Is it dead?

[julieo459]

This has been the worst January ever. Most of my listings have just ended. Next to no sales. How are things out there?

Oct, Nov and Dec were fabulous

[rockp5233]

Hi,

First 2 weeks of january were good even very good... But in the last 2 weeks almost nothing !?!?!

Cheers,

[cumos55]

Depends on what you sell.....

For me it is books... very much focused on Canada...

Sales were very... very.. good.....  

I sell in US dollars  so the conversion to Canadian dollars gave me a very good January...

There was also a major reduction in price for many of the more expensive books.....  Usually  $25 to $35 and higher.

Many books that have been around  for a while  sold very well....  and hopefully will continue to sell.....

I have been working many angles   and they seem to be working for me...

[cumos55]

One thing I try to do is not to be too focused on one category of book.

Always looking for the unusual   ... and right now they appear to be selling.....

Then there are new categories.........Always working to build up to more than 30 books in a new category.....

Always reworking my old inventory... never let it just sit...  always adding new listings.... 

listings do get stale if they do not sell....  and Cassini hates old listings....  older than 16 months........  

[mr.elmwood]

I had a spectacular January.

$2.22 to mail a postcard?

[weaversofspeech]

I've been selling Postcards for 31 years offline and just over 14 yrs online

I liken Selling Postcards to being on a Rollercoaster with the Highs and Lows

Sometimes I can't keep up with them sometimes they just sit

 I don't look at how I am doing week to week month to month but wait for the years end  to see how it went Gives one a better perspective overall

At times doing it that way have been  surprised at how well the year actually when  combining on and offline sales

Over the years noticed trends

If I'm doing well online it seems to slow down offline and vica versa

My Goal is to have them do the same in sync

weavers

[rosscd57]

I have had the best January I have every had selling on eBay. I have doubled my sales and the high end stuff is moving better than ever.

[julieo459]

Most of my postcards are sold to US buyers. Shipping is $1.75 USD which is about the same as the other US sellers. I don't sell much to Canadian, but I agree that when converted to CAD for Canadian buyers it is high.

I think part of my problem is my inventory is stale. I have been relisting using listing specials for months. But even then if I had 2500 listings, I might only sell about 60 in a month. Does that sound like poor sales considering my number of listings?

[ricarmic]

I took a look at my statistics: (remember I'm a postage stamp guy)

Sales $ January 2015 vs 2014 18% higher

Item count January 2015 vs 14 about 25% higher

Work required January 2015 vs 14 higher (more smaller stuff is selling, a lot more work to earn the same $$$)

Like weavers, I've been selling a long time, and sell on and offline.

I have a couple days when I have zero or next to no sales, then all the sudden a bunch, I've given up trying to figure out why.

To answer your question about your stock, in my world, if I find something I plan to list and I can't find examples on eBay to figure out the price I am very pleased, that means it will very likely sell as long as I price it appropriately. If I look and there are 3 pages of the same thing already listed, that gets a sigh, it'll be something that will sell in 4 years maybe.

Rather than worry about the age of your stuff (I regularly sell stuff that has been listed for 5 or more years!!!) look to see how much other stuff like yours is already out there that will be a better tell as to why things may be slow.

If you read the boards much you'll know I'm a "free shipping" fan, I think it makes a big difference, but that is only my belief.....

[berubegirl]

Retail sales have always been an ebb and flow due to changing circumstances in economy, buyer mood's, etc...

However single skews sellers are much more likely to suffer since their total sales are based on a single skew.

Or you may choose to believe the conspiracy theorist on the dot com that claim that ebay is actually "throttling" sales.

We do a lot of social media advertising trying to drive traffic to our items. We used to direct traffic towards our ebay store but we now direct traffic towards a new store we recently opened on a competing selling platform and we have notice a tremendous increase to this new store while our traffic here on ebay has decreased greatly. Maybe you should consider social media as a way to promote your items. It is very time consuming but does seem to pay off in the long run.

[mr.elmwood]

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@julieo459 wrote:

Most of my postcards are sold to US buyers. Shipping is $1.75 USD which is about the same as the other US sellers. I don't sell much to Canadian, but I agree that when converted to CAD for Canadian buyers it is high.

I think part of my problem is my inventory is stale. I have been relisting using listing specials for months. But even then if I had 2500 listings, I might only sell about 60 in a month. Does that sound like poor sales considering my number of listings?

---

I sold about 80 out of 450 for Jan, so, yeah 60/250 doesn't sound good.

I have been rapidly changing everything I have been doing, going to free shipping, auctions, changing prices.

I do not do what other sellers do. I do what I want.

[007steveb16]

My January sales were very good.

[ricarmic]

Hi Julie/Mr E: Your flow through comments piqued my interest so I tried to figure mine out, mine is about 150 against 2,500 so 7% flow through rate, kind of between the two of you. The last time I figured it out it about a year ago, it was running about 10% so I seem to be adding more slow moving stuff.....

[recped]

Over the years my sell thru rate has declined. Some of this is due to more competition both on and off eBay and some of it has to do with my own (lack of) effort.

Years ago I was listed "better" stuff and added new things every day, I had a sell thru of about 50%

Over the years the general quality of my items has declined and the sell thru declined along with it.

Flash forward to the last couple of years, the partner I had who did the listings is gone, I'm lazy and a lot of what I do it simple relist relist relist. Under that "strategy" my STR has dropped to about 5% but that percentage has hardly changed at all over the past 3 years including this past January.

In the Fall I did an "experiment" (in quotes because I was pretty sure I new the result in advance). I hunted up a bunch of never before listed items and cherry picked for the best quality items. No surprise, my STR shot up dramatically to over 50%, on the next listing cycle I went back to the old regular stuff and the rate immediately fell back to the 5% area.

What does this mean? Well a large portion of the sellers who are complaining are just doing the same old same old and if you operate like that your sales will wither and die over time.

STR - Sell Thru Rate / Based on the percentage of items sold in each listing cycle, 7 days for Auctions or 30 days for Fixed Price.

[reallynicestamps]

I'm in process of getting my massaged inventory up again after being closed down while moving. The more items I have available the better sales are.

And January was a little better than I had hoped.

One thought about postcards.

I use Free Shipping for both Canada and USA (and mention that I can ship up to 10 cards for my subsidized International Rate). Free Shipping as you know really means the cost of shipping is included in the price of the item.

Buyers loooove Free Shipping, and yes they probably do know that they really are paying the shipping.

[ricarmic]

Hi Rec! THX for mentioning the sell through rate term - I've a nasty habit of making up my own terms when I can't remember the real one!