No Sales Or Offers

[kerrnyman-0]

Has anyone else had their sales and offers go to zero in the last few days my sales have dropped but more concerning my offer have went to zero even the low ballers which I normally have a bunch every day

[flipistics]

Yeah. No sales in any of my 3 stores between Monday morning and this morning (I've had 2 this morning). I had a spike in eligible offers this morning too. I'd love to know if it's something eBay is doing or just the perfect storm regarding the time of year and economy. Sales seem to be drastically down for a lot of people, both online and physical.

[kerrnyman-0]

I called the help line and not a bit of help all i got is my items are to common and i just have to wait the issue was not even looked at why sales and offers drop for no reason from doiong ok to zero

[reallynicestamps]

After some 40 years in retail and 30 plus in mail order, some days no one walks into the shop, some days you have a 4pm lunch.

When doing comps look at the same month /30 days last year and 2018 and 2019. Ignore 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic surge in online purchasing.

This is Passover/Easter/ Ramadan* weekend too. Some people will be at worship or have social obligations.

*Actually Ramadan is a month long, so that is not over till the 22nd or 23rd.

[marnotom!]

When I worked in B&M retail, Easter/Passover/Ramadan was one of the deadest times of the year.

[ricarmic]

@kerrnyman-0 

When sales drop off, check your "competitors". Are they selling similar/same stuff as you?

If not, its probably market stagnant for the moment, spend the time getting as much ready to list as possible, even listing as much as possible. (BINs type).

If YES, then see what they are doing differently from you, do they have better pictures, descriptions, shipping, using promotions etc? Experiment with adjustments to what you do.

You can test things by doing searches and seeing where your stuff comes up compared to others similar stuff. It is possible that competitor(s) have boosted their promoted listings % which puts them ahead of you.

As a note in my own experience in my own category (stamps), it is far more efficient to use the % discount you have as a promoted %, ie if you change your items to be promoted with a 14% rate (same as the discount you have) you will, at least in my experience see a WAY better result than you'll get from a sale. Of course this might not work in your category, but it is worth an experiment. 14% is pretty high, personally I'd experiment, make yours something less, and see where your items come up in searches. 

If you do try it, I'd be interested to know if it works for you!

[reallynicestamps]

You might also look at your Sold listings to see if what you feel is normal or unusual is actually what is happening.

DH used to have hissy fits when our shop didn't have any high end sales, which were the ones he handled, for a few days.

I started keeping daily records in the daybook/ledger, then calculating weekly and monthly to show him that the low cost/high profit products were what carried the business, and his personal shares were the cherry on the top.

[darak10]

google the ctv news article from last week with the title "one in three Canadians in bad or terrible financial shape", this is likely the biggest contributing factor to this issue.  In it, it says 67% of Canadians have "reduced their discretionary spending due to rising cost of living".   Its a great article.  The sales trends I notice concerning fellow Canadians are dire to be honest.  People are really hurting financially across the country.  

[reallynicestamps]

Do you keep a paper record of your daily sales?

Or even  just look at your Sold List regularly?

Because according to your Solds on your Selling page, you have sold from three to ten items every day this month.

And the 681 sales in the past 90 days averages out to 7.6 sales a day. 

That included some days when you went over a dozen sales and a couple when you sold only three or four.

In a category (DVDs and CDs) where thrift stores don't even bother to use secure areas anymore.

As I said earlier, DH used to get upset when he felt sales were off, and it took paper records to show him that his feelings did not reflect reality.

Seriously, you may feel better if you look at your monthly sales not daily, because the shorter the comp period, the less accurate it is.

[canada-treasure]

Any better now?

[rocketscollectibles]

He got 636 sales past 90-days. I don't think it was as concerning he said when he made the post neither. 

[dobo5250]

i totally agree with you -- in my own case due to  finiancial  hardships ( retirement funds going bad) i have had to reduce any buying off of ebay or any other site to zero and really food is all i can afford at stores now  and with no  or very little income coming in from ebay  i have had to pay bills on ebay using my credit card  which now is close to max --some months  in the hole  adds up adding to the  negetive  economeny 

so i understand your concern  

my hope is with you and things turn around  for all of us --