USD sales on dotCA are a tiny tad better than usual.

And Australia all of a sudden.

 

Sheepgal, since most of your items must be shipped Parcel and those rates change with destination, you pretty well have to use eBayCANADA for those bulky items.

But you also have a lot of Free Shipping items that I think would ship in an envelope. Have you considered moving those to dotCOM and putting them in USD?

 

Remember too that your US customer searching on dotCOM sees your prices in USD no matter what currency you listed in.

 

 

 

 

 

And OT-- are those dryer balls available undyed? I would worry about colour transfer to my clean wet clothes.


Thanks for the reply. Things have only got worse in my store since I changed everything over to CAD and I even lowered the prices a bit but as our $ climbs it is a never ending  battle so I may just be moving to dot com soon.  

 

As for the dryer balls, if you read the description it clearly states that they are colourfast and considering I have sold hundreds or maybe thousands by now I think they are OK but I am always open to a custom order for natural no dye balls.  At my craft table the white ones are always left behind

Message 18 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit

For what it's worth-- the loonie dropped to 77 cents USD with yesterday's Brexit.

Message 19 of 20
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First month ever not turning a profit

I list on .ca and .com and have for years.

 

The last 3 months, my sales are way down in total

 

This month and next month will be worse due to the mail strike coming and store on vacation till it is resolved.

 

I will see have happens for the rest of the year.

 

Right now I am taking everything unnecessary out of descriptions to prepare for the new description requirements for mobile that will limit descriptions, templates, etc. That way I accomplish something useful while the store is on vacation.

 

Also did an inventory and creating new listings for later.

 

I gave up worrying about sales a long time ago, I just wish Ebay would fix all the glitches and problems before destroying the .ca site

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